Former Student and Famous Illustrator Celebrated in U of C Special Collections Exhibit

Baldridge traveled extensively across Africa to better understand the root of racism and the plight of Africans in America. Cyrus Leroy Baldridge, Sierra Leone, Mende 1938 courtesy of Mr. & Mrs. Jay Mulberry
Baldridge traveled extensively across Africa to better understand the root of racism and the plight of Africans in America. Cyrus Leroy Baldridge, Sierra Leone, Mende 1938 courtesy of Mr. & Mrs. Jay Mulberry

Former Student and Famous Illustrator Celebrated in U of C Special Collections Exhibit

By Monique Smith

Many famous singers, poets, writers and actors protest and speak out about the mistreatment of black and brown people in this country and all over the world. Cyrus LeRoy Baldridge, born in 1889 was one such person. The University of Chicago’s Special Collections Research Center Gallery is hosting the Baldridge exhibit from now until September 27, 2016.

Baldridge was born in New York, but would start his career as an artist here in Chicago at the age of 10. He became the youngest student accepted at the Frank Holme’s Chicago School of Illustration and as a boy being raised by a single mother (his mother left his father when he was very young) Holme became a prominent person in his life, a second father.

Most of the art work that is on display at U OF C is courtesy of Mrs. And Mr. Jay Mulberry. A former

Chicago public school principal, professor and alumni of the University of Chicago, Jay Mulberry knew Baldridge very well. “When Cyrus retired, he moved to New Mexico and he lived next door to my family and we were very close,” said Mulberry. Mulberry’s mother inherited Baldridge’s home upon his death and the contents of the home which included many illustrations.

Baldridge and his life partner, writer Caroline Singer were true humanitarians who shared many of the same political views often expressing them through her writing and his illustrations. Baldridge and Singer traveled the world together highlighting the mistreatment of marginalized people. They published several books and pamphlets. Baldridge worked with Langston Hughes to fight for the rights of blacks during the Harlem

Renaissance period in New York and to gain a better perspective of the black experience Baldridge and Singer moved to Africa.

They moved across Africa mostly by foot from Sierra Leone to Ethiopia. Birthed from this experience was a book written by Singer and Illustrated by Baldridge, White Africans and Black. This experience left them both very committed to the rights of black Americans. Much of Baldridge’s work from his time in Africa and illustrations from his time at Opportunity, a journal of the Urban League, were donated to the historical Fisk University.

Baldridge also moved to India during the British rule where he fought for the rights of the people in India alongside Mahatma Gandhi . During World War I Baldridge traveled through an occupied France and Belgium as a war correspondent and illustrator. Mulberry recalls Baldridge’s time in the war and says he was horrified by what he witnessed. “He was exposed to every aspect of the war and he became very involved in the anti-war movement,” said Mulberry.

“He was straight forward, he stayed very true to his beliefs.” Caroline Singer passed away in 1963. In the early 1970’s, Baldridge’s health began to decline and he couldn’t handle all that comes with aging and what he knew was to come. On June 6, 1977 Baldridge ended his own life with a pistol given to him in World War I.

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