RESOLVING THE LEDGER
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Looking for water, South Side native Denise Moore waved down a young boy carrying a handful of bottles. She asked where she could find some, and he gave her detailed directions to the food truck selling them.
“That's what it's all about,” Moore said. “He's already understanding to be helpful. Maybe because he saw the gray in my hair and thought, OK, this is an elder. But that's the respect.”
For organizers of Chicago's Black & Bronze Festival, that kind of interaction was the point.
They wanted the annual Bronzeville festival to recreate the feeling of the traditional front porch — a place where generations naturally crossed paths, where children learned from elders, neighbors looked out for one another and stories moved from one generation to the next.
“Where grandma and the grandbabies and aunts and uncles and cousins were all together,” founder Jessica La Rel said.
Denise Moore sits by the playground during Black and Bronze Music Fest in Armstrong Park on Saturday, August 29, 2026.
Jeremy Battle/Sun-Times
Hundreds of people gathered Saturday at Lillian Hardin Armstrong Park for the second annual Black & Bronze Festival, a celebration of Bronzeville’s rich jazz history and the community that grew around it. The event explored the genre’s evolution from standard jazz to neo soul, gospel and hip hop.
For La Rel, the festival was about more than an afternoon of music and entertainment. She wanted to recreate the intergenerational connections that happen on a front porch — where conversations spark curiosity, memories and new ideas — and inspire people to carry that sense of community back into their neighborhoods.
“We’ve braided [stories] in our hair before, we've sewn it into our clothes, we've written it into our songs,” La Rel said. “It's not just an entertainment experience. It's not just another day where people can get together outside and listen to music. We want people to come curious and leave with pride.”
For Moore, that pride was already visible in the small exchanges happening throughout the festival.
“You don't have to ask someone for permission to grow your community, to strengthen your community and each other, and that's what's happening here,” she said.
Festivalgoers dance at Black and Bronze Music Fest in Armstrong Park on Saturday, August 29, 2026.
Jeremy Battle/Sun-Times
Black & Bronze showed how jazz offered another way for generations to connect.
Auburn-Gresham native Krys Royalle performed jazz classics by Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong, along with some of her own music. For Royalle, the music carried memories of learning about jazz legends in her childhood basement.
She remembered watching her father play air guitar along to Wes Montgomery's “Bumpin' on Sunset.”
“I see my dad playing his air guitar to the song, and it's like you can hear the guitar crying,” she said. “When I listen to it, I feel like I'm spending time with my late father.”
Royalle said she hopes the festival gives others that same sense of love and nostalgia — and encourages them to create something of their own.
Krys Royalle performs at Black and Bronze Music Fest in Armstrong Park on Saturday, August 29, 2026.
Jeremy Battle/Sun-Times
That exchange was part of what surprised Shunda Watts Collins, who attends church in Bronzeville.
“This festival feels mature, thoughtful, and it also feels family-friendly — easy for kids to experience,” Watts Collins said.
She was surprised by the number of activities designed for children and adults to learn about Bronzeville and share their own connections to the neighborhood. In addition to history stations, organizers encouraged festivalgoers to write love letters to the South Side.
“In terms of that intergenerational interaction or engagement, I think they did that well,” she said. “They had students standing next to the history installation, reading the history, and I thought that was really beautiful to come in and see something like that where we get to interact with the students.”
The festival offered plenty of ways for people to engage. Along with live music, there were food and retail vendors, panel discussions featuring figures including Black Panther Party Chairman Fred Hampton Jr., dance performances, and lounges for children and adults. On the basketball court, older players showed younger ones some of their old-school moves.
Members of the JAAM Podcast stand with Fred Hampton Jr. at Black and Bronze Music Fest in Armstrong Park on Saturday, August 29, 2026.
Jeremy Battle/Sun-Times
The hope, La Rel said, is that people don't leave their pride at Armstrong Park.
She hopes they pour it back into the neighborhood.
“I think Bronzeville — the broader South Side — can be disparaged in a way where people think that only crime, poverty, a lack of investment or care in the community exist,” La Rel said. “But I see a community that cares very deeply. I see people who are resilient and tenacious. I see people whose creative ideas are extremely generative and I see people looking for opportunities to reach up and reach out to each other.”
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