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AUSTINWEEKLY news ■
Vol. 33 No. 9
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Gov. Pritzker signs $15 minimum wage bill,
February 27, 2019
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austinweeklynews.com
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Also serving Garfield Park
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PAGE 5
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Austin Coming Together, Special pullout section
Legler to be regional library after all, say officials After planned sale of painting fell through, state will help pick up bill for Legler’s transformation By IGOR STUDENKOV Contributing Reporter
Last fall, the City of Chicago and the Chicago Public Library system announced that they would sell “Knowledge & Wonder,” a painting by worldfamous Chicago artist Kerry James Marshall, to transform the Legler Branch library, 115 S. Pulaski, into the West Side’s only regional library. The move was swiftly criticized by area community groups and by Marshall himself before the city wound up call the sale off. Patrick Malloy, a spokesperson for the library system, said that library officials would make smaller-scale improvements. But the plan to transform Legler into a regional library is back on track thanks, in part, to funding from the state of Illinois. Chicago would still provide nearly two-thirds of the funding, with the state funding technology upgrades. The library’s extended hours will kick in this spring and renovations will start this summer. The library system is made up of the See LEGLER on page 6
SEBASTIAN HIDALGO/Contributor
IN PRAISE OF SANKOFA: Worshipers pray during a dedication service for the Sankofa Peace Window held Sunday at New Mt. Pilgrim Baptist Church in West Garfield Park.
A ‘Peace Window’ that’s both art and protest New Mt. Pilgrim’s newly installed rose window memorializes modern-day martyrs in artful stance against violence By IGOR STUDENKOV Contributing Reporter
Most of the pews at West Garfield Park’s New Mount Pilgrim Missionary Baptist Church, 4301 W. Washington Blvd., were filled on Feb. 24 as the congregation celebrated the unveiling of the Sankofa Peace Window. For the past 20 years, the church has been working to replace the building’s three rose windows. The building was originally home to St. Mel’s Irish Catholic Church. When
Mount Pilgrim acquired the building in 1993, they wanted to put in windows that would better reflect the culture and experiences of the now mostly black, Baptist congregation. The North Star window on the northern side reflects black experiences during the Great Migration, while the eastern MAAFA Remembrance window honored the memories of enslaved Africans that died while being transported across the Atlantic, as well as the descendants of those who did survive. The term Sankofa refers to learning from
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the past in order to imagine a better future. The peace window tries to imagine a better future for black youth by honoring young people who died by violence. In an interview a few days before the unveiling, Rev. Marshall Hatch Sr., the church’s head pastor, said that the idea to honor contemporary victims of gun violence came directly from the church’s youth group. “We wanted to do a tribute to the four girls that were killed in the 16th Street Baptist Church bombing of 1963,” he said. The Sept. 15, 1963 bombing by four Ku Klux Klan members was in response to the See PEACE WINDOW on page 4
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