The Chicago Bee Building
3647-3655 S State Street (Bronzeville)
Anthony Overton founded this alternative Black newspaper to compete with The Defender. He intended for it to appeal to a middle class, conservative Black readership, and to help sell his various business products, especially cosmetics. The editorial staff, especially during World War II, was almost all female, including, for a time, Ida B. Wells as editor. The three-story Art Deco building originally housed all of Overton’s businesses, including The Overton Hygienic Company and Douglass National Bank. The Bee’s first issue was in 1926 and operated twenty years, until Overton’s death in 1946. The newspaper provided generous coverage of the Black women’s club movement and the promotion of Black history and literature. It also sponsored the first “Mayor of Bronzeville” contest, which many historians consider the genesis of the neighborhood’s nickname. Hardly anything remains of The Bee, except the building, which was repurposed as a Chicago Public Library Branch in the mid-1990s and declared a Chicago Landmark on September 9, 1998. It was added to the National Register of Historic Places on April 30, 1986.
Reading, Viewing and Listening List
The Merchant Prince of Black Chicago: Anthony Overton and the Building of a Financial Empire
