For four decades, Out Of The Past Records has remained a fixture in West Garfield Park, serving as both a record store and a testament to Black entrepreneurship on Chicago’s West Side. Founded in 1986 by Marie and Charlie Joe Henderson, the shop at 4407 W. Madison St. is now led by their granddaughter, Annisa Gooden.
Lloyd Johnson, a longtime customer of the store, described its importance for music lovers seeking rare tracks. “Music drives us. Music drives our culture — Black people in general,” Johnson said. “So if it’s songs that you can’t get, you can always count on coming to Out Of The Past to get it.”
The Hendersons opened Out Of The Past after two decades of running various businesses in the area. Their goal was to preserve Black history and create a space where neighbors could see themselves reflected in both the music selection and the photographs lining the walls. “We had small ma-and-pop stores all around, but this store here, basically it meant to me putting back into the neighborhood. That’s what my husband wanted to do,” Marie Henderson said.
Inside the shop, customers encounter what is known as the “Hall of Fame,” featuring photos of patrons over many years. More than a million records are spread throughout the store alongside images of prominent Black figures such as Angela Davis and Duke Ellington.
Marie Henderson recounted her move from Mississippi to Chicago in 1955 and meeting her husband after high school graduation. The couple launched their first business, Henderson Studios, in 1963 before expanding into several other ventures including record shops and retail stores.
At its peak between the 1960s and 1980s, the family operated ten businesses across Chicago neighborhoods. Out Of The Past Records emerged during Chicago’s house music boom and quickly adapted to changes in musical trends based on customer demand.
The economic landscape of Madison Street shifted dramatically following unrest after Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.’s assassination in 1968. According to Marie Henderson, “You could just leave out your house and go anywhere you want to go [on Madison Street], but then as the years went by…it tore up a lot of our areas.” A city study from 2025 found that Madison Street was once central to community life but later suffered due to disinvestment.
Research from ProPublica indicates that government neglect, demolition of deteriorated buildings, and lack of private investment contributed significantly to Madison Street’s decline (https://www.propublica.org/article/chicago-garfield-park-housing-race). Despite challenges such as fires that destroyed several of their businesses in the early 1970s—and more recently disruptions caused by COVID-19—the Henderson family maintained operations at Out Of The Past Records.
Today’s owner Annisa Gooden has introduced new strategies for sustaining business: she established an online store that matches sales from physical visits and manages social media outreach with help from her daughter Aria.
Gooden expressed pride in being one of only a few Black women business owners along Madison Street: “We can show people in our community, by me being Black and a woman, that we have Black-owned businesses around here,” she said. “[There’s] maybe two or three Black people that own businesses on Madison, period. So it’s something that’s very important to me.”
She also highlighted her commitment to maintaining her grandparents’ legacy: “My grandparents worked hard, so I would never give this up.”
Marie Henderson takes satisfaction seeing another generation take over: “Most people leave [their family] money, status and all that stuff, but I’d just like to leave my history of what we went through…This is the last of the Henderson legacy and it means a lot to me because now I have another generation…I would like to leave [the store] to them so they can enjoy what I’ve enjoyed out of it.”
