Gwendoline Fortune: a firsthand account of Skokie in transition

In 1964, Gwendoline Fortune moved with her husband and three children to Skokie, the fifth Black family to do so. Fortune taught at Old Orchard Junior High School and Oakton Community College, served as the Ethnic Studies Consultant for the Chicago Consortium of Colleges and Universities, and wrote several novels. She was known for her bluntness and wit, as reflected in the items in this collection, a memoir of her time living in Skokie, Outsider in the Promised Land, and the transcript and recording of her 1984 oral history from the Skokie Historical Society.

Fortune's firsthand accounts of racism in Skokie serve to justify the importance of the Fair Housing Ordinance and remind us that the struggle for racial equality is ongoing.

Outsider in the Promised Land-GYFortune.pdf

First-hand account by Dr. Gwendoline Fortune of her family's move to Skokie in the 1960s. Fortune describes the complex social position of being an upwardly mobile, educated, and financially secure Black family in a predominantly white and Jewish community, and the racism she and her family faced in Skokie. View full item.

Partial transcript of Gwen Fortune's oral history provided by the Skokie Heritage Museum. View full item.

Digitized recording of Gwen Fortune's oral history provided by the Skokie Heritage Museum. Listen to recording.