Comedian Richard Pryor had a statue erected in his honor recently in his hometown of Peoria. Pryor was a very successful stand-up comedian and actor who used humor to bring attention to the troubles of being an African-American man during the 20th century.

Pryor was born on December 1, 1940 to Gertrude and LeRoy Pryor and had a less than conventional childhood. He spent a significant portion of his childhood growing up in his grandmother’s brothel, and frequented the local movie theaters to escape this environment. After working multiple jobs in Peoria, he spent two years in the U.S. Army, where he developed a knack for performing in theaters. This helped him realize that his true calling was comedy, and he then spent time in New York and Las Vegas to sharpen his skills.

He began in the film industry with a role in the 1967 movie The Busy Body, followed by many other roles spanning a 13 year period. He flourished as a stand-up comedic, though his raunchy and foul-mouthed delivery style did not play well with all crowds.  He performed his comedy routine frequently in front of sold-out theaters, and many of them, like Richard Pryor: Live and Smokin’, were recorded and sold after the fact.

Peoria’s statue in his honor is over 9 feet tall and was unveiled before hundreds of people on Sunday, May 3.

Learn more:
Richard Pryor statue unveiled in his Illinois hometown - WGN News
Richard Pryor - IMDb.com

More than 3,500 athletes gathered at Eckersall Stadium on Chicago’s South Side on Monday, celebrating the beginning of Special Olympics Chicago’s Spring Games.

Founded in the 1960’s by Eunice Kennedy Shriver, Special Olympics gives athletes with intellectual disabilities the opportunity to compete with their peers in a variety of athletic events. In 1968, the first International Special Olympics Summer Games were held at Soldier Field in Chicago, drawing more than 1,000 athletes from across the country.

Since that time, more and more athletes have participated in Special Olympics, with an estimated 4.4 million athletes involved in Special Olympics events worldwide in 2014.

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Special Olympics Illinois
Special Olympics ceremony kicks off spring games in Chicago - Chicago Sun-Times

Cities across the United States are celebrating Cinco de Mayo today with festivals, parades and other public events.

The holiday is a celebration of the Mexican army’s defeat of the French in an 1862 battle during the Franco-Mexican War, which lasted from 1861 until 1867. Widely celebrated in the United States as a celebration of Mexican-American culture, the holiday is not nearly as celebrated in Mexico outside of Puebla, where the defeat of the French took place.

Celebrations over the weekend brought an estimated 100,000 people to Chicago’s Douglas Park in celebration of Cinco de Mayo, which included a parade on the city’s West Side.

Learn more:
Cinco de Mayo – History.com
Cinco de Mayo celebrations begin with West Side parade - ABC 7 Chicago

Forty-two years ago this week, on a cool, breezy day on the western edge of downtown Chicago, engineers placed the final steel girder into the sky, topping out the Sears Tower and officially making it the tallest building in the world. It would be another three months before the building, designed by Fazlur R. Khan, would reach its working capacity of 15,000 people.

Since its opening, the building has not only housed Sears, Roebuck & Company, but many other businesses as well, from fine-dining restaurants to prestigious law firms. In 1996, the Petronas Towers in Kuala Lampur, Malaysia, ended the Sears Tower’s 25-year reign as the tallest building in the world.

In 2009, the building was renamed the Willis Tower after a large portion of it was purchased by the Willis Group. Today, the Willis Tower is the second-tallest building in the United States after the recently completed One World Trade Center building in New York City.

Learn more:
Wonders of the World – PBS.org
Dr. Fazlur R. Khan

Gwendolyn Brooks was awarded a Pulitzer Prize for her book Annie Allen on May 1, 1950, making her the first African-American to receive the award. Annie Allen told the story of an African American girl’s passage from childhood to womanhood.

Brooks moved to Chicago at a young age and developed a passion for reading and writing. She was thirteen when her first poem, “Eventide,” appeared in American Childhood. By the time Brooks was seventeen, she frequently published poems for the Chicago Defender. After these successes, Brooks wrote poetry for her first book, A Street in Bronzeville.

She would later go on to write other books including Children Coming Home, To Disembark and The Bean Eaters. Many of Brooks’ works focused on the civil rights activism of the 1960s.

As a result of her literary contributions, Brooks’ received numerous awards, including a National Medal of the Arts in 1995. She also was named Poet Laureate of Illinois in 1968 and Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress in 1985. She also received the Frost Medal, the Shelley Memorial Award and fellowships from the Academy of American Poets and the Guggenheim Foundation.

Learn more:
Poetry Foundation: Gwendolyn Brooks
Gwendolyn Brooks Poetry