Recovering the Lost South Side:

Authors Lee Bey and Don Hayner in Conversation

Tuesday, February 18, 2020
6:00 p.m. - 8:00 p.m.
Free and open to the public

Harold Washington Library Center 
400 S. State Street, Chicago 
Cindy Pritzker Auditorium, lower level

Doors to the Cindy Pritzker Auditorium open at 5:30 p.m.
and seating is available first-come, first-served.

Chicago authors Lee Bey and Don Hayner present their recent books highlighting the overlooked architecture and history of Chicago’s South Side.

Lee Bey is the author of Southern Exposure: The Overlooked Architecture of Chicago’s South Side, the first book devoted to the South Side’s rich and unfairly ignored architectural heritage. With lively, insightful text and gallery-quality color photographs by Chicago architecture expert Lee Bey, Southern Exposure documents the remarkable and largely unsung architecture of the South Side.

Don Hayner is the author of Binga: The Rise and Fall of Chicago's First Black Banker, the definitive full-length biography of Jesse Binga, the first black banker in Chicago. One of ten children in a Detroit family, Binga arrived in Chicago in 1892 in his late twenties with virtually nothing. Through his wits and resourcefulness, he rose to wealth and influence as a realtor, and in 1908 he founded the Binga Bank, the first black-owned bank in Chicago. But his fall was equally precipitous. Binga recounts this gripping story about race, history, politics, and finance in Chicago.

In their discussion, Bey and Hayner highlight the historical relationship between the decades of disinvestment in the architecture of the South Side and the tragic collapse of Binga's career. Please join us for a very lively discussion! 

This program is sponsored by Chicago Collections Consortium, Black Metropolis Research Consortium, and Landmarks Illinois. Published through Northwestern University Press, these books are available for purchase and the authors will autograph books at the conclusion of the program.