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ÂŹ NOVEMBER 23, 2016
SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY The South Side Weekly is an independent nonprofit newsprint magazine written for and about neighborhoods on the South Side of Chicago. We publish in-depth coverage of the arts and issues of public interest alongside oral histories, poetry, fiction, interviews, and artwork from local photographers and illustrators. The South Side Weekly is dedicated to supporting cultural and civic engagement on the South Side and to providing educational opportunities for developing journalists, writers, and artists. Volume 4, Issue 9 Editor-in-Chief Jake Bittle Managing Editors Maha Ahmed, Christian Belanger Director of Staff Support Ellie Mejía Director of Writer Development Mari Cohen Deputy Editor Olivia Stovicek Senior Editor Emeline Posner Education Editor Lit Editor Music Editor Stage & Screen Editor Visual Arts Editor
Hafsa Razi Sarah Claypoole Austin Brown Julia Aizuss Corinne Butta
Contributing Editors Joe Andrews, Ariella Carmell, Jonathan Hogeback, Andrew Koski, Carrie Smith, Kylie Zane Video Editor Lucia Ahrensdorf Radio Producer Maira Khwaja Web Editor Camila Cuesta Social Media Editors Sierra Cheatham, Emily Lipstein, Sam Stecklow Visuals Editor Ellen Hao Deputy Visuals Editor Jasmin Liang Layout Editors Baci Weiler, Sofia Wyetzner Staff Writers: Olivia Adams, Maddie Anderson, Sara Cohen, Bridget Gamble, Christopher Good, Michal Kranz, Anne Li, Zoe Makoul, Sonia Schlesinger Staff Photographers: Juliet Eldred, Kiran Misra, Luke Sironski-White Staff Illustrators: Javier Suarez, Addie Barron, Jean Cochrane, Lexi Drexelius, Wei Yi Ow, Amber Sollenberger, Teddy Watler, Julie Wu, Zelda Galewsky, Seonhyung Kim Social Media Intern
Ross Robinson
Webmasters Alex Mueller, Sofia Wyetzner Publisher
Harry Backlund
The paper is produced by an all-volunteer editorial staff and seeks contributions from across the city. We distribute each Wednesday in the fall, winter, and spring. Over the summer we publish every other week. Send submissions, story ideas, comments, or questions to editor@southsideweekly.com or mail to: South Side Weekly 6100 S. Blackstone Ave. Chicago, IL 60637
IN CHICAGO
A week’s worth of developing stories, odd events, and signs of the times, culled from the desks, inboxes, and wandering eyes of the editors
State of Emergency Last Friday, U.S. Representative Danny Davis’s grandson, Javon Wilson, was shot and killed in his home. The next day, two teens turned themselves in at a CPD station, police said; both have been charged with first-degree murder and are being held without bail. Wilson was allegedly shot after a dispute over clothes and gym shoes. On Sunday, Representative Davis called for a state of emergency in certain areas of Chicago with high crime and unemployment, saying, “I think we need immediate help. We don’t need something that’s going to take five or six years.” That Wilson’s murder will in all likelihood be solved is unusual since, as the Washington Post reported a few weeks ago, the CPD has cleared around twenty percent of murders in 2016, down from eighty percent in 1991. High-profile killings tend to have a better clearance rate, though: when basketball star Dwyane Wade’s cousin was killed in August, a pair of men were arrested and charged with her murder two days later. Rodent Rage Trying to kill your political opponents is never the right move, whether you’re as corrupt as they come, or a squirrel. While the Weekly would never point fingers without being completely sure, the connection is pretty clear: squirrels are out to get 21st Ward Alderman Howard Brookins, Jr. One month after bringing forward complaints to City Council of “aggressive squirrels” who are gnawing through garbage cans, Brookins was ambushed by what the Tribune describes as a “kamikaze” squirrel while biking on the Cal-Sag Trail the weekend before last. The squirrel seemed to come out of nowhere, lunging at the alderman’s front bike wheel. The squirrel got lodged in the wheel—and eventually met its demise there—causing Brookins to fly over the handlebars of his bike and break his nose, fracture his skull, and lose a few teeth. After the first of what will be several surgeries and a short hospital stay, Brookins is recovering well but laying low for the time being, which is understandable following his harrowing brush with death. The Tribune warns any copycats: “If any squirrels visit his home in the coming weeks, he said, ‘I'm calling animal control!’” Roman Holiday Blase Cupich, the archbishop of Chicago, was made a cardinal of the Catholic Church by Pope Francis. The ceremony took place at St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome, where Cupich was joined by what CBS 2 called a “Who’s Who of Chicago.” It’s true: the delegation roster is an exhibition of clout that would probably make Machiavelli smirk in his grave. There are the obvious ones, of course—Rahm, Bruce Rauner, Senator Dick Durbin, and Illinois Senate President John Fullerton, plus a handful of prominent priests who are not Michael Pfleger—but the list gets stranger and stranger from there: Police Superintendent Eddie Johnson and Fire Commissioner Jose Santiago got invites, along with aldermen Ed Burke and Danny Solis and one “Rocco Claps,” Director of the Illinois Department of Human Rights. The highlights, though, are the corporate execs who made the cut: there’s Dan McCaffery, head honcho of real estate developer McCaffery Interests; Margaret Houlihan Smith of United Airlines; and the CEO of electricity company ComEd, Anne Pramaggiore. If you’re having trouble imagining this merry gang on a stroll through the Coliseum, various news stations ran an absolutely precious clip of Rauner chowing down on some gelato, which should be available online.
IN THIS ISSUE support for south side principals
The principals chosen for the CPEF’s programs are proof of the existing talent in CPS. elaine chen.......................................4 battling legacies of neglect
“It’s not about a violent people, it’s about a lack of equality and a lack of equal access to economic opportunity.” adeshina emmanuel.........................6 speaking truth to power
“One day, I just heard myself say I was going to create a museum.” christopher good............................9 today's cure, tomorrow's music
“Don’t get caught dreaming, make your dream a reality.” oduda maali....................................12 notes from the white rhino
My lesson plan had to, unfortunately, change. ray salazar......................................13
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Cover painting courtesy of the National A. Philip Randolph Pullman Porter Museum, Chicago, Illinois Dr. Lyn Hughes Founding Collection
NOVEMBER 23, 2016 ¬ SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY 3
Support for South Side Principals Principal development fellowships highlight achievements of neighborhood schools BY ELAINE CHEN
“P
ublicly, it seems like the school system, district, state is in chaos, but walk into a school and you’ll see 101 things that are just amazing,” says Peter Auffant, principal of Shields Middle School in Brighton Park. This is his fifth year as principal of the school; he was recently chosen for the Chicago Principals Fellowship funded by the Chicago Public Education Fund (CPEF). CPEF, a nonprofit organization, was founded in 2000 with the aim of accelerating student achievement in Chicago through investments and initiatives in the public education system, according to its website. Governor Bruce Rauner is the director emeritus of its board. In September, CPEF announced the new fellows for its principal professional development programs. Despite Chicago Public Schools’s ongoing budget issues, the continuation of these programs indicates that progress is still occurring in a few areas of public education in Chicago. One of the programs, launched in 2014 in partnership with CPS and Northwestern University, is the Chicago Principals Fellowship. In the twelve-month program, an annual cohort of twenty to twentyfive Chicago public school principals participates in an executive leadership program at Northwestern and receives personal coaching. The fellowship has emerged as Chicago tries to place a larger emphasis on principal training. In 2010, Illinois legislatively required a remodeling of principal preparation programs. However, the state budget crisis has made the goal of attaining “sufficient quantity and quality of principals” difficult to achieve, according to a 2016 report by the University of Chicago Consortium on School Research. Around half of the preparation programs surveyed in the report experienced cuts in funding and
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staffing, partly due to decreases in overall enrollment and partly due to the state budget cuts. CPEF also recognizes the difficulty schools can have in acquiring high-quality principals: its 2016 School Leadership Report states that over forty percent of schools lose their principal within four years. A 2016 survey of CPS principals also found that one in five plans to leave in the next year, matching the actual turnover rate in past years. Many of the principals surveyed said that their jobs are unsustainable or that they feel unable to carry out school priorities amidst budget restrictions. As a Tribune analysis showed, 443 out of nearly 660 CPS schools will receive less money this year than they did last year. Education initiatives funded by private organizations such as CPEF could help mitigate these public funding issues. However, Chicago has experienced difficulties with such ventures in the past: last year, the district ended a CPEF-funded principal incentive program that had handed out bonuses for high achievement but ultimately failed to prevent principal turnover. The fund also contributed $380,000 to fund a pilot program to train midlevel CPS executives in 2011. This program was contracted to SUPES Academy, a private principal training center that was revealed to have promised money to the former CPS CEO Barbara Byrd-Bennett in exchange for no-bid contracts between CPS and SUPES. CPEF declined to fund the SUPES program for a second year. Since then, CPEF has continued to focus on supporting Chicago principals, most recently by funding professional development programs for principals in public schools. Its Principals Fellowship requires participants to commit to working in CPS for at least three more years, as its website states, in order to retain Chicago’s best principals. Given the lack of district-
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provided professional development, as well as the dissolution of SUPES, the need for these training programs is more apparent. “We live in a schooling environment right now of declining resources and increasing expectations,” says Auffant. Therefore, he says, he has no concern with the role of CPEF in public education. That is why he applied to the fellowship: to “build structures in the school that stay in continued improvement…regardless of the fiscal or political environment.” Specifically,
year, proposed the creation of a database for principals to share best practices, according to Shenethe Parks, a principal in that cohort. The aim of the database, which is in implementation phase now, is to showcase “the really great things going on in the district,” said Parks, especially in light of the lack of exposure these achievements receive in the media. Parks has been the principal of Bret Harte Math & Science Magnet Cluster School for eleven years. During the
“There’s a million reasons to be down or upset about what’s happening, but at the school level there are so many good things happening.” —Peter Auffant, principal of Shields Middle School
he says he wants to distribute leadership opportunities and responsibility among teachers, parents, and community members, to ensure that multiple stakeholders are capable of helping students when necessary. He remains optimistic about the future of his school and of CPS, as “there’s a million reasons to be down or upset about what’s happening, but at the school level there are so many good things happening,” he said. “Unfortunately, it doesn’t get reported as much as the perceived chaos that might exist.” This is precisely why last year’s cohort of Principals Fellows, when talking with the Chief Education Officer of CPS last
Fellowship program, she said she began “to think deeper about the students [she] serves.” As a result, she is incorporating a new social and emotional learning (SEL) class this year, aiming to help students become more selfaware so they can better “control and create their own learning paths,” she said. To further move Bret Harte forward, she is also now participating in the Cahn Fellows Program, another principal professional development program supported by CPEF. Joshua Long, another Cahn Fellow this year, used to work as a speech language pathologist for CPS, and is now the principal of Southside Occupational Academy (SOA), a transition school for students with
EDUCATION
JASON SCHUMER
disabilities who have completed some or all of high school. His project for the Cahn Program is a community-based instruction program that aims to strengthen his students’ exposure to community life. Long hopes to teach students skills including recreation (such as going to the gym), service (such as volunteering at a food depository), and independent living (such as grocery shopping and preparing meals). He plans to add between fifteen and twenty all-day trips in the school year in order to get students out of the classroom and into communities. Each Cahn Fellow engages in a
project unique to their work—the Fellows are already accomplished leaders, so the program’s job is “not to teach us how to be principals, but how to become better principals.” In general, the principals chosen for CPEF’s programs are proof of the existing talent in CPS, according to Heather Anichini, CEO of CPEF. Anichini said that despite possible negative images of CPS, Chicago is one of three cities in the U.S. that has actually made progress in public education in recent years—it’s one of the few cities that has continued to see improvement in graduation rates and college entrance rates, for example.
Auffant, who is participating in the Principals Fellowship this year, is hence “proud to be a CPS principal.” The fellowship will allow him to make greater improvements in his school, which has already been enacting innovative changes. According to Auffant, this year the school focused on helping students learn strategies to deal with stress from home or from violence in their communities. “Many of our kids are facing adultsized problems, but they’re still children,” Auffant said. On September 30, Shields held an event to celebrate the practice of mindfulness. All
650 students and numerous community members and parents gathered for a community-wide assembly, said Auffant. Afterwards, they engaged in a “peace walk,” to teach students that if they can find peace within themselves, they can “be a piece of the peace”—an agent to bring peace in the community. “A lot of what we hear about as desirable are the selective options and charters,” Auffant said. “We need to highlight the work of our neighborhood schools, because the vast majority of students in Chicago— they attend neighborhood public schools.” ¬
NOVEMBER 23, 2016 ¬ SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY 5
Battling Legacies of Neglect
A conversation with city treasurer Kurt Summers BY ADESHINA EMMANUEL
K
urt Summers, 36, is city treasurer of Chicago and a young up-and-comer in the political landscape. Originally from Bronzeville, he currently lives in Hyde Park. Summers has served as chief of staff to Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle, whose name is often floated as a potential mayoral candidate, and as trustee for the Cook County Pension Fund. He was working as a senior vice president at Grosvenor Capital Management, run by a buddy of Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s named Michael Sacks, before Emanuel appointed him in 2014 to replace Stephanie Neely as city treasurer. Summers won a reelection bid in 2015 for his first full term. Unlike many city politicians, the Harvardgroomed finance whiz doesn’t hesitate to speak on the systemic racism that has dampened the fortunes of black families for hundreds of years, and created the crisis faced by many of Chicago’s black neighborhoods. According to Summers, a graduate of Whitney Young High School who now manages the city’s $7 billion investment portfolio, these neighborhoods suffer from “an economic problem, not a violence problem.” I sat down with him the day after the 2016 election. How are you feeling today about last night’s election results? I’m still in shock, honestly. I was astonished. My wife and I were up late watching everything and I woke up her up when the call came from Secretary Clinton conceding the race and she was in disbelief. I think I was for several hours. But I think we have an important lesson to learn from this which is about the real sentiment underlying half of our country, and the fact that half of our country is able to support a candidate who has the views that he has around race, around immigration, around gender. It’s 6 SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY
pretty astonishing and should be a wake-up call for all of those who don’t share those values. You know, Trump sort of threw Chicago under the bus as some catch-all symbol of violence in urban communities, especially black communities. What do you think he missed in those mischaracterizations of Chicago? I think it was all Chicago equals violence, Chicago equals black people and inner city equals black people killing each other. And while we are having one of the worst, most violent years on record in the last two decades and we just came off of the worst weekend during that period of time, it doesn’t define the people of Chicago, it doesn’t define black people in Chicago. I think he was in his narrative lumping this all together as all of black people, [as if ] the 800,000 or 900,000 of them who live here are represented by the more than 600 murders we’ve had this year. But that’s not the case for how our communities are defined, or the generations and legacy of people here, and it’s also, I’m of the opinion, sorely missing the point of what the root cause of violence issues we have, particularly in Chicago, but really in urban areas around this country. It’s not about a violent people, it’s about a lack of equality and a lack of equal access to economic opportunity. You’ve said we have an economic problem, not a violence problem. Can you talk more about what that means? I think we have a legacy in this country, dating back to its founding, of systemic inequality, institutional racism, and to see it across everything from our schools to our housing
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to wages and economic opportunities…. Since the post-Reconstruction era we’ve had everything from Black Codes and Jim Crow and lynching that have created inequality in our society, and we’ve seen it in Chicago since the first Great Migration in our housing, in our employment, in our schools. I think it’s most acute in the economic situation on the South and West Sides. When we talk about what the solution of the problem is, often the solution is
Black and brown people, we are not wired to be violent. It’s not in our genetic code. It’s an issue of nurture and not nature, and requires all of us to have a greater understanding of the root causes of these problems. Growing up in Chicago, what contributed to you having that understanding you just described to me? What did you see that influenced your understanding of this economic problem?
“No amount of policing we can add to the South and West Sides of Chicago will change the economic conditions of the people in those neighborhoods who suffer from deep poverty, a lack of hope, and severe despair.” limited to a policing strategy. And I would maintain that no amount of policing we can add to the South and West Sides of Chicago will change the economic conditions of the people in those neighborhoods who suffer from deep poverty, a lack of hope, and severe despair. And in that situation the only thing that can change that is opportunity— economic opportunity. And so when I say we have an economic problem and not a violence problem— people in Chicago are not inherently violent.
I grew up in the Bronzeville area, 45th and King Drive, 45th and Michigan. And I saw when I looked at my neighborhood, and when I went on a field trip downtown or to the zoo or a museum...a completely different neighborhood, one that, when I came back to my neighborhood, made me say, “Why does theirs look like that and ours looks like this? Why are they worthy of investment and we’re not? And who determines that?” And that stark contrast left an indelible mark on me to continue asking these questions. And
POLITICS
then I looked at my friends who were just as smart and just as capable and had different outcomes than me by virtue of chance and favor.
would go toward low-income census tracts, of which there are a high concentration on the South and West Sides, but also in North Side communities like Uptown. The city’s contribution to the fund will total $35 million this year and next year, and $30 million more in 2018, according to Summers, who said his goal is to have the city’s $100 million matched by $300 million in private funds. No more than twenty percent of the fund’s assets would go to any one project, he said.
What kind of outcomes? Friends who would end up in jail, friends who ended up out of school, friends who got involved in drugs and gangs. I was surrounded by that and all throughout where I grew up. And the difference wasn’t they were less sensible, less smart, less hardworking that they ended up not in school. The difference was I was fortunate to have a greater hedge of protection around me and really blessed that God saw fit not to let me go down that path. But there were so few good opportunities for people and so much of a prevalence of other lifestyles and dangerous opportunities right in front of them—there was a limited set of choices that young people growing up where I grew up had.
Now I want to get into Fund 77. Can you give a brief overview of what it is and how it works?
What did you think was the dividing line that determined who had and who didn’t have? I thought it was geography, and by virtue of the segregation of the city, race. How does that picture look to you now as a city official looking at the same issues? I would say it’s one of the single most motivating factors I have when I wake up every day, the fact that that amount of economic disparity by race and neighborhood in this city still exists, and when I go to the neighborhood I grew up in, most of it looks like it did thirty years ago. What do you mean? I mean empty lots. Abandoned buildings. People who are in deep poverty or homeless. Still-significant drug and mental health problems. Bboth the physical conditions of the infrastructure and the real conditions of people and families in those communities have not improved, and have in many respects gotten worse. You talk about this pattern of financial neglect in these communities, and this picking of winners and losers when it comes to neighborhoods and people’s outcomes—who’s accountable for the way we have approached community
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development and how public finance tools and public planning are used? I think we are all to blame. I think our elected leaders and public officials are to blame. I think community leaders share in that blame. As voters and the electorate we’ve participated in it. And families and residents in communities, we’ve all participated in a system that has allowed us to exist with this kind of disparity and divide. If we wanted representation that would speak out and be change agents for our communities, we’ve had chances to put those people in office. If we wanted to vote for those issues as community leaders, we have some very intelligent, thoughtful people in leadership positions, not just
elected, but people in leadership positions in our communities who have allowed this to happen. And we’ve all been participants, whether explicitly or implicitly, in this process. I think for us to change that, it’s not just what one elected official can do, one mayor, one treasurer. Everyone has to step up…and say “this is no longer acceptable to continue to live in a society that allows this disparity.”
O
n November 16, City Council approved the mayor’s 2017 budget, which included the Chicago Community Catalyst Fund. Summers calls it Fund 77, after the city’s seventy-seven community areas. The fund leverages the city’s investment portfolio to reap profits and spur private investment that
Fundamentally, we came up with this idea almost right when I got into office and went to all seventy-seven neighborhoods in my first seventy-seven days in office, and there was a consistent theme of every conversation, which was the need to raise capital, and how in communities across the city there was a lack of access to capital and there was no real ability to solve it on the horizon. When I looked at this I was particularly interested because this office has been on the first floor of city hall for the better part of several decades now and controls a lot of capital. That capital has mandates to be invested in every part of the world—South America, the Middle East, western Europe, every part of the world but our backyard, which happens to be the third largest market in the largest national economy in the world. And I thought, for us to have a mandate to invest the people of Chicago’s money everywhere in the world but not with the people of Chicago and neighborhoods in ways that can benefit them directly...that was the genesis of this. And ultimately, we devised a way to take a piece of their capital and put it to work in their neighborhoods. This fund is really meant to be a seed investment that also encourages further private capital. When we talk about the history, this legacy of financial neglect in some of these communities, do you see this tool as taking that on? I think this is simply putting our capital where our priorities are, and it is absolutely an attempt to help fight the legacy of disinvestment in communities of Chicago for decades. It’s an important step, but it’s just one step in this fight against this legacy of practices of disinvestment. We’re going to
NOVEMBER 23, 2016 ¬ SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY 7
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need a lot more. I want to ask about the fund’s governance structure. I know there will be a board of directors and an advisory board. I know you’ll have involvement, there will be some appointees, but where is there space for community input or for people on the ground who know these communities and have been working to improve these neighborhoods despite the disinvestment? Where is there space for the community in these decision-making bodies? We’re going to have the fund board, which I will chair. It will have the CFO of the city and the commissioner of planning, and then four external experts in investment who will help provide recommendations to the mayor. The mayor will select people qualified for the board. There will be a separate advisory council that will participate in every board meeting, including members of the city council and community members who are people just like the ones you mentioned who have been working in communities throughout their careers, and those will be selected by the fund board itself. Will there be language to ensure certain areas are priorities, and that [the money] goes to needy areas? I guess I’m thinking about the TIF program which, if you read it, sounds good on paper. It says there’s assistance for blighted areas that wouldn’t otherwise see private development without help from the TIF—that’s written into every TIF district agreement. And I know there are reasons why TIFs work better in some areas than other areas (TIF revenue is dependent on property values), but we’ve seen a pattern of more of those development dollars going to areas that were white or affluent or gentrifying. How do we ensure that that doesn’t happen in this case—that people and private companies who have money to do projects already aren’t just given public funds to enrich their bottom line? You can write any law you want, but you still need to have the right leadership and team to execute it in a way consistent with that law. What we’ve done here is
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be very clear with the ordinance that the priority is on CRA-qualifying census tracts [lower-income communities eligible for Community Reinvestment Act benefits] and what we’ve agreed to do in the RFPs themselves is to make sure we have a criteria consistent with our objectives on diversity and geography, and have that representation be part of the criteria for the partner that gets selected. But then ultimately firms and people need to be held accountable, and that requires leadership willing to do that. Given that this is something I designed with that intent, that’s what I’ll be doing.
this problem because it’s not possible for Chicago to answer those question positively when we’re leaving entire segments of poor population behind.
thinking what’s politically expedient. That’s because I saw a problem I’ve been looking at for thirty years, and I was in position to do something about it.
ooking at the mayor’s approval rating, especially in the aftermath of the school closings and the Laquan McDonald scandal, the black community’s trust in the administration is especially low. This legacy of financial neglect has been there, but those other things add on top of that. Some people see things coming out of the city focused on
You’re somebody who was appointed by the mayor, you’re someone who has been tied to him, but you’ve also been tied to possibly running for his current job. Is there any weirdness created by that dynamic? You’re doing these things that are being applauded, you’re in the media a lot lately...how do you navigate that relationship given what everyone is saying about you possibly replacing the guy?
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“We don’t have the luxury of just focusing on what needs to be done three years from now instead of the work that needs to be done today.” What would you say to somebody who said that these are the city’s investment dollars being targeted for particular areas…well, my area isn’t one of those census tracts, why are these dollars going somewhere I won’t benefit? What’s the appeal for somebody who doesn’t live in one of these census tracts to even give a damn about what this fund is trying to do? The cover of the Wall Street Journal on the first day of November this year was about the violence in the city of Chicago. If you don’t think that impacts people thinking about investing in the city, growing in the city, living in the city, creating jobs in the city, you’re kidding yourself. What happens in those other communities impacts you because it’s part of the national discourse on the future of the city and whether it is worthy of investment and can create the proper value proposition to grow and thrive and create jobs here. We’re trying to solve
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the communities as something that lends itself to Rahm’s approval ratings, or helps the administration look like it cares about communities that a lot of people have felt that historically this administration and others haven’t cared as much about. Is there any political element of this or any political advantage for the administration to be putting its backing behind something like this? Are there politics involved? I think this is Chicago. And for better or worse, every policy decision has political implications. But what I can tell you is on my first day in office, December 1, 2014, I put out a plan that said investing in our Chicago, which means not just downtown Chicago but the neighborhoods...and the very first point was to make our capital and invest in our neighborhoods. That was before [the Laquan McDonald scandal], before Rahm Emanuel’s second term or approval ratings being what they are or anybody
I don’t spend a lot of time thinking about it. I view this role as an honor and a privilege, and I really love this job and I think I’m uniquely qualified for it and have spent my career preparing for it. I’m a firm believer in the saying: “We make plans, and God laughs.” I feel like I was led to this role. I didn’t see it coming but I prayed about it, my wife and I fasted, I thought long and hard about it, and for as long as I continue to love it I’m gonna do it. And I’ll let God reveal his path to me when the time comes. But for people who want to prognosticate and think about future political aspirations, what I would say is two things. One, we have such a dire need and dire problems in the city right now we don’t have the luxury of just focusing on what needs to be done three years from now instead of the work that needs to be done today. Two, I would say that those people probably don’t know me very well, because the people who know me know how much I love this job. Do you love it too much to run for mayor of this town? Well I think that’s a few years away, so I’m gonna do this as long as I feel like I enjoy it and it’s what I’m being led to do. My wife and I are still getting used to and comfortable with being in the public eye, all this is very new for us. So I’d say talk to me in a couple years and we’ll see. ¬
HISTORY
Speaking Truth to Power For twenty-one years, Dr. Lyn Hughes has been making black labor history visible in Pullman AS TOLD TO CHRISTOPHER GOOD
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JASMIN LIANG
he National A. Philip Randolph Pullman Porter Museum, which sits across from Corliss High School on 104th and Maryland, occupies a unique space both citywide and nationwide. After twenty-one years in operation, it remains the only black history museum in the country to focus specifically on labor history. Asa Philip Randolph, the museum’s namesake, is rarely seen in history textbooks, though the union which he led, the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters, fought for black workers’ rights under the Pullman Company and opened the door for the civil rights movement of the 1960s. This is a history not taught in schools. Yet George Pullman—the industrialist who created Pullman not only as a company town, but as “a total environment, superior to the working class elsewhere ”— has been more or less canonized, even if his “model community” was predicated on the exclusion and exploitation of the black workers which kept his “palace cars” on the rails. In Pullman—the town, the company, and the individual—the nostalgia and idealism of Americana come in direct conflict with the parts of our history which hurt to remember. I sat down with Dr. Lyn Hughes, the Pullman Porter Museum’s founder, to discuss the history and future of the museum and its community. Hughes, a Cincinnati native, first came to Chicago as a single mother of three with plans to develop real estate. This is the story of the museum in her words.
I
mentioned that I was interested in doing some real estate speculating. And so the person I was talking to said, “You know where you ought to go, you ought to go out to Pullman and go to the north end, because it’s not as well kept as the south end and you can probably buy something a lot cheaper than you could on the south side [of Pullman].” So that’s how I got out here. So one of the things that happened while I was doing due diligence: someone said to me, “They offer tours of the community on the south end, go over to the Hotel Florence. They have lunch and they have tours.” So I [went] on the tour, and there was a group of about twenty people, and I happened to be the only African American on the tour. So the docent was
NOVEMBER 23, 2016 ¬ SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY 9
the experience with the tour, and the docent that wouldn’t talk about African Americans, it awakened something in me that would not go away. And it nagged me and nagged me for almost a year, it just would not go away. I always say that it was not my idea because I’m not that smart. But one day, I just heard myself say I was going to create a museum. I had no experience, I didn’t know anyone, and I certainly didn’t know anyone who started a museum. But it was one of those things that my mother used to say to me: “If you see something that needs to be done, don’t just stand there. Go do it.”
LIZZIE SMITH
giving a great spiel about Pullman, all about George Pullman, and how he created this factory where he built sleeping cars, and that he built the town for the people who worked for him. Well, I thought this [was] quite an interesting story, but in [its] telling, they did not mention anything about African Americans. And so—it was just a selfinterest, human interest question—I raised my hand and I said, “Excuse me, can you tell me what role African Americans played in the Pullman story?” And I was expecting him to say, “Well, they did that…” And he didn’t. When I asked the question, the room got very quiet. And [after] what ended up seeming like an eternity of time elapsing, he ultimately collected himself and said, “I think they worked on the trains.” I thought he was going to elaborate and say more, but he didn’t. It was awkward and very embarrassing, because I knew I had probably asked a question that no one had ever asked before. So it was one of those embarrassing situations. I had one of those conversations 10 SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY
with myself [and thought], “Be quiet, go to the library after the tour.” So I did, I left the tour. There used to be a library on 103rd Street, so I went in and asked the librarian what she could give me that I could read that would tell me about the AfricanAmerican experience in Pullman. She said they didn’t have much, and they actually only had two books. One of the two had great photographs—I actually thought they were children’s books, but it wasn’t, it turns out that the one I chose was just a very thin book. It was called A Long, Hard Journey. And so I took the book, checked it out of the library, took it home—I lived in Hyde Park, still do—and I read the book cover to cover and I found myself weeping. The story told about the terrible treatment that the African Americans that worked for the Pullman company had. And it was just a very emotional experience. I like to describe it as a roller coaster of experiences, because I was angry, and then sad, you know? And it was like, how can this be? I never intended to live here, I never intended to do a museum. But once I had
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Twenty-one years later, the A. Philip Randolph Museum remains in operation. Hughes studied at Spertus College before securing a doctorate in education with a minor in museum studies at Northern Illinois University—a degree which she completed in just five years. Though Hughes still works closely with the museum, since 2009 its president and executive director has been David A. Peterson, a Pullman native who grew up on the same block as the museum and volunteered there while growing up. In 2000, when the museum was still getting off the ground, Hughes launched the Pullman Porters National Historic Registry: an advertising campaign which called for photographs, documents, or other memorabilia from Pullman porters and their families. In a matter of months, she received 7,000 responses. The influx of mail took Hughes four years to process, but she says the sheer number of submissions was a “wake-up call.” In time, she compiled the responses into An Anthology of Respect, a book which featured a preface from Lerone Bennett. Earlier this year, the registry was digitized so that the name of any porter can be searched on the museum’s website. One of the things that is always miswritten or inaccurate, is when they say that African-American history in Pullman is deep. It is not, because African-Americans were not permitted to live in Pullman. The history that is disseminated in Pullman is primarily done by a specific group of people. And it’s what I call the revisionist history. They often use the term “labor history”— but you’d be hard-pressed to read an [article] where they actually mention the name of this place, which is [not only] the only black labor representation in Pullman, but also the first black labor history museum in the nation. I don’t know if there are any
others yet, but [the writing is] very carefully crafted. It talks about Pullman and it talks about labor history, and it will drop in: “Oh yeah, by the way, black labor.” The one thing that infuriates me: I write letters to the editor and they never react or respond, which is why I was very interested in having this interview. Because at least it would be an opportunity to sort of get it right. It is applicable today still, how labor and civil rights intersect. Because it’s not just civil rights, it’s human rights. There’s this triad of intersecting components that makes it very interesting, and which is why foreigners are interested. But also in a very real sense, it’s one of those 800-pound gorillas in the room that no one wants to talk about. Racism is alive and well in America— and quite frankly, even still in this community. All you need to do is read the newspapers and articles that are written about Pullman. You will never, ever hear anything in-depth about the African-American population. It is not always what is said or done. It’s what isn’t. Railroads, of course, are the very reason Pullman came into existence. Today, the neighborhood is connected to the rest of Chicago by the Metra Electric line. The 111th Street stop on its south end is, in the words of Metra CEO Don Orseno, “a gateway to the Pullman National Monument”: visitors are greeted by a newly renovated and freshly painted warming hut. The 103rd Street Rosemoor stop, on the other hand, is a “flag stop”—you have to tell your conductor in advance if you want to get off at all. On this platform, there are only a few recycling bins and a stairwell down to street level. As subtle as these disparities are, for Hughes they reflect the preferential treatment given to Pullman’s predominantly white south end. Despite the fact that the Pullman National Monument has boundaries from 103rd to 115th Street, many people assume the historic district starts at 111th. Most of Pullman's white residents live in the southern section, from 111th to 115th. From 103rd to 111th, however, the population is overwhelmingly black. You see, if you keep writing it and writing it and writing it and people keep reading it and reading it and reading it, there is this sense that this must be true. So, I don’t know what the answer is. I just continue to do what I do. Which sometimes makes
HISTORY
people very angry, because I speak truth to power. And that does not always make me popular. There are a lot of people who wish I weren’t here. Because saying things as simple as “the Pullman National Monument is 103rd to 115th,” people would just as soon [prefer] that I not say that, because they would like to continue with the perception that the monument is 111th to 115th. But continuing to tell the story, continuing to reiterate the boundaries, will help. But it is like racism: it dies hard. And it is the institutionalized racism that is the most harmful. It’s like Trump. You know, people are so angry at him for what he says: he’s salacious, he’s mean-spirited, but he’s saying things that many people believe. The enemy is within. You cannot blame him because he has put a voice to the ugliness that is in people who, until he showed up on the scene, internalized it and would not say it in public. Between its small town ambience and its designation as a national monument, Pullman remains a popular tourist destination: recent visitors have included the likes of Mayor Rahm Emanuel and Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan. However, these visits revolve around historic attractions like Hotel Florence and Market Square, and are concentrated almost exclusively between 111th and 115th Street. According to Hughes, “Every person who has affluence—or influence—has been to the south end. And not one of them—not one—has been to the north end of the district.” It’s come a long way, we’ve been here twenty years, twenty-one years, but there’s still so far to go. I was so excited and optimistic, and still am, to a certain degree, about the Pullman National Monument designation. However, I’ve seen enough, experienced enough, to know that it can be a good thing only if politics doesn’t get in and make it messy. And only if the distribution of the resources that are coming down the pipe are accessible to all of Pullman. I see gentrification coming down the track, fast. I do. Because you only need to look at the activity that has taken place. It’s upsetting to see what’s happening to this community. And I’m going to be okay, but it’s upsetting to see what’s happening. I just think Pullman is one of the last places—because this is happening across the country, where communities of African-American people are, [and] the
JASMIN LIANG
communities for one reason or another become valuable, and then they’re not the same community anymore. And that is not to say that improvement should not be done, ought not be done, because it can be done. But this community, like many others across the country, is experiencing what is called cultural economic development. I have been very vocal about the lack of resources coming on this end, but I’m also very aware that when the resources are deposited on one end of the community, that leaves the other half ripe for the picking. So you have investors that are coming in here, buying up everything that’s not nailed down, you have all the attention that is highlighted or focused on the south end, and one or two developers buying everything on the north end and rehabbing the housing. But you see, when that happens, it makes the north end ripe for gentrification. There’s just no other way to say it. The activity that people attempt on the north end is met with opposition or totally ignored, so if you’re not allowed to take a step to make improvements, to stabilize the base
of the black population in the community, then there’s absolutely no way that you can protect yourself from the gentrification train that’s coming down the tracks. Peterson, the museum’s current president, is well aware of Pullman’s changing demographics. What he sees in the next generation of north end locals, however, is an opportunity to reach out. Peterson said that a key part of the museum’s strategy is “incorporating media, social media, just all types of media to reach the next generation.” In recent years, Peterson has led Museum 44, a youth outreach program named after the 44th president, and served as president of the Randolph Street Community Development Corporation, a financial literacy group. The museum has also housed meetings by other community groups—namely, United Pullman, a coalition of different block clubs which Peterson compares to the south end’s Pullman Civic Organization and which Hughes excitedly described as a millennial group. The museum has also shifted to function more broadly as a community center. Peterson
has coordinated bike tours of the north end (“It was amazing. It was like people were waiting for something like this,” Hughes told me) and organized gatherings, concerts, and fundraisers on the museum’s outdoor stage. Thanks to this, the museum operates almost exclusively without grants—Hughes says it has only taken two in the last twenty-one years. “For all practical purposes, we should not be open,” Hughes joked. “But we are!” This cultural institution represents the beacon of hope for real integration. We’ve been the stabilizing factor on the north end of this community for twenty-one years. Were we not here, I’m sure it’d be a whole different ballgame. I’m sure. It is what it is. Pullman has a very complex, complicated history. It has the good, the bad and the ugly. You cannot change history. You cannot. You should not; ought not. But people do. I think one of the fascinating things about Pullman is that it has this complex, unattractive history. But it is real. ¬
NOVEMBER 23, 2016 ¬ SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY 11
MUSIC
Today’s Cure, Tomorrow’s Music
Sitting down with South Side a cappella group The Remedy BY ODUDA MAALI
O
ver the summer, The Remedy, an a capella R&B group of four selftaught singers from the South Side, received some unexpected appreciation when a video of their performance at the Jackson Blue Line station went viral. The group’s members, Jeremy, Karon, Fresh, and Cody, have been performing together for over ten years now and show no signs of slowing down. I had the pleasure of meeting with the group to talk about where they’re going, and how that’s impacted by where— and who—they’ve been. When asked what motivated or inspired them, Jeremy said he was most motivated by “feel-good music” of all kinds—“it inspired me to do more feel-good music.” However, he admits it’s not quite as simple as that: as he spoke, the blaring of police sirens rang, and he offhandedly added that staying away from the police was another potent motivation. We laughed, but the reality of his comment was deeply understood— for Jeremy, involvement in music and performance has been his peace and serenity in an often-violent world. Karon, however, cited his children as his motivation, along with the inspiration that comes from working in a group with the other members. He was also open and honest about how the difficulties in his life push him forward. “The grind and all-out struggle makes me want to push forward,” he said. Fresh, meanwhile, is most motivated by his children, and the thought of anyone who says his children can’t succeed—“the haters and anyone who tries to put them down.” For Fresh, these haters don’t realize the galvanizing effect they have on those they critique. Cody is similarly motivated by his children, but also by God: he cites his
12 SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY
faith as the thing that wakes him up every morning. One unifying motivation for all members has been each other: the group spoke highly of its brotherhood, describing it both as a mechanism of accountability in reaching their goals and as the glue that keeps them together. They live by the words “NO BROTHER LEFT BEHIND.” Although they work on a smaller scale, much like the Temptations, they measure the success of the group by its ability to meet the daily needs of each member, the group’s ultimate goal is to be recognized as one of the R&B greats of its generation. The group sees a huge void in the music industry, one that many artists don’t pay attention to, and they try to fill that void in the type of music that they create—one that focuses on love, because they believe it’s a topic almost anyone can relate to and understand. It is important to The Remedy to be able to create and provide music that the whole family can listen to together. In their view, mainstream songs today are lacking this value, and they look to change that with their music—indeed, they seek to provide “the remedy” for a generation of music listeners. The group performs music from a range of genres, ranging from R&B to country to rap. Across these genres, what unifies their performances is the importance they place on audience experience and enjoyment. This means that each one is tailored for that particular audience. Performances for large public crowds, for example, usually include covers of past and present Top 40 selections, while a performance for seniors might include legendary R&B and soul classics. It’s clear that while the members of The Remedy are thankful for and proud of
¬ NOVEMBER 23, 2016
TURTEL ONLI
their accomplishments, they are also looking to reach higher. Cody wants to have the group’s music heard by millions, and “to keep pushing until I fulfill my dreams [but] continue to be humble about it.” Such a moment might be starting to arrive. Since the video filmed at the Jackson Blue Line Station went viral—reaching over thirty million views, according to DNAinfo— the group has connected to fans all over the world; many of these fans have created fan pages and groups on the internet to show their support. As a result, the group is planning to do some travel in the near future: they say they will be traveling to New
York later this year and to Germany in 2017. The group focused the final words of our conversation on a message for young children and upcoming artists (just like they were, not too long ago): “Don’t get caught dreaming, make your dream a reality.” And in a nod to the strength of their own dynamic as a brotherhood: “Be careful who you hang around and the company you keep. It is a reflection of you.” ¬ The best way to reach The Remedy is theofficialremedy@gmail.com; they can also be reached on Twitter at @theofficialremedy
COLUMN
Notes from the White Rhino Teaching Trump, to my children and students
Ray Salazar My head was spinning at 12:30am when I knew the unexpected would happen. The last thing I typed before I went to bed around 2am was the first thing I would say to my eleven-year-old son and my eight-year-old daughter when they awoke: WE are not Trump. WE do not believe or do what he does. WE are good people who help others. Simple words. Simple sentences. I hugged them tightly and whispered in their ears. And when they went off to school, I told them what I always tell them: Be bold and be kind. My daughter’s flamenco teacher wrote that even though she didn’t feel like dancing yesterday, she challenged herself “to focus on one movement at a time.” Those of us who are directly responsible for teaching or raising children and young adults need to follow this advice. We need to show the kids and teens looking to us for some insight that we might not have that…we keep going, keep doing what we’ve always done, one movement at time. I’m disappointed but not distraught. I’m angry but not wrathful. I’m uneasy with what happens next, but I won’t become disillusioned or complacent. I will continue to surround my children with people who do not think and act like Donald Trump. But I’ll make sure my children know the people who do act and think like Trump exist in the world—but they are not our world. I know children and teens who might have bigger worries about deportation or violence. All I could
guarantee to my students, whose minds were certainly on this, was that here, you will always have a safe space. That seemed to make a difference yesterday. In class, we did what we always do: think, write, converse, and listen to each other. And we joked and laughed. With my children, I will take the same precautions I’ve always taken. And I will take them on the same car rides and trips, and we will take turns selecting music, and we will have the same conversations and disagreements. And I will do what I’ve always done. I will help them deliver on the promise I whispered into their tiny ears minutes after they were born: “Welcome to the world, little one. Here you will use your intellect to help lots and lots of people.” When I left school on Election Day, my plan for the following day was to have students examine a few of the Clinton campaign political ads and Saturday Night Live political satire. I wanted them to examine the rhetorical approaches that contributed to Clinton’s win. That’s what I thought would happen. But at 12:26am, it looked like Trump would be our new president. My lesson plan had to, unfortunately, change. I could just ignore what happened. But my students would know I was avoiding it. Avoiding it would have made our classroom climate tense: we always examine the rhetoric of important current events. So I established a goal: to make sure students who don’t feel validated by the outcome still feel their perspectives are valid. Whenever something controversial happens, I ground our conversation in a primary text. That Wednesday, I decided there would be two: Trump’s victory speech and Clinton’s concession speech. My students would decide and argue if the rhetorical approaches in each speech worked or not. Somewhere in there, they would need to use the complex sentences structures and vocabulary we’ve studied. Whatever emotions they were feeling would naturally come through in the analysis. But when I checked news updates minutes before the first bell rang, it was clear that Hillary Clinton would not give her concession speech until about 10am. Oh, great, I thought. I needed that speech. So my first period that day examined Trump’s victory speech briefly. Then, if they chose to, they could continue a deeper analysis or select a classic speech by Bobby Kennedy after Martin Luther King, Jr.’s assassination, or Obama’s 2004 Democratic National Convention speech. No student chose Trump’s speech. During my second class, students watched Clinton’s concession speech live. My senior students sat silent,
mesmerized. They chose to write a reflection piece about her rhetoric. All of them found that the speech’s purpose— to accept the result and respect the presidency—was achieved. It wasn’t until my last class of the day that we carried out the lesson like I envisioned it: students examined and evaluated Trump’s victory speech, then Clinton’s concession. Like the long election season, that day, only two weeks ago, is a blur. My classes have moved on without any mention of the election or the consequences all over social media. If my students don’t bring it up, we stay in research-paper writing mode. We still think, and write, and laugh, and talk. My commitment after this election is, as it always has been, to ensure that I protect the safety that I have always worked to protect in my classrooms for twenty-one years. The racism, sexism, and xenophobia the Trump campaign promoted will never have a place in my classroom. It should not have a place in any school. That’s not being political in the classroom, that’s being a good teacher. I have it good, though. My students generally recognize abusive, offensive language and behavior when they see it. Trump was not a popular candidate at my school. But I will still emphasize that just because Trump won by doing what he did does not mean that his sexist, racist, xenophobic behavior is acceptable. That’s what I want my students to know. I tell my students many times each year that it’s okay to say, “I don’t know.” I don’t know what’s going to happen with Trump as president. It’s frightening. But I’ve learned to focus on what I can control. What I can do as a teacher is help students develop the academic skills and the self-confidence to speak up when they see injustice. And to steer away from ignorance when it’s simply not worth it. We’re working on our research papers now, which they will—whether they like it or not—finish in a couple of weeks. The first step is to interview someone about an issue they’ll explore at length in their essay. As all good writers do, my students will find an agent, a person, to ground their writing in as they combine facts, stats, quotes, and their own ideas. I want them to remember there is always a human element to rhetoric. This is life in English class, with my 120 or so juniors and seniors, on Chicago’s Southwest Side. Somehow, I hope, this writing will help my students, and me, move forward in these incredibly uncertain times.
NOVEMBER 23, 2016 ¬ SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY 13
EVENTS
BULLETIN A Pie In The Sky: A VIP Bake Sale Absolutely Anything Essential Gift Shop, 3521 S. King Dr. Saturday, November 26, 9am– 3pm. VIP breakfast 9am–10am, four hour-long unlimited tasting sessions starting 10am. $20 for VIP breakfast and one tasting session, $15 for one tasting session. (773) 406-7663. bit.ly/ pie-in-the-sky How many desserts can you eat in an hour? Taste cakes, pies, doughnuts, and more from local dessert masters at this exclusive bake sale event. Find your new favorite treat and place your holiday orders while benefitting the FAM Entertainment Theater Company, which empowers young women and girls through the creative arts. (Emily Lipstein)
Shop Small Business Saturday in Bronzeville Absolutely Anything Essential Gift Shop, 3521 S. King Dr. Saturday, November 26, 9am–6pm. Free entry. (773) 406-7663. absolutelyanythingessential.com Love thy small businesses as you do your big-box stores. Indulge in a post-Black Friday shopping spree at the Absolutely Anything Essential Gift Shop to support a group of local, small business pop-up vendors. There will also be raffles to win and crafting tables for making to supplement your buying. ( Jonathan Hogeback)
Chicago Latino Chess Championship Rudy Lozano Branch, Chicago Public Library, 1805 S. Loomis St. Saturday, November 26, 9:15am–4pm. Free. (312) 746-4329. bit.ly/chi-latino-chess It’s a battle of wits for all age levels at the Lozano Branch of the Chicago Public Library for the 24th Chicago Latino Chess Championship. Join the one hundred contestants as they compete for top-score and checkmate in both Open and Junior divisions, and explore a little of Pilsen while you’re in the neighborhood. ( Jonathan Hogeback)
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America’s #1 Problem: Low Wages
Mercado Navideño (Christmas Market)
Overflow Coffee Bar, 1550 S. State St. Tuesday, November 29, 6:15pm–8:15pm. Free. Register at bit.ly/henry-george-wages. (312) 450-2906. hgchicago.org
National Museum of Mexican Art, 1852 W. 19th St. Friday, November 25 through Sunday, November 27, 10am–4pm. Free. (312) 7381503. nationalmuseumofmexicanart.org
The Henry George School of Chicago—a nationwide organization focused on educating people about political economy— will take a stab at the twin questions of why, since the 1970s, wages have not risen as quickly as productivity, and what can be done to solve this problem. (Christian Belanger)
After you finish packing away the leftover turkey, stop by the National Museum of Mexican Art’s holiday market. Vendors selling everything from tree ornaments to t-shirts are setting up shop to start the season right. (Corinne Butta)
Bronzeville SOUP
Elephant Room Gallery Bridgeport, 2727 S. Mary St. Through January 7, by appointment. (312) 361-0281. elephantroomgallery.com
Bronzeville Incubator, 300 E. 51st St. Saturday, December 3, 4pm–7pm. $5 donation for soup, salad, bread, and a vote. Register at bit.ly/bronzeville-soup. (773) 285-5002. thebronzevilleincubator.com At Bronzeville SOUP—an idea transplanted from Detroit—attendees donate five dollars at the door for a meal (bread, salad, and, shockingly, soup), and local entrepreneurs working on community projects present a set of pitches. After the pitches are finished, diners vote for their favorite: the winner gets the pot of cash at the door. (Christian Belanger)
VISUAL ARTS Panel Discussion: Lauren Ash, Stephen Flemister, and Yaw Agyeman UofC Center for the Study of Race, Politics, and Culture, 5733 S. University Ave., community room. Monday, November 28, 6pm–7pm. Free. RSVP at bit.ly/csrpc-artists. (773) 702-8063. csrpc.uchicago.edu Meet the newest artists-in-residence at the UofC’s Center for the Study of Race, Politics, and Culture—Lauren Ash of lifestyle brand Black Girl In Om, interdisciplinary artist Stephen Flemister, and theatrical and musical performer Yaw Agyeman (known as YAW). (Hafsa Razi)
¬ NOVEMBER 23, 2016
BIG Small Works
Join artists Hannah Lin, Steve Tritt, Raul Ortiz, and more in this special holiday exhibition at Elephant Room Gallery’s Bridgeport outpost. All works are 30x30” or under—a perfect size, the press release says, for a present. (Corinne Butta)
Bunraku-Style Puppetry Workshop High Concept Labs at MANA Contemporary, 2233 S. Throop St. Wednesday, December 14, 7pm–9:30pm. $15, materials included. (312) 850-0555. highconceptlaboratories.org Puppet designer Tom Lee will lead a workshop on the process of making and manipulating puppets. Lee’s work incorporates projection, shadow, and other aspects of set design. Hands-on experience and a new perspective towards puppetry are to be expected from this workshop. (Sicely Li)
MUSIC Conor Oberst Thalia Hall, 1807 S. Allport St. Sunday, November 27, doors 7pm, show 8pm. $40. 17+. (312) 526-3851. thaliahallchicago.com Known to countless twenty-somethings as the folk singer who brought emo into the mandolin-picking mainstream, Conor Oberst is at it again with a Thalia Hall show in promotion of his new album Ruminations. Opener MiWi La Lupa shares with Oberst a ruminative mindset and instrumentation steeped in Americana. (Neal Jochmann)
Terry Jazz Night Punch House, 1227 W. 18th St. Tuesday, November 29, 9pm–2am. Free. 21+. (312) 526-3851. punchhousechicago.com To those prone to deep digging for music online, internet radio station Terry Radio might already be a known quantity, if also infinitely unknowable: segments like “TSA Lounge with the Baggage Boys” tend to both baffle the mind and mystify the ears. Now they’re bringing their jazz selections to Punch House, for a night that’s sure to do the same in person. (Austin Brown)
Alternate Flow, Ex Okays, and More Reggies Record Breakers, 2105 S. State St. Saturday, November 26, 6pm. Free. All ages. (312) 949-0120. reggieslive.com Chicago garage rockers swing through the Reggies record store this Saturday to rock the house and bring some of their raw power to the venue. It’s more punky and less kvlt than the usual Reggies rock group, but no matter—it’ll rattle the walls regardless. (Austin Brown)
Chosen Few DJs Present Sauers Reunion The Promontory, 5311 S. Lake Park Ave. Thursday, November 24, 8pm. $10 adv. 21+. (312) 801-2100. promontorychicago.com Decades ago, in the early years of Chicago house, a restaurant on 23rd Street called Sauer’s used to be converted in the late night to a dance hall for massive house parties. Now Chicago house vets The Chosen Few are organizing a reunion party at the Promontory this Thanksgiving, out of gratitude for a tradition Frankie Knuckles began. (Austin Brown)
STAGE & SCREEN Daughters of the Dust Gene Siskel Film Center, 164 N. State St. Friday, November 25–Thursday, December 1, various times, except Tuesday, November 29. $11, $6 for members. (312) 846-2800. siskelfilmcenter.org The first film directed by an AfricanAmerican woman to receive theatrical distribution in the U.S. debuted just twenty-five years ago. This may be a rather dishearteningly short time span, but with it comes heartening news: for its twenty-fifth anniversary, this film of “spellbinding visual beauty” has received a full restoration, now stopping in Chicago. ( Julia Aizuss)
In the Game Kartemquin Films. Friday, November 25, 5pm–Thursday, December 1. Free. watch.kartemquin.com Though just a year old, this documentary about the girls’ soccer team at Kelly High School in Brighton Park may already have many Chicago fans after being part of CPL’s One Book, One Chicago programming last year. If you didn’t catch it then, make some time for it during this week’s round in Kartemquin’s fiftieth anniversary screening series. ( Julia Aizuss)
Mordine & Co. in the Parks: COLLISIONS Washington Park, 5531 S. Martin Luther King Dr. Thursday, December 1, 7pm. Free. (847) 687-3782. mordine.org Since this is a contemporary dance company we’re talking about, Mordine & Company Dance Theater’s "COLLISIONS" might even be literal; if you make it to Mordine’s last public park performance this fall, you’ll find out exactly how the project choregraphs “ideas of immediate impact: tensions between generations, cultures, and climatic changes.” ( Julia Aizuss)
RE/NIGHT/LIVE/MARE: Parts 4&1 ACRE TV. Part 4: Tuesday, November 22–Monday, November 28; Part 1: Tuesday, November 29–Monday, December 5. acretv.org ACRE TV’s latest project might now be a little too timely: this diverse four-part multitude of twice-airing video art first and foremost “re-considers your nightmares.” This week, you can catch the daydreams, fantasies, and horrors reworked in the first airing of Part 4 (MARE) and the second airing of Part 1 (RE). ( Julia Aizuss)
Electra Court Theatre, 5535 S. Ellis Ave. Through Sunday, December 11. $58, discounts available for seniors, faculty, and students. (773) 753-4472. courttheatre.org What can you expect from family drama? In the case of the third and final chapter of Court’s Greek Cycle, a story in which “even justice can bring destruction.” In Sophocles’ play, Nicholas Rudall’s translation, and under Seret Scott’s direction, Electra and her brother Orestes scheme to avenge their father Agamemnon’s murder. (Daniel Mays)
In De’ Beginnin’ eta Creative Arts, 7558 S. South Chicago Ave. Through Saturday, December 24. $40, discounts for students and seniors. (773) 7523955. etacreativearts.org Oscar Brown Jr.’s funky musical, based on the Book of Genesis, is eta Creative Arts’ holiday entertainment offering for families. Brown was a multitalented artist, civil rights activist, and humanitarian; his daughter Maggie Brown will take on musical direction for this production, which eta calls a “tribute” to one of “Chicago’s greatest artists.” ( Joseph S. Pete)
THE PUBLIC NEWSROOM UPCOMING EVENTS Thursday, November 24 Closed for Thanksiving Thursday, December 1 2pm–8pm: Public Newsroom is open 6pm: Workshop on Music Journalism led by Leor Galil of the Chicago Reader Thursday, December 8 2pm–8pm: Public Newsroom is open CITYBUREAU.ORG/PUBLICNEWSROOM THE EXPERIMENTAL STATION 6100 S. BLACKSTONE AVE
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WHAT’S MISSING IN YOUR ’HOOD? TEXT “SSW” TO
312-697-1791 Then tell us what you want to see in your community. This is a public engagement project from City Bureau, Chicago’s civic journalism lab based in Woodlawn. NOVEMBER 23, 2016 ¬ SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY 15