Year in Review | Arts & Culture Changemakers of 2020—and beyond

Whether through organizing, the arts, or social media, these individuals took the year by the horns and made their mark on Chicago—and the world.

By GRETCHEN STERBA

Say what you will about 2020, but it was a year for people in Chicago to make their own agendas and to control their own destinies. Chicago organizers took action not just for themselves, but for young people growing up in the city, especially in Black and Brown neighborhoods. In the face of adversity, these folks who call the Windy City home got to work in times of crisis, and their work hasn’t gone unnoticed. Here are 11 people who gave a damn in 2020; and they’re nowhere close to stopping any time soon.

Eva Maria Lewis Executive Director of Free Root Operation/ artist

For South Shore native Eva Maria Lewis, traveling to and from the north side for a quality education exposed the disparities between white and Black students in Chicago. In 2015, she founded Free Root Operation, an organization fighting gun violence through compassion and opportunity, and this year Lewis developed programming for Bouchet Elementary, located in South Shore, to introduce peace rooms, a place for students to decompress, stretch, or relax as an alternative to punishment, to foster social-emotional learning. She plans to expand these efforts to more under-resourced schools in 2021. “I allow myself to imagine, ‘OK, we’ve never had something like this, [but] it doesn’t mean it can’t happen.’ What do you need to do to get there? There’s so much being accomplished, it’s here to stay. It’s just going to get better.”

Laundi Keepseagle Executive Director at Save Money, Save Life

In 2016, Laundi Keepseagle, a Standing Rock

Reservation native, met rapper Vic Mensa at the No DAPA protests, where they discussed sustainable change that would be grounded in community and safety for Black and Brown youth. Two years later, Save Money, Save Life was born. SMSL’s mission is to use art, education, entertainment, and projects to foster and empower BIPOC folks, whether it be training street medics volunteers to aid gun violence or hold drives for back-to-school aid initiatives. Over the course of this year, the organization pivoted from their regular programming and helped distribute 100,000 pounds of food across the city, raised funds and awareness for homeless youth during a sleepout, and took to the streets to protest for George Floyd and Black lives. Keepseagle has, among other youth programs, a Black and Indigenous teen exchange program in the works for Summer 2021. “Living on a reservation, I didn’t really understand the rest of the world, which limited possibilities for myself, and I know a lot of people from the city also experience that. We live within these borders and don’t understand the rest of the world.”

Nash Alam Digital Organizer at Grassroots Collaborative

Nash Alam used to not believe in “Slacktivists,” performative activism a la social media, but as someone who has been both rooted on the ground and behind the screen, Alam highlights the need for both roles. “I’m constantly thinking about what it is that young Black and Brown people really care about.” As the face behind the socials for Grassroots Collaborative, a community-labor coalition, Alam shares content consisting of memes, infographics, and illustrations that

Maria Lewis JEFF MARINI FOR CHICAGO READER

provides information and resources relating to racial justice and economic equity. During the summer, Alam trained the Brighton Park Neighborhood Council’s youth group, and with the police brutality uprising, “absorbed the momentum” and wrote scripted e-mails for citizens to send out to the city council and other representatives. Going forward, Alam’s work will continue the fi ght to push city council to enact progressive revenue options. “Je Bezos made billions in the first three months of the pandemic and the media was talking about looting. It’s about fighting that narrative consistently to really uplift the struggles that the working people of Chicago are facing, and policing as a root cause of violence.”

Ric Wilson Musician/activist

Sitting comfortably at more than 800,000 Spotify streams, Ric Wilson’s uprising-anthem of the summer, “Fight like Ida B. and Marsha P.,” combines a disco tempo accompanied by odes to Black freedom fighters with solidarity with marginalized communities. “I wanted to make a song about folks who I felt like really had super duper huge courage to do the things they were doing at the time they were doing it.” The same week the song was released, Wilson doubled down on his lyrics, “The liberation of black trans women leads to the liberation of all black people / this isn’t an option,” which Twitter itself turned into a billboard, placed on 15th and Ashland, and per Wilson’s request, had the company send the $5,000 revenue to Brave Space Alliance,