The Digital Divide: A Migration Story
Thu, Sep 17
|Kankakee County Museum
Your community's migration story, told here
Time & Location
Sep 17, 2026, 2:00 PM – 3:00 PM
Kankakee County Museum, 801 S 8th Ave, Kankakee, IL 60901, USA
About the event
The railroad made Kankakee, and the railroad carried the Migration. When the Illinois Central reached the brand-new town in 1853, it cut the trip to Chicago from six days by wagon to three hours by rail. That same Illinois Central line became the main artery of the Great Migration, carrying hundreds of thousands of Black Southerners north toward a different future.
The digital divide did not begin with the internet. It began with movement. Blending lecture, storytelling, and performance, Kyla Williams Tate traces how the Great Migration and other movements across Illinois shaped today's patterns of digital access, trust, and opportunity.
Through stories, data, poetry, and lived experience, she connects the journeys of the past to the questions of belonging and connection we are still living today.
Don't miss out on this free program from Kyla Williams Tate!