In Memoriam

1940 – 2022
Maxwell Street Market vendor and artist

Charlie Joe Henderson became known as the Mayor of Maxwell Street where he and a partner, Earnest Jackson, rented tables to vendors at the Maxwell Street Market every Sunday since 1972. As a very remunerative business serving over 1000 vendors at the Market, this so impressed Professor Alfonso Morales at University of Wisconsin, then a PhD student at Northwestern University, that he wrote his PhD dissertation about them. His central concept was the Ultra Minimal State which was about maintaining social order with a minimum of government resources. Morales says,” The social order at the Market was created and maintained by Henderson and Jackson, private entrepreneurs, whose work prevented disputes among vendors. Vendors respected the relationships made possible by renting tables to vendors from every ethnic group.”  Steve Balkin, Professor Emeritus at Roosevelt University, says, “Charlie Joe was a sweet, honest, hard working guy who was concerned about preserving the southern infused culture of Maxwell St. and would always help those working to save the Market in all its locations. I especially loved the posters and buttons he designed so shoppers could have a keepsake of the Market. My favorite was the one he made with an amalgam of all the Maxwell Street “Chicago Public Market Licenses” he had since he started vending there. Andy Warhol would have really liked Mr. Henderson’s art.“