AUBURN GRESHAM & CHATHAM Compiled by Martha Bayne Neighborhood Captain
PHOTO BY NABEELA WASHINGTON
Since his eight-year-old daughter turned him on to TikTok last year, it’s been a ride for Sherman “Dilla” Thomas, aka the Urban Historian. Not only has he been producing his signature, wildly popular videos about bites of Chicago history, he’s leading Chicago neighborhood tours, fielding media requests, and trying to open a museum, all while holding down his day job at ComEd and raising eight kids. We caught up with the Auburn Gresham native, who lives just three blocks from his childhood home, to get his take on what makes the neighborhood great.
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’ve been here my whole life. I grew up right on 81st and Throop St. I attended John W. Cook school, which is on Bishop, went to Calumet High School, which is on 81st and May, and then went away to college at Eastern Illinois University. When we came back, I bounced around a little bit, but when it was time to buy a house, I just really wanted to anchor where I grew up. Despite what the news says, Auburn Gresham is a really great place. Growing up it was good and bad. In the late eighties and nineties we had a real bad gang problem. So, you needed to navigate that, you know, it was very serious— you had to be aware of what block you were on. But then also there was a lot of programs left, I guess, that hadn't necessarily been cut yet. So I played Little League baseball. I was a junior lifeguard. I eventually became a Park District lifeguard. So all that was awesome. Cook School had this program called Principal’s Scholars, and I got to take high school classes in seventh and eighth grade. So that put me on the bus, and that was also awesome. It was like a great way to learn the city and learn different neighborhoods. Today, I don't think the kids play outside as much as we did. My teenage boys, I always make them take a younger sibling with them when they want to go to the store or something. Because my thirteen-year-old looks like he's sixteen, you know? I don't want him to be misidentified as somebody’s gang target. But we also are learning 6 SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY
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to engage people too. I mean, we go on really long walks around here. When we see people, we say “hi,” and I introduce myself, I introduce my kids, and like, half-heartedly jokingly look for the toughest-looking group to say like, ‘Hey there, these are my kids. They're not involved in anything. So you see them, you know, don't shoot, you know what I mean?’ [People are starting to know who I am], especially here in the neighborhood. That's cool. But the other part about it is, I'm one of the few kids that, like, grew up and didn't get a felony, and went away to school and all that. And so even the people who got caught up in some of the neighborhood trappings are happy to see me. Even before TikTok, I was kind of like this Auburn Gresham success story, right? The guy who, you know, you see the ComEd truck outside and say hey, that type of stuff. What’s your favorite bit of neighborhood history? Did you know the modern-day St. Patrick's Day parade started in Auburn Gresham? Up until the 1950s, there was no every-year parade. Sometimes there will be a parade, sometimes not, but it wasn't a unified parade until Captain Hennessey, who was a very proud Irishman out of the Auburn Gresham police district on 84th and Green, and St. Sabina church decided that they needed a yearly St Patrick's Day parade. And so they started it on 79th and Ashland, and they marched down 79th Street. And when Richard J. Daley found out how famous and how popular it was, he came over here and he said, if I ever become mayor, I’m going to move the parade downtown. And you know, of course he did. But it started right here. And the great Kirby Puckett, Hall of Fame baseball player, he played at Calumet High School. And Chaka Khan, when she turned the corner to start singing she
