Call for Papers: BMRC 20th Anniversary Symposium

In 2026, the Black Metropolis Research Consortium (BMRC) will mark the 20th anniversary of working to locate, preserve, and activate the archival collections of Black Chicago. The past two decades have also seen a rich new wave of scholarship on Black Chicago, with many of the leading scholars being within the network of, or having received research support from the BMRC.

Historian Adam Green (2007) argued that:
“African Americans in Chicago...engendered unique senses of group life and imagination, restructuring ideas of racial identity and politics that remain influential today… The most studied black urban enclave in the country then, still retains its secrets, promising revelation to those willing to chase after them. Among these veiled qualities is the degree to which, following migration, blacks’ imaginative powers – what might be called their cultural initiative – reworked core conditions and institutions of urban life, even as they themselves were transformed by experiences encountered in Chicago” (Selling the Race: Culture, Community, and Black Chicago)

In this vein, the BMRC invites submissions for an interdisciplinary symposium on Black Chicago (June 17-18, 2026) .The symposium is an opportunity to look retrospectively at the history of the Black presence in Chicago, and the ways in which Black Chicago has understood itself to be or was seen as a symbol of Black freedom and resistance, or alternatively has been vilified.

Academics, archivists and artists are encouraged to think about Black Chicago, its pasts, presents, and futures. Submissions can be for individual papers, roundtables, or panels. Submissions are encouraged to consider (but not limited to) the following topics:

• Black Chicago and state violence
• The archives of Black Chicago
• Under-researched aspects of Black Chicago
• The African diaspora and Black Chicago
• Black Chicago artistic traditions
• Black Chicago and the American South
• New narratives of Black Chicago history
  
  

Please submit abstracts of 500 words by January 5, 2026 here.

Successful applicants will be notified by February 6, 2026. Full papers are due by May 11, 2026. Plans for a special issue in an academic journal are forthcoming. Authors of accepted papers will have their (domestic) flights to and accommodation in Chicago covered.

Image credit: Library of Congress, Chicago, IL 1941