A vast collection of documents and photographs reflecting the life and legacy of civil and human rights activist Brenetta Howell Barrett is on display at the Austin Branch Library as part of a traveling exhibit that started last March at a different location.
“The name of the exhibit is No Brick on My Tongue: Brenetta Howell Barrett for the People’s Liberation display, which was directly pulled from one of her campaign slogans,” said Raquel Flores-Clemons, unit head of the Vivian G. Harsh Research Collection.
The extensive collection – 93 archival boxes of various sizes – chronicles Howell Barrett’s outstanding career and the major role she played in Chicago’s Black history.
Howell Barrett told the Austin Weekly that it was friends and colleagues who encouraged her that if a document is worth looking at twice to not throw it away. Those worthwhile things accumulated over the years to what is now part of her collection and the other stacks and boxes still in her home.
“I contacted the library because I knew from just having gone out there to the library for other events related to other collections for other individuals, many that I knew, that collections were established or built, like Addie Wyatt, a black female labor leader who was a good friend.”
Documentation on the different organizations she was part of, founded, or supported, bulletins, things she collected from other people that informed her work, photographs, news articles and columns she wrote as a journalist, poems she wrote, – all of it dates back to the 1950s, the start of her community engagement and activism.
Born Brenetta Pearl Brooks, June 28, 1932, in Chicago, Howell Barrett grew up with her six sisters in her parents’ – Barissa (“B.B.”) and Arthemise Butler Brooks – South Side home. She was married twice and had four children. The younger two are deceased.
“A lot of people from Bronzeville are part of Barrett’s history also,” Flores-Clemons said. “She was on the South Side until she graduated high school. She moved from Bronzeville to the West Side. Her work as a journalist also brought her to the West Side. That’s important to make those connections. I want to make sure that people understand that this is a citywide connection and not just grounded in one area.”
Throughout her career, Howell Barrett served as the Chicago regional director of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), from 1964-1968.
In her fight for gender equality, Howell Barrett joined other notable Black women to found Black Sisters United. She also co-founded the League of Black Women.
Her political endeavors include a run for Congress.
“She was a political superhouse,” Flores-Clemons said. “She has run for political office many times and has been an advisor for many successful candidates in various political spheres.”
According to her bio, Howell Barrett helped Gus Savage – a major political player and one of Chicago’s most influential black journalists, previous owner of the Citizen newspapers, a chain of community weeklies in the Chicago area – persuade Harold Washington, who was then a state senator, to launch his first mayoral campaign in 1976. She handled Washington’s campaign scheduling, fundraising, publicity, and organized supporters through the West Side Coalition for Unity and Political Action.
Although Washington’s 1977 race was unsuccessful, it’s safe to say it laid the foundation for his election in 1983.
“She worked with Mayor Harold Washington within his administration,” Flores-Clemons said. “As his scheduler, she played a very integral role because of security. She was part of that whole operation. She was responsible for knowing where he was and who was going to be there, and she knew the importance of that role and took it seriously. She was a master administrator.”
The collection also includes Howell Barrett’s newspaper articles, such as her “Consumer Corner,” column that ran in The Austin Voice, 1987-1989. Her news articles for the Chicago Defender from 1965 are also part of the collection.
Howell Barrett founded Pathfinders Prevention Education Fund with a focus on HIV/AIDS prevention, opioid awareness and public health on Chicago’s West Side. The organization celebrated its 25th anniversary last year.
“What’s really important about this collection is that Chicago’s Black history is often told through the lens of the South Side communities, which is a very limited scope that often leaves out the other parts of the city, especially the West Side,” Flores-Clemons said. “The West Side is the highest concentration of Black folks in the city so to tell the story of Chicago and to leave that part out, you’re missing a lot. Howell Barrett’s collections, fills in some of the historical gaps and brings to light the historical narratives of the West Side of Chicago.”
Respected educator, political activist, community leader, oral historian and philosopher, Timuel Black, and former U.S. President Barack Obama are highlighted in the collection, along with many other notable African American leaders and politicians.
“I feel very fortunate to have met her,” Flores-Clemons said. “She’s lovely and a force to be reckoned with. She’s just wonderful and so intelligent. She’s very strategic. I’m so impressed and encouraged. She’s still active even in her 90s and lends her voice when she can to various causes.”
The exhibit opened at Legler Regional on March 18 last year and has already shown at Manning Library Branch.
Howell Barrett and Mable Manning, whom the Manning Library is named for, were colleagues.
From the Austin Branch, it will continue to Rogers Park and King Library branches, which have special connections to Barrett’s life in Chicago.
“We selected Rogers Park because of the work she’s done with the LGBTQ population,” Flores-Clemons explained. “There was an organization that recognized her work that was based in that area. She’s a very strong ally. In recent years, she’s been honored for that work.
The King Branch participation is in recognition of the work she did in that area on the South Side.
The Austin Branch Library and the Vivian G. Harsh Research Collection will host For the People’s Liberation: A Conversation with Howell Barrett and longtime colleague Brad Cummings of the Austin Voice to share highlights of Barrett’s community engagement and activism on Chicago’s west side, focusing specifically on the Austin neighborhood.
The event is scheduled for 1 to 4 p.m., Saturday Jan. 13 at the Austin Branch, 5615 W. Race Ave.
The exhibit will finish as a featured exhibit in the Harsh Research Collection at Woodson Regional Library in spring of 2024, home of the Brenetta Howell Barret Papers.
“These collections and exhibits are so important because you make them more tangible to the everyday person and you can see yourself reflected in this,” Flores-Clemons said. “A lot of this came from her love for her community and her love for her family. Some of her initial activism work came through her being part of the PTA and taking on leadership roles ensuring that her children’s needs were being met in the public school system and just her wanting to be a good neighbor.”
The Howell Barrett collection came to Harsh in 2007. Senior Archival Specialist, Micheal Flug, facilitated and led the collection’s processing.
