From Samuel A. Floyd, Jr., Director, Center for Black Music Research, Columbia College, Chicago

Samuel A. Floyd <afloyd@popmail.colum.edu>, Date: Tuesday, Dec 02, 1997

(Coalition Note: Professor Floyd is the author of the critically acclaimed book, The Power of Black Music: Interpreting Its History from Africa to the United States, Oxford University Press, 1995)


Dear Dr. Broski:

As the University of Illinois-Chicago continues to expand and appropriately develop its increasingly impressive facility, I write to respectfully request that consideration be given to preserving some of the Maxwell Street buildings as museum-type facilities that will document that area's contribution to American culture. While this letter is inspired by the work of the Maxwell Street Historic Preservation Coalition, my specific concern is with the black music traditions that were nurtured and that flourished on and near Maxwell Street. Additionally, however, I support all of the calls for documentation of the contributions of other cultural phenomena that once graced that area.

For many of us, the disappearance from the city of any physical trace of the important activity of African-American culture-carriers is quite disconcerting, the need for progress and development notwithstanding. Surely the two needs and values can co-exist, and I believe that institutions of higher education can and should serve as examples of how such balancing of needs and values can be achieved.

I believe strongly that, in the interest of cultural preservation and documentation, all traces of the musical culture that was built by the Delta and Chicago blue men and women should not be obliterated, since that culture was once extremely important to the people who lived it and since it is now extremely important that those who follow them, generation after generation have some visual evidence that that culture existed. I believe further, and agree with the Maxwell Street Preservation Coalition, that a Maxwell Street Historic District can stand as a monument to an aspect of American musical culture, particularly since, without the blues, what we know as American music, generally, would not even exist.

Thus, your support of this position would certainly by consonant with the intellectual responsibility that we have as educators and keepers of our culture. I implore you to allow and help these two competing needs to co-exist. Such action would represent a significant contribution to our cultural preservation and would make a powerful statement about the intellectual and cultural values of the University of Illinois-Chicago.

Thank you for your consideration of this request.

Sincerely,

Samuel A. Floyd, Jr.


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