‘THE CHANGING AGING TOUR’
is coming to Oak Park, October 10. Ticket Info on page 24
JOURNAL W E D N E S D A Y
WATC H I N G ‘A M E R I C A T O M E ’ E P I S O D E V, PAGE 10
of Oak Park and River Forest
September 26, 2018 Vol. 39, No. 9 ONE DOLLAR @oakpark @wednesdayjournal
Lake Street makeover could take over a year
In synch The Huskies mascot performs with the drill team last Friday, during the homecoming halftime show at OPRF Stadium. For more photos, page 16.
$15 million project will run from Harlem to Austin By TIMOTHY INKLEBARGER Staff Reporter
The village of Oak Park has been planning a multimillion-dollar overhaul of Lake Street for years, but the project, which will redo sidewalks, lighting, street resurfacing, and water and sewer infrastructure, is set to begin in the spring of next year. The exact timeline for the project has yet to be determined but is expected to be released sometime within the next few weeks, according to Oak Park Village Engineer Bill McKenna. A presentation by village staff to business owners around Lake Street did note that the section of Lake Street from Harlem Avenue to North Marion Street will be closed from April through June of 2019, and the Marion Street intersection with Lake will be closed in early July. McKenna said in a telephone interview that the village aims to have the See STREETSCAPE on page 15
ALEXA ROGALS/Staff Photographer
Making the history he teaches
West Side native Prexy Nesbitt knew King and Mandela, worked with Obama By TOM HOLMES Contributing Reporter
Prexy Nesbitt, 74, never did finish his PhD work on African History, in large part because he was too busy making the history he
was teaching at Columbia College in downtown Chicago. If there was a struggle against colonialism or racism in the last 60 years in Africa or the U.S., there’s a good chance the West Side native was involved. He addressed Nelson Mandela by his clan name, Madiba, a sign of both respect and affection used in the Nobel Prize winner’s presence only by those who were close to him. He worked side-by-side as a young man with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., and he knows Barack Obama personally. The goal of his life’s journey, as well as the force that drove him, was literally to change
the world. “The vision of those liberation movements [in Africa] that I supported,” he said in a 2009 interview with Columbia College Chicago, “was about creating just, equitable, participatory societies … and creating a world in which race would no longer be the dominant force that it is even today. It was about building a new human being.” That lofty vision grew out of experiences in the first two decades of the activist-educator’s life. Rozell William Nesbitt — he hates the See NESBITT on page 12