Dr. Carol Adams: The Original Cultural Architect

If Dr. Carol Adams, the former president and CEO of the DuSable Museum of African American History, among many other positions, was an African sculpture, the patina would tell the story of a magnificent cultural architect—layered, rich, and enduring. Her life reflects the deep hues of reddsh brown or Redbone, like the iron-tinted patina formed over time: strong, complex, and lasting.

Carol's story is also the story of a Black Baby Boomer woman, coming of age during a pivotal era of transformation—from Colored to Negro, to Black, to African American. Each term carried its own power and reflected a distinct moment in history.

Family and Education

Carol grew up in Louisville, Kentucky, in a loving, educated household. Her father was a Fisk University graduate and entrepreneur; her mother was insightful and progressive. Carol was the youngest of three daughters, born nine years after her sisters. “It was like having a bunch of parents,” she recalls. Her older sisters were protective, and she idolized them, always eager to follow in their footsteps.

They were opposites—one artistic, the other athletic—offering Carol a blend of both worlds. Her mother encouraged freedom of thought, especially in faith. Carol was allowed to choose her own church, as long as she attended one. She laughs recalling how she went to three services every Sunday: mass with one sister, Baptist church with the other, and evening service with her Presbyterian parents.

Their home often included male cousins, making her feel like the baby of an extended family. “I always had validation,” she says. She was constantly surrounded by love, encouragement, and people who believed she could do anything. One cousin later admitted she couldn't stand Carol’s piano playing—but always cheered her on anyway.

Her eldest sister even helped her skip kindergarten by adjusting her age so she could enroll directly into first grade. “Everything she taught me prepared me for school,” Carol says.

Reflecting on her childhood, Carol remembers a tight-knit neighborhood where kids roamed freely and doors were never locked. “Everyone knew each other,” she says. “We could run in and out of each other’s homes. It was amazing.”

Now, she mourns the loss of that kind of community. “I look out my window and never see kids playing,” she says. “We’ve lost our sense of the village. That extended family is broken.” In her day, children could walk to the store or church without fear. “Nobody was lurking around to harm you. The community protected you. Everybody knew everybody.”Off to College

Carol always knew she was going to college—her father made that expectation clear. Although he preferred less male-dominated environments for his daughters, her oldest sister, a pianist, chose Fisk for its renowned music program. The other sister, more traditional, went to Hampton but agreed to attend at least one year of college before getting married, which she did the following year.

Their family lived in a two-flat building her father owned. He converted the top floor into a larger unit for their household, while other relatives, including one of her sisters and a cousin’s family, lived in the remaining apartments. “That time—living with everyone under one roof—was the happiest of my life,” Carol remembers. With support from cousins, siblings, and parents, she never lacked encouragement or guidance.

She also witnessed the effects of the Great Migration firsthand when a cousin moved to Seattle for work at Boeing, a company more accessible to Black workers in the Pacific Northwest than opportunities available in the South.

When it came time for college, Fisk was again considered for Carol. Her highschool principal agreed to her early admission offered through Fisk's “Early Entrance” program, but she declined—wanting to graduate with her class and already being a year ahead academically. Interested in law school, she opted instead for Lincoln University in Missouri, which had a pre-law track and ties to her family through her father and uncle, both coaches who had sent athletes there.

Carol arrived at Lincoln with 13 “home boys” on the football and basketball teams. Despite her mother’s warning not to get involved in civil rights activities, Carol’s convictions didn’t fade. Though not formally involved with student groups, she joined protests against segregation in Jefferson City. The school president, under pressure from the state, cracked down harshly: expelling demonstrators and instituting strict dorm lockdowns, even hiring guards to enforce isolation.

After a week under those conditions, Carol called her mother to say she was ready to leave. But her mother, ever practical, encouraged her to finish the semester first. “You can do this,” she told her. “Then you never have to go back.”

Carol took that advice—and the lesson stuck: effective activism requires not just passion but preparation. “That’s why civil rights organizers trained people before protests,” she reflects. “You had to be ready mentally, emotionally, and physically.”

Transfer to FiskWhen Carol transferred to Fisk, the environment was completely different. This was after all the school of W.E.B. DuBois. Civil rights activism was supported—not punished. “When we went to jail, they brought us our schoolwork, retained lawyers, and made sure we were okay,” she recalls. At Fisk, she followed in the footsteps of icons like John Lewis and Diane Nash, surrounded by a culture of purposeful resistance.

Her mother, though protective and concerned for the family’s safety, ultimately respected Carol’s choices. Her father, proud and grounded in his own experiences, supported her fully. Carol credits her parents for instilling strength and independence while recognizing each daughter’s individuality. “My mother treated us the same by respecting how different we were,” she says. “That was her superpower.”

Trouble in BostonAfter Fisk, Carol headed to Boston University to pursue her Ph.D.—but quickly realized Boston was the most racist place she’d ever experienced, despite having grown up in the South. It wasn’t her first introduction to the North; that summer, she had participated in a Yale experimental program on community development, which brought together Black students from the South and white students from the North. She’d even visited Boston earlier that summer to apartment-hunt with help from a high school friend from Louisville who now lived there.

Carol and her mother traveled to Boston together to set up her new place. She had no trouble renting the apartment, unaware she was the only Black resident in the building. It was close to Boston University, which made it ideal—until the day her mother was set to return home. That morning, racist signs were posted on Carol’s door.

Alarmed, her mother insisted they leave. “You’re not staying. We’re going home,” she said. Carol stood her ground, pointing out she had a friend in the city whose prominent parents had promised to look out for her. “Nothing is going to happen,” they assured her. “Yes, they’re racist, but it’s all bluff—they’re just trying to make you uncomfortable.” Her mother reluctantly agreed to leave.

But things escalated. Carol began experiencing daily racism, including being followed home. Once, she said, was too many. Her neighbors across the hall embodied what she described as “MAGA-style” confrontations—aggressive expressions of American exceptionalism that excluded people like her. Fearing for her safety, she called her Fisk alumna sister in Detroit and asked her to send mace.

Still, she remembered her mother’s advice from her time at Lincoln: finish what you started. So she stayed long enough to complete her master’s degree in sociology, then made plans to leave Boston for good.

She began looking for Ph.D. programs and quickly set her sights on Chicago, , known for its sociology footprint. Through The American Sociologist magazine, she found several job listings in the city. Chicago also made sense geographically: it was home to a strong sociology program at the University of Chicago and was just a few hours from her sister in Detroit and family in Louisville.

Move to Chicago and the Catalyst

Carol arrived in Chicago for the first time on September 1, 1966. She stayed at the YWCA on Dearborn and Clark while getting settled. A friend of her sister’s, a sociologist at the Welfare Council of Metropolitan Chicago, suggested she apply for a research position there. She did—and got the job.

She stayed briefly with her sister’s brother-in-law while searching for an apartment. “Within two months of arriving,” she recalls proudly, “I had a job and a place to live.”

The Welfare Council conducted research and policy work for all the private social service agencies in Chicago. Carol’s role there took her across the city, eventually connecting her with Mr. Simon, who was based on the West Side in North Lawndale.

One day, Charles Ross—who was working on Richard Hatcher’s mayoral campaign—showed up at the office. He shared that Black social workers were organizing. They were frustrated with their lack of voice in the agencies where they worked. Despite being on the front lines, they had no say in policies or decisions, because the agencies were largely run by white leadership and white boards. At the time, there was also an organization (a predecessor to the United Way) that expected monthly donations deducted directly from employees’ paychecks—contributions that ultimately supported decisions Black workers had no influence over.

That first organizing meeting, called by Warner Sanders, Al Raby, and Abena Joan Brown, was held at Brown’s home—and for Carol, it was transformative. “I will never forget that meeting,” she recalled. “It was a life-changing occurrence for me because I met so many people who were major change agents and advocates for the Black community—people like Useni Perkins, Levert King, and Orthello Ellis. It was the beginning of everything for me in Chicago.” That night lit a fire in her—it set her on a clear path and began her integration into Chicago’s Black socio-political movement.

From that meeting, a group emerged, and Carol gave it its name: Catalyst. It was a fitting title for the collective of powerful social architects focused on diversity, human rights, and social justice. As the Catalyst was formalizing, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated in Memphis. Riots erupted in Black neighborhoods across the country—particularly on Chicago’s West Side. The response from social service agencies was dismissive, if not outright hostile. After much deliberation, the Catalyst chose to confront the moment and reject the status quo. In doing so, they became a bold and unified force of intelligent, educated, and skilled people committed to the advancement of Black communities.

The Catalyst soon expanded beyond social workers, growing to include teachers, professors, artists, writers, psychologists, lawyers, and historians—including well-known figures like Dr. Anderson Thompson, Dr. Harold Pates, and Larry Shaw—as well as Vince Cullers, the founder and president of a Black-owned advertising agency.

In those tense times, with national attention on Black unrest, demands were being made—from Black communities, not just to white leadership but also internally, calling for action and accountability. The Catalyst crafted its own list of demands. Vince Cullers designed a bold black bag to hold a formal telegram, which each member would send to their agency leadership, directing them to attend a meeting at the Afro-Arts Theater with their Black employees.

“It was an opportunity for me to observe and learn from all the people I’ve mentioned—people who became iconic figures in Chicago’s Black leadership,” Carol recalled. “I served when asked, got to know them, and witnessed their thought processes, organizing skills, attention to detail, and commitment to excellence. I watched them work together as a team. I learned from them. They were audacious—very bold.”

Abena Joan Brown emphasized a key point: if the telegrams were anonymous or signed only with “The Catalyst,” they might be dismissed. “They needed to know we were in their agencies,” she argued. Every detail mattered.

To avoid getting fired for skipping work, the plan was carefully timed. When the telegrams arrived, Catalyst members would approach their department heads during lunch and identify themselves as members of the Catalyst. It was a coordinated, strategic move—and a powerful statement.

“We assumed they couldn’t fire every Black person working in the agency. And we actually thought we had critical mass, right?” Carol says with a smile.

She recalls how many of these agencies were led by white men—but interestingly, many had Black secretaries. These women became the group’s internal communication line, quietly relaying the agencies’ responses to the Catalyst’s letters and actions. “Surprisingly, nobody got fired,” Carol says. “And the meeting took place. We presented our black bag.”

“That’s why the name of my book about the Catalyst is Our Black Bag,” she explains. “The bag symbolized how we intended to move forward. We declared that we no longer worked for them—we worked for our community. We were no longer going to contribute to that United Way predecessor, paying into a fund that never served our interests. We laid it all out—how we felt, how we would operate going forward. And from that strategic move, our organization just kept growing.”

After that, the Catalyst began meeting every Saturday at Parkway Community House on 67th Street, in the theater. “People would come down with workplace issues,” Carol remembers. “I can recall one meeting where a brother who worked at Cook County Hospital came because he wasn’t allowed to wear a dashiki to work. So we went to the job.”

“The point is,” she continues, “you have to understand the relevance of these issues in the context of the moment. That’s key. You can’t open the door without that understanding. It was important that brother knew he had people listening—and that we were there for him.”

Carol adds, “We did everything from small things like that to something huge—like "Bird of the Iron Feather." That was when they were trying to get the show on TV. By then, Oscar Brown Jr. was involved. Everybody was involved. It was the first all-Black soap opera.”

The Catalyst mobilized and went to WTTW to demand that Bird of the Iron Feather be aired. The series became the highest-rated local show ever broadcast by WTTW-TV in Chicago. Life magazine noted in April 1970 that the show’s ratings were “high enough to have assured syndication by at least 40 educational stations around the country this year.” Lee Bey of WBEZ called it “an unflinching look at the harsh realities of ghetto life.” Life described it as “television’s first attempt to portray life in the Black ghetto as it is actually lived,” praising its “authentic, controversial portrayal of Black ghetto life” and its “gutsy reality that is missing from white-washed Black-life shows like Julia.”

Sometime after the WTTW action, the Catalyst staged a powerful demonstration at the United Way’s annual meeting. They showed up with their respective agencies and took their seats at designated tables. As the speakers began, the Black men stood and walked to the stage. The women stood at their tables in silent support. Then the men voiced the group’s demands to the audience, declaring that they would no longer participate in the organization unless Black people were placed in decision-making positions.

That bold move eventually led to real change. In the 1980s, Jerome Stevenson became the first Black head of the United Way.The most important thing is that the Catalyst had become a think tank that turned thought into action. As Carol puts it, the organization kept growing stronger. Major Chicago heavy hitters in social change got involved—like Lou Palmer and Georgia Palmer—and with them, the Catalyst expanded its reach and influence.

Carol pauses and smiles as she continues: “It was the organization people looked to when they wanted to elevate Black people into different spaces and places.”

“It was from that standpoint that we backed folks—and they catapulted to higher ground,” she says. “Warner Saunders, for instance, left his position as Executive Director of the Better Boys Foundation—which was then filled by Useni Perkins—to join WBBM as Director of Community Affairs and host Common Ground. Frank Bacon, also a Catalyst member, became head of Corporate Affairs at Sears. Chuck Curry, another Catalyst member, got the Corporate Affairs position at Quaker Oats. And so on. There are so many stories like that. But you get the drift.”

In retrospect, the Catalyst functioned like old money power and influence—but for Black folks, who historically had no access to those kinds of levers in the places and spaces they aspired to. It was also a training ground—a place where Black people could learn organizational skills and gain knowledge and understanding of how business works: in the corporate world, in nonprofits, and in philanthropy.

Members learned not just the technical side, but the culture of each space—how to navigate them. Whereas wealthy people often grow up immersed in business culture and internalize how those systems work, Black people in Chicago rarely had that kind of access. The Catalyst helped fill that gap.

Carol acknowledges that at its core, the Catalyst was rooted in Blackness and in a deep love for Black people and culture. It represented a commitment to uplift, to advance growth and development, to push the community forward. If the Catalyst had a founding principle, it might have been: “Know thyself—in the context of the collective.”

Enrolling at University of Chicago

In 1970, Carol enrolled in the University of Chicago’s sociology Ph.D. program on a fellowship. Though the program discouraged students from working, she took a teaching position at Crane, where she taught her first African American Studies class—another pivotal moment in her life.

Her students included Henry English and Calvin Cook—grown men, many recently out of the military, and older than she was. “I had graduated college at 21,” she recalls. “So here I was, teaching men who had more life experience than me—but I was also learning from them.” It was a period of intense political awakening. The Black Panther Party was gaining momentum, and her students were joining the movement. They successfully lobbied to rename their school Malcolm X College.

Meanwhile, Carol continued doing research for the Welfare Council—her passion for research unwavering. Then came the third major turning point: she landed a job at the newly opened Center for Inner City Studies at Northeastern Illinois University on 39th and Oakwood. There, she encountered another level of brilliance: scholars like historian Anderson Thompson, and creatives like Larry Shaw and Vince Cullers, who were revolutionizing education with visual storytelling.

Simultaneously, Doris Wilson of the YWCA was organizing Black women across the city to advocate for quality daycare and racial equity. Doris’s push led to the national YWCA adopting the goal of eliminating racism—a strategy that originated right in Chicago. Many of those women were also part of the Catalyst.

Carol reflects, “These people—my mentors, teachers, friends—were brilliant. They read, studied, planned, wrote. We read books together, discussed them deeply.” She recalls the impact of Lou’s Bookshelf, started by Lou Palmer, where members read and dissected books like The Crisis of the Negro Intellectual, often continuing conversations late into the night at Queen of the Sea.

Listening to Carol, you sense the urgency and discipline of that era. People pursued knowledge to be informed—not performative, but rooted in truth. They asked: What happened? Why? And how does it affect us now?

Today, Carol says, disinformation and narrative manipulation threaten that grounding in reality.

“Back then, people didn’t just act randomly,” she said. “They studied, they researched. The Black Panther Party was full of young people reading, learning, trying to live out the knowledge they gained.”

Her message is clear: misguiding our youth or failing to teach them how to seek truth is dangerous—but not irreversible.

“We must never stop pursuing truth,” she said. “Fantasy will fade. Reality will always set in.”

--Read or listen to extened version online.