A look in Lincoln Cemetery
As first victim of Chicago’s 1919 race riots finally receives a grave marker, here’s a look at other notable people buried there
| Chicago Tribune
The burial site for Eugene Williams at Lincoln Cemetery in Blue Island — which was unmarked for 102 years — is finally receiving recognition Saturday thanks to the efforts of a group of concerned citizens.
The Black 17-year-old, whose raft drifted south past an invisible line segregating neighborhoods by color, was stoned to death by an unidentified white man near 29th Street Beach on July 27, 1919, sparking the worst race riot in Chicago history.
The cemetery is the final resting place for many notable Chicagoans in the city’s African American community — especially those with ties to literature, sports, music and history. If you plan to visit Williams’ grave, here’s a guided tour of others within Lincoln Cemetery not to be missed.
ROBERT SENGSTACKE ABBOTT 1870-1940 Founder, Chicago Defender
Location: Section 1
Read his obituary in the Chicago Tribune from March 1, 1940
Abbott started the newspaper he called “The World’s Greatest Weekly” on May 5, 1905, encouraging Black Americans born and raised in the South — like himself — to move north during the Great Migration of the 20th century. More than two thirds of the newspaper’s readership base was located outside of Chicago by the start of World War I, according to the Defender. Evolving from a weekly into a daily newspaper, the Defender became a national voice for African Americans, documenting racial inequality and championing the civil right movement.
Abbott thanked the children who sold his newspaper on street corners by throwing a parade in their honor. It’s known today as the Bud Billiken Parade.
The Defender ceased print publication in 2019, but still exists in a digital format at chicagodefender.com.
LILLIAN “LIL” HARDIN ARMSTRONG 1898-1971 Jazz musician, composer and bandleader
Location: Garden of Peace mausoleum
Read her obituary in the Chicago Tribune from Aug. 28, 1971
An accomplished pianist and songwriter in her own right, she taught her husband of seven years — trumpeter and singer Louis Armstrong — how to read music. After separating from Louis in 1931, she led two all-women bands and wrote “Just For a Thrill,” which became a hit for Ray Charles.
She became ill at the piano while playing “St. Louis Blues” at Chicago’s Civic Center Plaza in 1971 during a tribute to her late ex-husband and died on the way to the hospital.
A park in the Grand Boulevard area, just blocks from the home she formerly shared with Armstrong at 421 E. 44th St., is named in her honor.
“Some people say now that I taught Louis everything. That isn’t true. Louis had all the creativeness, but what he needed was to get away from the influence of (bandleader and cornet player King ) Oliver, who he thought was the greatest. I remember someone told me that when a woman marries, she should work for her husband. So, if I wanted to be someone, Louis had to be someone. I told him I didn’t want to be married to a second trumpet player. I wanted to be married to a first trumpet player.” — Lillian “Lil” Hardin Armstrong in the Chicago Tribune, March 28, 1965.
GWENDOLYN BROOKS 1917-2000
First African American to win a Pulitzer Prize and Illinois poet laureate for more than 30 years
Location: Section TLA
Read her obituary in the Chicago Tribune from Dec. 4, 2000
Moving to the South Side as a baby and finding inspiration in its residents, Brooks started writing poetry when she was 7. She was only a teenager when her poems were published in American Childhood and the Chicago Defender, garnering her widespread attention.
Brooks won the Pulitzer Prize for poetry in 1950, for “Annie Allen,” a collection of works about a Black girl growing into womanhood while wrestling with racism, sexism, poverty and loss. A review in the Chicago Tribune praised its “quick sense of the life of many people, the small intensities and the big disasters.”
Brooks taught at Columbia College, Northeastern Illinois University, Elmhurst College, Columbia University, Clay College of New York and the University of Wisconsin, in addition to mentoring countless young writers. Family and friends alike knew, however, not to call her when her favorite soap opera “All My Children” was on TV because she would hang up, her daughter, Nora Brooks Blakely, told reporters in 2010. Brooks also was the first Black woman to serve as a poetry consultant for the Library of Congress and she was the state’s poet laureate from 1968 until her death in 2000.
The Poetry Foundation commissioned a story of her life called “No Blue Memories,” which was produced by Manual Cinema in 2017. A bronze statue of Brooks was installed in 2018 in the North Kenwood park on South Greenwood Avenue that carries her name.
“She was not impressed with big people, big names, She demanded that we call her Gwen — or, for the kids, Mama Gwen. She had risen to the top of the mountain, but somehow didn’t take the ride.”
— Poet Haki Madhubuti on Gwendolyn
Brooks, Chicago Tribune, Dec. 8, 2000.
BESSIE COLEMAN 1892-1926 First American woman to gain an international pilot’s license and world’s first licensed Black pilot
Location: Section 9
Read her obituary in the Chicago Tribune from May 1, 1926
Coleman moved to Chicago at 23 and decided to become an aviatrix after hearing stories about the opportunities available for women overseas — likely from a brother who served in France during World War I.
When American flight schools refused to accept her, Coleman, then working as a manicurist, learned French and saved money from her day job in anticipation of a move to Europe. Chicago Defender founder Robert S. Abbott — who is also buried in Lincoln Cemetery — and banker Jesse Binga helped pay her tuition at flight schools in France.
On June 15, 1921, Coleman obtained an international pilot’s license from the Fédération Aéronautique Internationale — almost two years before fellow
aviator Amelia Earhart. She returned to the United States and became a renowned stunt flyer with plans to open her own flight school.
She died during a rehearsal in Jacksonville, Florida, on April 30, 1926, after a wrench became jammed in the controls of her plane.
A group of African American pilots organized the Challenger Air Pilots
Association five years after Coleman’s death, according to the Chicago History Museum, and founded an airport in Robbins. It was the first airport built by and for Black pilots. Many of these groundbreaking aviators are also buried in Lincoln Cemetery.