Timeline: 1949

Campaign to ban campus minstrel shows began. The Student Senate passed a resolution advising “that in the future the committee on student affairs should disapprove of shows which placed minority groups in an unfavorable light.” Committee on Student Affairs rejected this resolution.

Frederick C. Ford was the first Black Student Government president at the University of Illinois.

The League of Women Voters performed a “Shack Study” investigating African American housing in the North End.

Student Community Interracial Committee at the University of Illinois sponsored “Negro History Week.”

Late 1940s: Mary Grace Louis was an artist, educator raised in Champaign-Urbana. Mary Grace graduated from the University of Illinois receiving both her B.A. and Master’s degrees. An instructor early on, she was the Assistant Director of Douglass Center under Erma Bridgewater.

1949–1952: Carver Park, a 70 single family home subdivision north of Bradley Avenue in Champaign, was developed by a “grass roots” coalition of Black friends and acquaintances on ten acres of farmland. It was named after African American scientist George Washington Carver.