PEORIA MAGAZINE February 2023

S P O T L I G H T

PEORIA’S CARVER COMMUNITY CENTER TURNS 100

Students gather outside Carver Center, ready for a camping trip, circa 1940s

For generations of Black children in Peoria, Carver was and is ‘a second home’ BY LINDA SMITH BROWN PHOTOS BY RON JOHNSON

A delivery driver to Peoria’s Carver Center recently asked for more than just a signature. “Can I just look at the gym?” he asked the receptionist. Stepping onto its shiny wood floor, he told how as a youngster, he had spent many after-school hours there, playing basketball with his friends. The pleasant memories showed on his face. It’s not unusual for people to stop in at Carver Center for a trip down memory lane. The George Washington Carver Community Center has been central to community life for Peoria’s Black residents for a full century. It has been the place for meetings, recreation, learning,

artistic expression, dances, parties and, for many, much-needed assistance. A CENTURY OF GROWTH AND ENDURANCE Carver Center's origins date to October 1922, when the Colored Women’s Aid Club in Peoria opened the Negro Community Center in a house at 108 S. Globe St. Prior to that, local African Americans had no place to meet, other than one of the three Black churches in town. In 1937, club members raised $4,500 and moved the organization to a larger house at 1010 Sanford. Just two years later, the need for an even larger facility prompted the club members

to cede control to an interracial, community-wide fundraising effort, which proved successful and produced a new name – the George Washington Carver Community Center – and a new location, where it has been ever since. Carver Center remains a beacon to the Black community at 710 W. Percy Baker Jr. Ave., in John H. Gwynn Jr. Park. ‘EVERYBODY WENT THERE’ Pam Adams, Carver’s historian and a longtime Peoria newspaper reporter and columnist, credits the Black women’s clubs across the country at that time for answering the needs of Black citizens in their communities.

30 FEBRUARY 2023 PEORIA MAGAZINE