The SARS-CoV-2 virus, which causes COVID-19, continues to mutate. Alissa Eckert, MSMI; Dan Higgins, MAMS/CDC
It started with the death of Patricia Frieson, a 61-year-old Black woman in Chicago living in zip code 60620, which included the Auburn Gresham neighborhood.
On March 11, 2020, World Health Organization officials declared the coronavirus pandemic. For Black people in Chicago, the date to remember was March 16, 2020. On that day, Frieson’s death from COVID-19 became a warning about a killer disease many didn’t take seriously.
Frieson became the first person in Illinois to die of the disease. As Chicago braced for the pandemic under Governor J.B. Pritzker’s stay-at-home order, Frieson’s death sounded the alarm for Blacks on the South and West sides. Three weeks later, Frieson’s sister, Wanda Bailey, 63, also died of COVID-19.
Today, COVID-19 still haunts Black Chicago. On the fifth anniversary of one of the world’s deadliest pandemics, over 1.2 million Americans have died from COVID-19, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Approximately 163,639 were Black.
In Illinois, COVID-19 killed 36,960 residents. That number included 6,651 Blacks, according to the COVID-19 Tracking Project. But in Chicago, Black residents, despite making up 29 percent of the population, accounted for 42 percent of 7,455 deaths in the city.
In March 2020, Chicago was emerging from another long winter. As the spring season neared, America’s third-largest city, with its bustling downtown and glistening skyscrapers, was beginning to bloom.
Then, the coronavirus pandemic was announced. Offices in the Loop closed, people worked from home, and the Mag Mile resembled a ghost town with its ritzy shops and high-end restaurants.
In Black Chicago, life went on as usual. Residents continued to worship at churches, and people hosted parties and events at homes, dining halls, and nightclubs.
As the coronavirus began to spread in the city, some Blacks speculated that somehow, an African gene in Black people protected them from getting the disease. But when Frieson died, Blacks paid attention, and their neighborhoods, where many lacked adequate health care, became the most vulnerable to COVID-19 among the city’s ethnic groups.
In the most segregated city in America, COVID-19 became a story about the haves and the have-nots, the poor and affluent, and Blacks, whites, and Latinos.
At risk for the virus were people 65 and older and individuals with underlying medical conditions, many of which commonly afflicted Black people.
Over the next two years after Frieson’s death, COVID-19 ravaged Black Chicago, with Blacks disproportionally dying of the disease more than Latinos, whites, and Asians.
On March 13, the Chicago Crusader was the first to report that 848 Black residents in Illinois had contracted the coronavirus, which caused COVID-19. The story received over 11,000 hits in 14 minutes.
Readers called the Crusader, read newspapers and watched newscasts for any information about the coronavirus. Many calling the Crusader asked where they could get face masks and sanitizers. Bleach and toilet paper were flying off the grocery store shelves. Shoppers had to wait in line just to get inside the store. Social distancing rules required people to stay six feet apart from one another.
Many people worked from home while stores and other essential businesses stayed open.
Restaurants, gyms, and movie theaters closed. Though family gatherings and parties were not advised, some people broke the rules. The Renaissance Club in Bronzeville and the Grand Ballroom farther south were shut down by the city after inspectors caught them hosting huge gatherings where most people weren’t wearing masks or following social distancing rules.
In Black Chicago, the Bud Billiken Parade, the Black Women’s Expo and the International African Arts Festival were all canceled in 2020.
Typically held during the first weekend in April after the COVID-19 crisis, the Black Women’s Expo resumed with a new date: the first weekend in August, which is where it remains today.
The Bud Billiken Parade returned in 2021 with a shorter parade route.
The pandemic caused rising labor and product prices, so the International Arts Festival in Washington Park struggled when it returned in 2022. Due to production costs, it was canceled in 2024. It is expected to return this year.
In Chatham, the Studio Movie Grill, which thrived before the pandemic struck, closed in 2021 after the chain filed for bankruptcy. It reopened in 2022 as Cinemas Chatham under a new owner. But with few Hollywood movies, and higher prices, Studio Movie Grill closed in January 2024. It never recaptured its success as the only movie theater in Black Chicago.
The pandemic in Chicago ushered in a new era for many residents, who found a new life as they worked from home. Gone from their lives were the long drives through rush hour traffic. Gas dipped below $2.50 (in Gary, Indiana, it was .99 cents). The rise of Zoom began with office meetings, some court proceedings, and “gatherings” being held remotely on computers.
Most of the pandemic was a dark time for many people. Friends went for days or even weeks without seeing each other in person. Siblings who had COVID-19 were quarantined within the household, where they faced isolation and depression.
The darkest moments of the pandemic occurred during the early days when thousands were infected with the virus. Thousands were dying, and funeral homes used refrigerated trucks to hold bodies. Everyone knew a friend or relative who had the disease.
The crisis seemed like a Hollywood movie.
Gone were educator and Crusader columnist Conrad Worrill, Colin Powell, the first Black U.S. Secretary of State and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Republican Presidential candidate Herman Cain and Black country singer Charley Pride.
Worrill’s funeral procession swelled to nearly 250 cars carrying Pan African flags on their windows. It was a service fit for a man who loved Africa, its history, and its culture.
When Reverend Leon Finney of Metropolitan Apostolic Community Church died on September 4, speculation swirled that COVID-19 killed him. But it was leukemia. His church at 41st and Martin Luther King Drive struggled after his death and eventually closed. Today, a new church occupies the historic building.
During the pandemic, civil rights leaders Joseph Lowery and John Lewis died in 2020. Chicago Historian Timuel Black died in 2021. These prominent leaders didn’t die of COVID-19, but their deaths somehow made the pandemic an even darker time for Blacks.
Many in Black Chicago were stunned and overwhelmed with grief when Archbishop Lucius Hall, a popular and charismatic figure, died of COVID-19 on April 2 at the former Mercy Hospital in Bronzeville. I remember when I got the call from WVON’s Pam Morris-Walton. Her voice sounded weak, and she was sniffling. Crusader Publisher Dorothy Leavell and her husband were near me in the newsroom. I asked them if they knew Lucius Hall because I didn’t. When they said yes, I told them that he died that morning of COVID-19. Silence came over the newsroom.
Hall would be one of many Blacks the Crusader profiled in a story titled, “We lost them to COVID-19.” For three weeks, we added teachers, pastors, janitors, husbands, mothers, and ordinary citizens who died of the disease in Black communities across the country. The updates were discontinued as deaths soared and left the paper with too many deaths to document.
Local hospitals, including Roseland Hospital, were inundated with COVID-19 patients, including some who would battle the disease for months on a ventilator.
In August 2021, Reverend Jesse Jackson and his wife Jacqueline spent weeks in the hospital with COVID-19. With Parkinson’s disease as an underlying medical condition, Black Chicago supported the Jacksons as the renowned civil rights activist and his wife recovered following treatment.
Between 2020 and 2022, the Crusader would write 212 stories documenting fatalities in Chicago’s 20 Black zip codes. The last of such stories was published on December 29, 2022. That story reported that zip code 60629 (West Lawn, Chicago Lawn, Ashburn) had 348 COVID-19 deaths. Zip code 60623 (North Lawndale, South Lawndale) reported 333 COVID-19 deaths. In zip code 60628 (Pullman, West Pullman, Roseland), there were 316 deaths.
Outbreaks at one point in several nursing homes in South Shore established that neighborhood as the epicenter of the pandemic in Chicago.
Lori Lightfoot was in the second year of her first term as the city’s first Black female mayor. She had no script to follow, but she became a strict enforcer of health rules and had officers patrol the lakefront, where crowds tended to gather.
At the beginning of the pandemic, Lightfoot was hesitant to close Chicago Public Schools. She clashed with Governor Pritzker on the matter until he issued a 30-day stay-at-home order in March 2020. Then, schools switched to remote learning for the rest of the school year.
In the Black community, parents and leaders were concerned that Black students fell even further behind during remote learning at home.
Chicago began providing Moderna and Pfizer vaccine doses for the coronavirus at Loretto Hospital on the West Side in December 2020.
The doses were initially intended for low-income neighborhoods on the West Side, as identified by Mayor Lightfoot’s task force. However, affluent people who were not eligible for the doses were vaccinated at the Trump International Hotel and other places. When that news broke, vaccine doses were suspended for a week. Loretto CEO George Miller eventually resigned.
Last October, Miller was indicted by a federal grand jury for allegedly accepting more than $769,000 in bribes in exchange for granting contracts worth millions to vendors.
Financial greed was a problem during the pandemic, as many opportunists took advantage of the government’s PPP forgiveness loans for small businesses. Many applicants who received millions of dollars intended to keep employees working spent it on themselves, and some received loans despite not operating a business.
There is no official end date for the pandemic. In Chicago, it may have ended when mask mandates were lifted in public places and airports in mid-2022.
