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AUSTIN WEEKLY news ■
Vol. 30 No. 32
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North Lawndale Art Fest a success,
August 17, 2016
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austinweeklynews.com
@AustinWeeklyChi
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PAGE 10
Also serving Garfield Park
OPRF Housing Center special pullout section
Austin church remembers Paul Robeson Third Unitarian Church convened the discussion, which included local activists By TERRY DEAN AustinTalks
Third Unitarian Church hosted on AUG. 7 about entertainer and activist Paul Robeson and how his controversial life remains relevant today. For a certain generation, Robeson is remembered as a charismatic singer, actor and activist who spoke out against racism throughout much of his 77 years. Born in 1898, Robeson, a New Jersey native, was also a stellar college football player for Rutgers University. To younger generations, however, his name might be lost in memory but not his legacy, said Brenetta Howell Barrett, a church member who attended last weekend’s discussion. Barrett is a respected community and civil rights activists herself in Chicago. She recalled first seeing Robeson speak at DuSable High School, when she was a freshman in high school. PAUL ROBESON “The thing that impressed Activist me had not only to do with his versatility and the many languages he spoke and performed, but there was something very real about his standards for excellence,” Barrett said, adding that Robeson became the “icon” whom inspired her in life. As she and a dozen or so other attendees talked about Robeson and related current issues of the day, the icon himself looked on literally. A picture of Robeson hung on a wall in the basement rec See ROBESON on page 6
WILLIAM CAMARGO/Staff Photographer
Beautifying a viaduct
A recently completed mural graces the walls of the viaduct at Austin Blvd. and Lake St. The work of art was created by students from Oak Park and Austin who apprenticed with the Oak Park Area Arts Council this summer.
Residents launch dry precinct referendum petition drive
By TERRY DEAN AustinTalks
Reginald Mitchell was walking down his west Van Buren block this summer and had to do a double-take. Workers inside a shuttered liquor store at Van Buren Street and Central Avenue were inside fixing up the place. Mitchell, a longtime resident in the south Austin neighborhood, was surprised because he and other neighbors
thought they’d closed that corner store for good last year. Dar Raf Food and Liquor Store had occupied the space at 5575 W. Van Buren until June of last year, said Mitchell, who’s joining other neighbors in a petition drive to ban liquor sales in their 42nd Precinct. Chicago residents can use an election year referendum to vote a precinct “dry,” and residents in the 42nd are eyeing spring 2017 to accomplish that.
But a vote next year will likely be too late to stop G & N Food and Liquor from opening at Van Buren and Central. The new business filed its liquor license in May 2015, according to records from the city’s Department of Business Affairs and Consumer Protection. The license, which expires in 2018, was approved in May of this year. “As far as I’m concerned, this license was brought in without the residents
Austin Chamber of Commerce on the move... 773.854.5848 • www.austinchicagochamber.com
See REFERENDUM on page 6