September 20 - 26, 2023

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Arts & Entertainment Event highlights of the week!

SportsWise

The SportsWise team discusses college football.

Cover Story: Mahalia Jackson

Mahalia Jackson had a voice that comes around once in a millennium, as Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. used to say. Born in New Orleans, Jackson moved to Chicago and popularized gospel music around the world. It was Jackson who, sitting behind Dr. King during the March on Washington, whispered to him, and inspired his famous, "I Have a Dream" speech. Mahalia Jackson Court opened last year near her former Chicago home.

Columnists Kenan Heise and A. Allen describe what the March and the speech mean to them. Heise was there 60 years ago. Vendor Allen notes that the March was on the anniversary of Emmett Till's murder in Mississippi.

From the Streets

Pawnshops have evaded the Predatory Loan Protection Act, thanks to a loophole, which a coalition led by the Woodstock Institute seeks to close in the coming Illinois General Assembly. Nearly half of predatory loans – as high as 297 percent annually – went to people making less than $30,000 a year.

The Playground

ON THE COVER: Mahalia Jackson "Silent Night" cover art, re-issued in 2022 (original photograph from 1962 by Carl Van Vechten, courtesy of the Library of Congress). THIS PAGE: Mahalia Jackson, right, with pianist Mildred Falls in Chicago circa 1954 (Photo courtesy the William Russell Jazz Collection at The Historic New Orleans Collection, acquisition made possible by the Clarisse Claiborne Grima Fund).

DISCLAIMER: The views, opinions, positions or strategies expressed by the authors and those providing comments are theirs alone, and do not necessarily reflect the views, opinions, or positions of StreetWise.

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ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT RECOMMENDATIONS

Chicago Musicians Together!

Chicago LIVE!

Grammy winner and Blues and Rock ‘n’ Roll Hall of Famer Mavis Staples (pictured) headlines a weekend of back-to-back performances on three stages by artists from all of Chicago’s 77 neighborhoods. Every artistic genre will be represented: music, dance, theatre, spoken word, improv, vocal performance and more. Joining more than 40 returnees, Staples is among 25 new performers: Aerial Dance Chicago, Aloha Chicago, Melody Angel, Ballet Folklorico Sones Mexicanos, and many more. “The cultural sector in Chicago is a multi-billion-dollar industry,” said Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events (DCASE) Comm. Erin Harkey. “Navy Pier’s Chicago Live! event uplifts the diversity of talent on our stages, builds new audiences, and employs hundreds of working Chicago artists.” Navy Pier seeks to become Chicago’s cultural hub, “which is especially important right now, as Chicago’s theater community—one of the proud pillars of our international reputation–continues to rebuild in the wake of the pandemic,” said Pritzker Foundation Trustee Penny Pritzker, a sponsor. FREE. Noon - 9 p.m. Saturday, noon - 6 p.m. Sunday at Navy Pier, 600 E. Grand Ave. Full schedule at navypier.org

A Bunch of Treble Makers!

Hyde Park Jazz Festival

Chicago’s upbeat jazz scene will be prominently featured for two days during the 17th annual festival dedicated to Chicago’s most critically acclaimed artists as well as nationally and internationally recognized talents. Described as a “near-perfect marriage of music and setting” by Chicago Magazine and voted Best Event of the Year 2021 by TimeOut Magazine, the Hyde Park Jazz Festival is the essence of a first class festival. Presented on 14 stages across Hyde Park, this remarkable two-day free festival showcases collaboration between academic, cultural and community institutions, and local businesses, to present over 30 artists in a variety of settings throughout the Hyde Park neighborhood. Over 20,000 jazz fans and enthusiasts will gather at the event to enjoy more than 18 hours of free, nonstop jazz performances. Suggested donation of $10 at S. Woodlawn Ave. & Midway Plaisance.

The Hero in All of Us!

'Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse’ Live in Concert

Featuring a soundtrack that blends symphonic orchestral music with hip-hop, "Spider-Man: Into The Spider-Verse, Live in Concert" pairs a screening of the Academy Award®-winning animated film with live musicians and turntables featuring a DJ scratcher live on stage. Emmy® winner Daniel Pemberton composed a sprawling score of boundary-pushing original music that is complemented with song contributions by Post Malone, Lil Wayne, Jaden Smith, and Nicki Minaj. The hip-hop based score results in a sonic universe that is woven throughout the fabric of the film, supporting its themes of resilience and universal heroism. 7 p.m., September 23, at Cadillac Palace Theatre, 151 W. Randolph St. Tickets start at $32 at www.broadwayinchicago.com/show/ spider-verse-in-concert/

Aloha Chicago!

Chicago Plays for Maui!: A benefit concert

Native Hawaiian and Native American community artists and Friends of Aloha Plays For Maui! A curated story-filled journey of songs, chants, and hula, bridging Maui to Chicago. Led by performing artists Lanialoha & Aloha Lives, William Buchholtz, Mark Jourdan, and more! Ticket proceeds will go to the Pray for Maui fundraiser organized by Dianne Antonio through Go Fund Me. Dianne and her husband Nate own Da Local Boy LLC, one of Chicagoland's new additions to our local island eateries. 8 p.m., September 22 at Old Town School of Folk Music, 4544 N. Lincoln Ave. Tickets are $25 at oldtownschool.org

Compiled by Dave Hamilton & Kyra Walker

Smooth Talk!

Herman’s Lounge: A Night of Rhythm and Prose

On September 21, from 6 - 8 p.m., the Poetry Foundation, 61 W. Superior St., transforms into Herman’s Lounge, a one-night-only jazz cabaret named in honor of the magician Black Herman. Dee Alexander (with John McLean), Ben LaMar Gay, keiyaA, and Gabrielle Octavia Rucker will interweave Chicago’s unique relationship to improv, poetry, and jazz. Co-curated by Jared Brown, Janelle Ayana Miller, and Noa Fields. FREE.

An Unlikely Bond!

‘Massage Therapy’

Open Space Arts presents a “Micro-theater” presentation of a two-character play. Over the course of one year, a gay massage therapist and his female client grow to form an unusually strong bond. At first skeptical of each other, the two develop trust, and come to treasure their time together. W hen the client needs extraordinary support from the therapist, their bond is put to a huge test. This serious drama also provides surprises, and lots of humor. Performances on September 20, 23, 24, 27, 29, 30 & October 1 at 7:30 p.m. at Open Space Arts, 1411 W. Wilson Ave. Only 20 patrons admitted per performance. General admission is $25, seniors and students $20 at openspacearts.com

A Whole New World!

World Music Festival

Featuring 10 consecutive days of live, global music, World Music Festival returns September 22-October 1 across Chicago. The festival includes 34 bands with three DJs, representing 22 countries. For its 23rd year of programming, the festival features performances in 11 indoor and outdoor venues across Chicago. FREE. Information on lineup at chicago.gov

Gerald Arpino Centennial

Dancing the Night Away!

Enjoy stunning performances featuring ballet companies from across the country, September 23-24 at the Auditorium Theatre, 50 E. Ida B Wells Drive. These performances feature two unique programs each day, and ballet companies from across the country such as the Joffrey Ballet, San Francisco Ballet, Oklahoma City Ballet, and more. Gerald Alpino (1923-2008) was a visionary, who worked alongside Robert Joffrey to create a ballet company and a body of work that has made a singular and enduring impact on American ballet. Tickets $72+ on auditoriumtheatre.org

It Will Have You Reeling!

Reeling Film Festival

Celebratory space for a community often misrepresented and ignored by mainstream film and television. Opening the fest is "The Mattachine Family": a loving gay couple find they have different ideas about what making a family means after their first foster child returns to his birth mother. Tickets $12-$40. Venues include Landmark Century Centre Cinema, 2828 N. Clark St. and Chicago Filmmakers, 1326 W. Hollywood Ave., with streaming starting September 29. reelingfilmfest.org

Salute the Shorts!

Aladerri International Film Festival

Aladerri International Film Festival (AIFF) is an IMDB Award Listing Qualifier dedicated to the celebration of "short films" with a multi-day event supporting filmmakers and giving an opportunity to showcase their work in an effort to bring inspiring and impactful voices forward. The festival will screen all films accepted into “Official Selection” in front of a live audience with the opportunity to have a Q&A session with on-site filmmakers September 22 – 24 at Facets Cinema, 1517 W. Fullerton Ave. Visit aladerrifilmfestival.com for a full schedule and tickets, which start at $10 per showing.

College Football Playoffs

John: Today we’re talking about the college football playoffs. Who do we believe will make it? There are three teams that could have a say in who wins the national title. We’ll begin with Notre Dame, which hasn’t won since 1988. They have a quarterback, Sam Hartman. Plus, they have a dominant offensive and defensive line.

Donald: I see Notre Dame as a team that fights back and they will make it back. Notre Dame’s outlook for 2023? Well, let's just see how they react in the first game. What they’ll do after, I really couldn't say.

John: Now, Ohio State is one team that has lost their quarterback C.J. Stroud. That leaves Kyle McCord for the starting job. After that, Ohio State is very strong in all other positions. Especially wide receivers Marvin Harrison Jr. and Cornell Tate.

Donald: Ohio State had a real good snap-quarterback that could really let that ball go. There's gonna be a lot of running and a lot of interceptions and a lot of touch-and-go going on. And also I'm looking at Ohio State really giving Michigan a run for their money. Hopefully, they'll maintain it and win.

John: Okay, now if both Ohio State and Michigan run the table, or if they both have one loss, could the loser still qualify for the playoffs?

Donald: I don't believe so. I believe they most likely will stop right there. But Michigan has explosive playmakers. They’re going to have to try to pull it together, I hope they can. Michigan is going to be the contender to beat, it looks like to me. They got skilled players like JJ McCarthy (QB), Roman Wilson (WR) and Blake Corum (RB).

John: All three of them put up great numbers. McCarthy last year had 22 touchdowns and five picks. Wilson had 25 receptions for 376 yards and four touchdown receptions. And Corum, before he got hurt last year, had 247 attempts, 1462 yards, and 18 rushing touchdowns. Now, I am concerned for Michigan's game on November 11 against Penn State. If they win, I think they can run a table when they play Ohio State.

Donald: They most likely will have plays that are gonna put them in position. They're gonna do a lot of shifting, changing up and doing hidden maneuvers. We'll see a lot of that going on.

John: We have to mention Georgia. They’re unique in that they’re attempting to become the first college football team to complete a threepeat since the Minnesota Gophers back in 1934-1936. What opinion do you have

about Georgia?

Donald: For Georgia and the rest of the SEC, there's gonna be a lot of changes. And basically, Georgia is going to be on top of those changes. Let's look for them to stay in the winning. Always winning more games and leaving the competition short. Losers don't like to lose. A lot of them are gonna be straight-up jealous of Georgia. But Georgia has all the factors. They have all the right guys in place.

Any comments, suggestions or topic ideas for the SportsWise team? Email StreetWise Editor Suzanne Hanney at suzannestreetwise@yahoo.com

Vendors (l-r) Donald Morris and John Hagan chat about the world of sports.

Gospel singer MAHALIA JACKSON made a suggestion Washington - and it changed a good speech to

by Bev-Freda Jackson

Every now and then, a voice can matter. Mahalia Jackson had one of them.

Known around the world as the “Queen of Gospel,” Jackson used her powerful voice to work in the Civil Rights Movement. Starting in the 1950s, she traveled with Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. throughout the South and heard him preach in Black churches about a vision that only he could see.

But on Aug. 28, 1963, on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, something didn’t quite sound right to Jackson as she listened to King deliver his prepared speech. King was reading from his prepared remarks when she made a simple suggestion.

“Tell them about the dream, Martin,” she urged King, “tell them about the dream.”

Inspired, King cast aside his prepared remarks and ad-libbed from his heart. For the estimated 250,000 who joined the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom that day, they heard King deliver one of his seminal sermons.

“I have a dream,” King preached, “that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.”

Though most memorable, King’s voice wasn’t the only one that day 60 years ago. The other voice, the one King listened to and heeded, belonged to Mahalia Jackson.

“A voice like hers comes along once in a millennium,” King once said.

An international phenomenon

Born on Oct. 26, 1911, in New Orleans, Jackson had a contralto voice that first won fame as a gospel singer in the choir at Greater Salem Baptist Church on Chicago’s South Side during the 1940s.

Among her earliest hit recordings were “I Can Put My Trust in Jesus,” “In the Upper Room,” “He’s Got the Whole World in His Hands,” “Move On Up A Little Higher” and “Even Me.”

Before long, Jackson was appearing in major concert venues in the U.S. and Europe. In 1956, she was the first gospel singer to perform at Carnegie Hall. In 1961, Jackson sang at the inauguration of President John F. Kennedy. The popular “Ed Sullivan Show” made Jackson a household name by frequently asking her to perform.

But international fame did not make Jackson forget her religious upbringing and commitment to fight for equal rights.

In “As the Spirit Moves Mahalia,” prominent Black writer Ralph Ellison wrote about the meaning of Jackson’s voice.

“The true function of her singing is not simply to entertain,” he explained, “but to prepare the congregation for the minister’s message, to make it receptive to the spirit, and with effects

suggestion during the 1963 March on to a majestic sermon on an American Dream

of voice and rhythm to evoke a shared community of experience.”

Ellison further wrote that Jackson was “not primarily a concert singer but a high priestess in the religious ceremony of her church.”

Mahalia and Martin

Jackson and King first met at the National Baptist Convention in Alabama in 1956. King asked her if she could support his work there by singing and inspiring civil rights activists during the 381-day Montgomery Bus Boycott.

From there, she became the first woman to serve on the board of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, a prominent civil rights group led by King, and became one of King’s most trusted advisers. In a 1962 press release, King wrote that Jackson “has appeared on numerous programs that helped

the struggle in the South, but now she has indicated that she wants to be involved on a regular basis.”

She shared his vision for breaking down the barriers of segregation and fighting for equitable treatment for African Americans. In her own right, Jackson became a visible fixture within the Civil Rights Movement.

Jackson died in 1972 at the age of 60.

To watch videos of Mahalia Jackson singing on the Ed Sullivan Show and at the March on Washington, you can visit blackmusicscholar.com/mahalia-jackson-story

Bev-Freda Jackson is Adjunct professor of Justice, Law and Criminology at the American University School of Public Affairs. Courtesy of The Conversation.

Left: Martin Luther King Jr. (bottom right) listens to gospel singer Mahalia Jackson during the March on Washington on Aug. 28, 1963

(Bob Parent photo) Right: Mahalia Jackson performing in Copenhagen, Denmark, in April 1961 (Lennart Steen/JP Jazz Archive photo).

The Day I Was Given A Dream By Being at The March on Washington

by Kenan Heise

I well recall being a participant in the 1963 March on Washington. Labor leader A. Philip Randolph conceived the march, coordinated by Bayard Rustin, which called for an end to segregation as well as fair wages, voting rights and overdue civil rights. The march was on August 28, the eighth anniversary of the brutal lynching of African American teenager, Emmett Till.

The 14-year-old boy had been dragged from his bed in the middle of the night, brutally tortured, and lynched for the alleged act of whistling at a white woman. A few months later, Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat in the whites-only section of a Montgomery, AL bus, and was arrested for violating the city’s segregation laws, which prompted a boycott that elevated the presence of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Parks later told Till’s mother that she thought of him at the moment she remained seated.

King, in turn, had evoked “the crying voice of a little Emmett C. Till, screaming from the rushing waters in Mississippi” in a 1963 Mother’s Day sermon.

I marched that day in 1963 with thousands of others in sorrow for him more than out of any pride for what we were doing. I feel it still today, as I am certain others who were also on the march do.

Emmett Till tragically represented then, as he does today, the cruelty and brutality that so many whites in the South have expressed toward blacks as well as their children.

There had been various calls for acts and expressions of justice, but the March on Washington was among the most urgent. Among the thousands who marched were senators and members of the House of Representatives, priests, nuns, ministers and rabbis.

Mainly, however, there was the sea of people joined together and marching toward the Lincoln Memorial, people who drove, rode on buses or even hitchhiked to get there.

To me it was our nation at its best and I was proud to be there, as I am today in recalling it.

My late brother, Paul, who was living in Washington at the time, brought a heartened smile to my face by joining me in the march.

I feel goose pimples in recalling the details of that day. Paul and I were going to leave early to avoid the crowd, but were stopped cold in our retreat when we heard the words that still

ring in my ears. That clarion voice of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. carried through the loudspeakers and was forever etched in history as he called out:

“I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal.

“I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia, the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slaveowners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood.

“I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a state sweltering with the heat of injustice, sweltering with the heat of oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice.

“I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.”

Had you been there that day, you too would have been stopped in your tracks, indifferent to the heat of the day, the enormity of the marchers, and time would have stood still for you.

Today, that dream has yet to be fulfilled; but by reading this recollection, you too share in Dr. King’s vision and I feel honored to be recalling it for you.

Kenan Heise worked as a Chicago Tribune journalist for over 30 years: as editor of the Action Line column, and for 18 years, as editor of the Obituary page, where he expanded inclusion of women and African Americans. He is the author of over 30 books, principally on Chicago history and the plight of the poor; along with plays and novels.

Mahalia Jackson Court

Mahalia Jackson Court opened Sept. 2, 2022 at 1 E. 79th St. (State and 79th), across the street from the CTA Red Line station at 79th Street. The new public plaza is a placemaking amenity for the community operated by the Greater Chatham Initiative (GCI). In addition to an exhibition hall memorializing the woman who inspired Dr. King’s "I Have A Dream" speech and brought gospel music to millions around the world, there’s space for food trucks and outdoor events, the first step in the 79th Street Cultural District.

Mahalia Jackson Court is within a mile of the single-story ranch home Jackson bought at 8358 S. Indiana Ave. in 1956.

According to Block Club, the Greater Chatham Initiative (GCI) received $500,000 in April 2022 from the Chicago Department of Planning and Development to build the plaza on land owned by the Carter Temple CME Church. Nedra Sims Fears, GCI executive director, said phase two will include a café and entertainment facility with a stage where artists can perform.

A $50,000 grant from the Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events (DCASE) will help local artist Gerald Griffin build a 15-foot bronze statue dedicated to Jackson. A smaller bronze sample of the piece is on display at the plaza.

Mahalia Jackson Court is open 7 a.m.-7 p.m. Monday through Friday; 9 a.m.-5 p.m. Saturday and noon-5 p.m. Sunday. More information on using the space or volunteering to maintain it, is available at info@greaterchathaminitative.org or 773.644.1451.

-Suzanne Hanney, from online sources 79th Street Cultural District photo

Martin Luther King Jr. in Washington, August 1963 (Creative Commons photo).

Vendor A. Allen: EMMETT TILL, the start of the Movement & forgiveness from Rev. Wheeler Parker

by A. Allen

The story of Emmett Till is one of brutal violence and the murder of an African American boy who was abducted, tortured, lynched, mutilated and shot in the head, in Mississippi, on Aug. 28, 1955, at age 14, after being accused of offending Carolyn Bryant by flirting, touching and whistling at her.

Carolyn Bryant Donham spoke to Timothy B. Dyson, a Duke University professor, to recant her story in his 2017 book, “The Blood of Emmett Till.” Tyson wrote that she said of her long-ago allegation that Emmett grabbed her and was menacing and sexually crude toward her, “That part’s not true.”

However, she later denied saying it exactly this way to Tyson. She has told so many different versions of the story, to Tyson and at the trial, that she created “reasonable doubt.” I personally say she was untruthful throughout the whole ordeal. She died last April.

Emmett Till’s cousin, the Rev. Wheeler Parker, said that, “I was hoping that one day she would admit it. So, it matters to me that she did, and it gives me some satisfaction.”

Back in September 1955, an all-white jury found Carolyn’s husband, Roy Bryant, and his half-brother J.W. Milam, his accomplice, not guilty for the kidnapping and murder of Emmett Till. The next month, however, they confessed in a Look magazine interview to killing Till. In other words, they got away with murder. Both have since died. However, the brutality of Till’s murder at their hands kicked off the Civil Rights Movement.

It must have been devastating to Emmett’s mother, Mamie Till, to lose her son, her baby boy, but maybe it was some comfort to her that her son’s death ignited the struggle. She wrote in her book that she wanted us to know her son, his loving, humorous ways, and that he was basically a good boy, which is how all mothers look at their children.

But one thing she knew for sure: he did not deserve to be murdered, tortured, lynched, mutilated and shot in the head.

It was as if he was murdered several times. My heart goes out to Mamie Till (God rest her soul) because she had his funeral with an open casket so the world could see the disfiguration, the mutilation and the gruesome, grisly horror and cruel face of racism and injustice. More than 50,000 people filed by his casket at Roberts Temple Church of God in Christ, and thousands more saw photos of his mutilated body in Jet magazine. She wanted the world to feel her pain.

Oh, the pain she must have suffered. Adding insult to injury, not only losing her son, but afterwards, seeing no justice done on his behalf. I am sure Emmett in his suffering called on his mama for help, just like others – George Floyd and Tyre Nichols – who were murdered by police.

I even felt the pain of his cousin, the Rev. Wheeler Parker, who was there when Emmett (whom the family called “Bobo”) was taken from the house in the Mississippi Delta.

I went to a signing for Parker’s book, “A Few Days Full of Trouble,” which he wrote with Christopher Benson, last winter, and found him to be a very nice and forgiving man of God. At first, I could not understand how he could be so forgiving, and I asked him how he does it.

He replied, “With God, all things are possible.” Later, I found the quote in the Bible: Matthew 19:26. His response was a

the Civil Rights Parker Jr.

touching and spiritual moment for me, a whole sermon in itself.

I was reminded of a sermon preached 13 years later, on the exact date of Till’s death, Aug. 28, 1968, when Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. delivered his famous, “I Have a Dream” speech.

I love this speech. Dr. King quoted William Cullen Bry ant, that “Truth crushed to Earth will rise.

And also, Dr. King said, “We shall overcome, be cause James Russell Lowell is right: ‘Truth forever on the scaffold, Wrong forever on the throne, but the scaffold sways the future and beyond the dim unknown.’” King also quoted Thomas Carlyle: “[We shall overcome] cause no lie can live forever.'”

Editor’s Note: Roberts Temple, at 4021 S. State St. in Chicago, as well as the Mississippi landing where Emmett Till’s body was discovered, and the courthouse where Donham and Milam were tried for his murder, were made part of the Emmett Till and Mamie Till-Mobley National Monument – part of the National Park Service – this past July 23.

Left: Mamie Till Bradley reacts as her son's body arrives back in Chicago (photo courtesy of the Library of Congress/ NAACP Collection). Right: Vendor A. Allen meets Rev. Wheeler Parker Jr. at a book signing by The Book Stall in Winnetka (Suzanne Hanney photo).

Coalition seeks to close loophole in predatory loan prevention act

by Suzanne Hanney

Payday loan and title fees drained $503.46 million from Illinoisans each year, until the Predatory Loan Prevention Act (PLPA) went into effect in March 2021. Nearly half of these borrowers earned less than $30,000 a year and paid an average annual rate of 297 percent.

Interest Rates for Consumer Loans, before and after the PLPA

Nearly all existing payday lenders stopped doing business rather than comply with the PLPA’s 36 percent annual rate, while another 234 registered at the new rate and 172 remain active, said Jane Doyle, policy and advocacy associate at the Woodstock Institute, part of the coalition behind passage of the PLPA.

Pawnshops, however, have evaded the PLPA’s 36 percent annual rate. The industry won an injunction from a Sangamon County Court, and then lobbied successfully in January against an Illinois General Assembly bill that would have closed their loophole.

Jazmine T. testified in one Woodstock Institute study that she took out two loans at a pawnshop because she had just moved and needed to pay rent. “For my MacBook computer and three professional-quality cameras, I was loaned $1,600 at 150% interest…a fraction of their actual value. For over a year, I paid $200 per month to roll over the loans. Still, I couldn’t pay them off. In the end, I lost $6,000 worth of property and over $2,400 in interest.”

The typical pawnshop in Illinois still charges 20 percent per month, or 240 percent annually, Doyle said. Many people put up jewelry, electronics or power tools for quick cash, with an average pawn amount of $260.95.

Roughly 2 out of 3 (63.8%) of these loans are redeemed, according to the Illinois Department of Financial and Professional Regulation (IDFPR). Nearly one million items (941,658) were pawned in 2017, according to the IDFPR’s latest data. The total amount financed was $245.73 million.

In the upcoming General Assembly, the Woodstock Institute is leading a coalition to close the PLPA’s pawnshop loophole. Other members of the coalition are AARP of Illinois, Citizen

Action Illinois, Illinois PIRG, Heartland Alliance and the Catholic Conference of Illinois. “Pawnbrokers, like payday lenders, make a living draining money from people who are struggling,” State Sen. Jacqueline Collins (D-Chicago) said in a December 2022 press conference. “People that reside in my district and many of the other marginalized Black and Brown communities across the state, and in our rural areas as well.”

Illinois Pawnbrokers Association President Kelly Swisher, however, said that closing the loophole “would shut down pawnshops and shut out Illinois consumers during an increased time of financial insecurity.” Pawnbrokers have no other access to the client’s finances than the item they hock, Swisher said, and that price has already been negotiated.

However, the Woodstock Institute notes, pawnshops in Illinois operated with a 3% monthly rate cap between 1909 and 1991, when the Illinois General Assembly first began to raise it. In New York, the rate is 4% monthly, or 48% annually, Doyle said. In Pennsylvania, it’s 3% per month (36% annually) and in Massachusetts, no city charges above 3% monthly (36% annually).

Doyle also disagrees with Swisher that consumers lack alternatives. Woodstock personnel did field testing using a little white gold necklace with a quarter-inch diamond. Loans offered for it ranged from $20 to $100. There was no consistency, she said, even though gold has traded between $1,908 and $1,977 an ounce in the past year, according to Forbes Advisor.

Craigslist, eBay, Facebook Marketplace, and for clothes, Poshmark and thredUP are all better options, she said.

StreetWise Vendor Paula Holmes likewise sold a motorcycle, rings, and antique dolls quickly on Facebook Marketplace when she was trying to save the house that had belonged to her mother and grandmother, but for which another family member had neglected payments. Initially, she had pawned items – and damaged her credit, she said. The pawn shops also said she was asking too much for the items.

To

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