A Love Supreme

It He had vision and connections. Together, the two globetrotting Southern transplants became a Chicago power couple whose family would live in a 12-room brownstone on King Drive (formerly South Park Way) in Bronzeville for nearly 50 years. • Etta Moten Barnett was a fashion-forward actress who starred in the 1942 Broadway revival of and and sang in films such as Ladies They Talk About and Flying Down to Rio. She was a trendsetter and a hot topic — even later in life, when she joined federal delegations to Africa on cultural missions. There’s a photo of her wearing a full leopard-print outfit while posing with a live cheetah in front of the Paradise of Princes, a palace in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. • Claude A. Barnett was best known for his Associated Negro Press. Passionate about amplifying Black voices, he also, and Tan magazines. • The Barnetts died some time ago — Etta in 2004 at age 102, Claude in 1967 at 77 — but the story of their lives came back into focus this fall when Lynn Rousseau McDaniel staged an estate sale of their possessions. A portion of the estate also went to the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture, in Washington, DC. To McDaniel, the Barnetts were more than money and power; they were an American love story worthy of national remembrance. We talked with McDaniel, who’s co-owner of the Logan Square furniture shop An Orange Moon, about the Barnetts and her work.