The Historical Development of Hopkins Park Hopkins Park is primarily an African-American community in rural Illinois. One of the first black settlers to the area was Joseph “Pap” Tetter. In 1862 Joseph loaded his family into wagons and left North Carolina to escape slavery and begin a better life in what is now Kankakee County. Many African-Americans migrated from the south and settled in the north including at communities like Kakankee during the reconstruction era and created vibrant but segregated communities. Many residents were employed in surrounding white farms. Many also worked in regional cities like Chicago, Beloit, Gary, and Detroit among others. During times of prosperity, some middle class African Americans built summer homes in Hopkins Park. Like many small towns, the livelihood of Hopkins Park was dependent upon the prosperity of the wider region. But as an African American town, Hopkins Park was vulnerable to many other forces, chief among them, discrimination. It is thus not surprising that the community suffered greatly during the economic depression of the 1930s, a fate from which it is yet to recover. Many people moved away to seek greener pastures. Today the city is a small, extremely poor community consisting of single, mostly women-headed households.