Congo Square Theatre Company hosts Celebration of Healing programming in conjunction with How Blood Go

CHICAGO -- Congo Square Theatre Company (Congo Square) proudly announces the latest iteration of its Celebration of Healing programming initiative, to be held in conjunction with the World Premiere of How Blood Go by Cleveland-based playwright Lisa Langford, presented at Steppenwolf’s 1700 Theater (1700 N. Halsted Street) as part of Steppenwolf’s LookOut Series through April 23. How Blood Go analyzes the past, present, and future of racial inequality in America’s healthcare system; the Celebration of Healing programming, will examine the real-world implications of the biases articulated in the play.

Founded during Congo Square’s production of What to Send Up When It Goes Down in Fall 2022, Celebration of Healing is an initiative that collaborates with Congo Square’s annual productions to provide audiences with a curated space geared toward individual and community healing. The Celebration of Healing is one of five artist projects commissioned by the City of Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs and Spe- cial Events for We Will Chicago – the first citywide plan since 1966. We Will is the first-ever plan to be rooted in equity and resiliency and to be drafted by residents and community leaders. The Celebration of Healing connects to the goals residents shared addressing systemic inequities in public health, and exemplifies how artists and cultural organizations bring attention and resources to the issues most important to Chicago communities.

These free in-person and digital events will take place during the run of How Blood Go and include film screenings, panel discussions and community conversations led by experts in the field. All Celebration of Healing events are free and open to the public, registration is required for all events. For in-person events, attendees without access to transportation can arrange to have free transport to the events through the registration link. To register for a Celebration of Healing event, visit steppenwolf.org/ howbloodgo.

Celebration of Healing Events: In-person Film Screenings + Community Conversations

Power to Heal

Date: March 29, 6 p.m.

Location: Chicago Cultural Center, 78 E Washington St., Claudia Cassidy

Theater

Host: Yolonda Ross (The Chi & How Blood Go Cast)

Facilitator: Jhmira Alexander, MPH

(Executive Director, Public Narrative)

Panelists: Barbara Berney, PhD (Producer, Power to Heal), Paris Thomas, MS, MCHES, PhD (Executive Director, Equal Hope at RUSH Medical University), Margie Schaps, MPH (Executive Director, Health and Medicine Policy)

CHATHAM-SOUTHEAST

Power to Heal is an hour-long public television documentary that tells a poignant chapter in the historic struggle to secure equal and adequate access to healthcare for all Americans. Central to the story is the tale of how a new national program, Medicare, was used to mount a dramatic, coordinated effort that desegregated thousands of hospitals across the country in a matter of months.

The Healthcare Divide

Date: April 5, 2023, 6 p.m.

Location: Equal Hope, 300 S Ashland Ave #202

Aftershock

Date: April 12, 6 p.m.

Location: TBD

Host: Yolonda Ross (The Chi & How Blood Go Cast)

Facilitator: Jhmira Alexander, MPH (Executive Director, Public Narrative)

Panelists: Anya Tanyavutti (Executive Director, Changing Worlds), Lakeesha Harris (Executive Director, Chicago Volunteer Doulas), Kalynn Dunn, MA, LPC (Assistant Executive Director, Caris Pregnancy Counseling and Resources), Jeanine Valrie Logan (Midwife & Lead Steward, Chicago Southside Birth Center)

Aftershock––Following the preventable deaths of their loved ones due to childbirth complications, two families galvanize activists, birth-workers and physicians to reckon with one of the most pressing American crises of our time – the US maternal health crisis.

Virtual Webinars

From March 23 – April 27, every Thursday at 12 1:30 p.m., Public Narrative will present a webinar series dedicated to holistic public health conversations that generate solutions to improve health systems in Chicago. In this 6-part webinar training series journalists, researchers, care givers, patients and other community members will explore findings of Chicago-based community engaged research studies for communities experiencing health disparities and other implications to public health. To register for the webinar series, visit publicnarrative.org/events

Talk Forwards

In addition to these public events, audience members attending Sunday matinee performances of How Blood Go on March 26, April 2, and April 9 can participate in Talk Forward discussions with artists and community members immediately following the performance.

Partnerships

Serves

Host: Yolonda Ross (The Chi & How Blood Go Cast)

Facilitator: Jhmira Alexander, MPH

(Executive Director, Public Narrative)

Panelists: Laura Sullivan (Correspondent, NPR Investigates), Sista Yaa Simpson (Community Epidemiologist and Bioethicist, TACTS-The Association of Clinical Trials Services), Paris Thomas, MS, MCHES, PhD (Executive Director, Equal Hope)

FRONTLINE and NPR investigate the growing inequities in American healthcare exposed by COVID-19.

The Healthcare Divide examines how pressure to increase profits and uneven government support are widening the divide between rich and poor hospitals, endangering care for low-income populations.

Celebration of Healing events are made possible through partnerships with DCASE, DPD, We Will Chicago, Public Narrative, Equal Hope at RUSH Medical Center, and the Center for Health Equity Transformation at Northwestern Medicine. How Blood Go and the Celebration of Healing are partially funded by The Celebration of Healing are partially funded by the Venturous Theatre Fund of the Tides Foundation. Additional funding for the webinar series comes from the MacArthur Foundation and Northwestern Medicine.

How Blood Go will be performed through April 23. Tickets, priced at $25 for preview performances and $35 for all other performances ($20 for seniors and students), are now on sale by calling 312335-1650 or visiting www.steppenwolf. org/

Congo Square continues its radical generosity model partnering with community organizations throughout the city to donate up to half of all tickets for every performance. To learn more about discounted community partner tickets, please email communitypartner@congosquaretheatre.org

Threats To Marriage Rights Are Threats To All Rights

BY

SVANTE MYRICK

If you’ve been watching what’s going on in state legislatures lately, you know that red-state lawmakers are all-in on attacking three things: abortion, voting rights and LGBTQ rights. And in Tennessee, a real alarm bell just rang.

The state House passed a bill that would effectively end marriage equality in the state, by allowing county clerks to refuse marriage licenses to same-sex couples. In fact, the law would allow clerks to refuse to issue marriage licenses for any couple if they disagreed with the union. That could mean same-sex couples, interracial couples, or interfaith couples.

We don’t know how far this bill will go in the state Senate. But a sufficient number of Tennessee House members voted for it, and that’s disturbing enough. Especially since President Biden just signed the Respect for Marriage Act to protect marriage equality at the federal level. It turns out this bill takes advantage of a loophole in the federal legislation, because the federal law does not say states have to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples.

We may or may not be in same-sex marriages ourselves, or know people who are. But those of us who disagree with this inhumanity being inflicted on other Americans have to speak out. I’m proud to say my mom, who is my hero in many ways, set this example for me.

Mom played the piano in our church for two decades. There came a time when the question of same-sex marriage came up, and individual churches within our denomination were allowed to make their own decisions about whether to perform them. Sadly, our church decided not to. And Mom resigned there and then.

She did that even though nobody in our family or immediate circle was in a same-sex relationship. She did it because she had the courage to stand up for other people even when she had no skin in the game herself. Later, when I became mayor of Ithaca, I had the honor to perform the first same-sex wedding in our city.

Mom taught me that we need to stand up for the full spectrum of civil and human rights, whether a particular right affects us personally or not. It is the moral thing to do. And that’s enough. But for those who need more convincing, it’s well-known that if someone is coming after a right that doesn’t affect you today, chances are they will come for rights that do affect you tomorrow. Authoritarians have a pattern of chipping away at rights until they win the big prize.

A classic example of this is the long road to undermining Roe and the right to choose. For years, people were called alarmists for warning that Roe could be overturned. And guess what; the alarmists were right.

Not only that, but when the Supreme Court did away with Roe last year, Justice Clarence Thomas wrote the words that everyone feared: “In future cases, we should reconsider all of this Court’s substantive due process precedents, including Griswold, Lawrence, and Obergefell.” That means “reconsidering” the right to use birth control (Griswold), the right to same-sex intimate relationships (Lawrence), and the right to same-sex marriage (Obergefell).

The prospect is chilling – and where does this end? What about Loving v. Virginia, the case that affirmed the right to interracial marriage? Many of us would have said it’s alarmist to think that right could be lost. But again, the alarmists were right when it came to Roe. And the bill in Tennessee’s House appears to open a door to this possibility.

I’m deeply concerned about what is happening in Tennessee and the red flag raised by Justice Thomas. More than 40 years ago another Supreme Court justice, the late Thurgood Marshall, spoke words that are as apt today as they were then. Justice Marshall said, “Where you see wrong or inequality or injustice, speak out, because this is your country. This is your democracy. Make it. Protect it. Pass it on.”

Our rights depend on it.

Svante Myrick is President of People For the American Way. Previously, he served as executive director of People For and led campaigns focused on transforming public safety, racial equity, voting rights, and empowering young elected officials. Myrick garnered national attention as the youngest-ever mayor in New York State history.