Victory Monument

A bronze figure of a soldier with a rifle rises above the granite column. The column is dedicated to Black servicemembers of the Illinois National Guard who fought in France. Its sides display a mother with a victory branch, a soldier, and Columbia with the names of the regiment's battles, while a separate slab lists the one hundred thirty-seven who died while serving. The top of the column was originally left empty; the figure of the front-line soldier was added later as a composite image of a soldier.

In nineteen twenty-three, George T. Kersey, a recently elected Illinois legislator and the owner of a funeral business a few blocks from here, introduced a bill: the state should erect a monument at the corner of Thirty-fifth Street and present-day King Drive to the soldiers of the local 8th Regiment. The regimental armory stood nearby, on Giles Avenue. A memorial plaque already hung on its wall, but residents wanted a monument on the neighborhood's main boulevard.

The 8th Regiment, Illinois National Guard consisted of Black soldiers commanded by Black officers. During the First World War, it was incorporated into the federal army as the three hundred seventieth. American command did not want to send Black units into battle alongside white ones and handed the regiment over to the French. The soldiers received French weapons, took part in the Oise-Aisne Offensive, and continued pursuing the retreating German units all the way to the armistice. One hundred thirty-seven men from the regiment died while serving in France.

Kersey's bill passed in the House by one hundred twenty votes to one. Fifteen thousand dollars was appropriated for the monument, but the money did not yet grant the right to occupy this site. The South Park Commission controlled the boulevard's median. Its members said there was no free space here. A fountain then stood on the chosen site.

The editors of the Chicago Defender, the city's main Black newspaper, responded with the “Vote Against” campaign. Readers were urged to reject any project supported by the park commission until it recognized the service of the soldiers who had died. The commission backed down, added money of its own to the state's sum, and permitted the fountain to be removed. That is how a funeral entrepreneur's bill and a newspaper campaign brought the monument to this very intersection.

The monument was installed in nineteen twenty-seven and consecrated the following year on the anniversary of the armistice. Sculptor Leonard Crunelle placed three bronze reliefs on the granite column: a Black mother with a victory branch, a Black soldier, and Columbia—a female allegory of the United States—with the names of the regiment's battles. A separate slab received the names of the one hundred thirty-seven who died. The word “Victory” here refers to the outcome of the war and to the participation of the 8th Regiment, which had to be publicly proven again at home.

At first, the top of the column was left empty. One Chicago Defender reader objected that the allegorical figures and the nude warrior in the relief portrayed the actual front-line soldiers too passively. In nineteen thirty-six, Crunelle added a bronze infantryman in uniform and with a rifle at the top. He is a composite soldier, not a portrait of one of the dead.

An annual Memorial Day ceremony is held by the slab with the names. Above it stands the infantryman who was not part of the monument's first version.