Mayor Lightfoot Meets with the Black Press

Dr. Mila K. Marshall CNW Staff Writer

Winning all wards, Lightfoot was entrusted to balance Chicago’s $803 million deficit and usher in a new era of inclusive and transparent decision-making. The Mayor found herself leading the third-largest U.S. city through a crisis of epic proportions within months of being sworn in. The Covid-19 pandemic exposed the weakness of Chicago as one of the nation’s top ten most segregated cities for Black people.

Publishers and journalists from various Black-Owned media outlets convened at the offices of Chicago News Weekly and listened to the Mayor’s responses on other candidates, asylum seekers, the environment, cannabis, and more with members of The Black Press Roundtable.

Post-Covid Support Infrastructure for black health

Food accessibility and food deserts contribute to health disparities in Black communities. Mayor Lightfoot shared a partnership with the Black owners of Yellow Banana as an example of addressing the quality of food and diverse ownership in the retail supply chain.

“We’re continuing our work on food deserts. The Chicago recovery plan put $13.3 million into a Blackowned company called Yellow Banana. These brothers from Cleveland are coming into our city, mostly on the south side, to rehabilitate old Save-a-Lot stores, rebrand them and make sure that they’re actually selling healthy foods to help us deal with the challenges of too many underlying medical conditions like obesity and heart disease in Black Chicago, which is also a significant problem.”

Racial Life Expectancy Gap

If reelected she plans on continuing to implement the Health Chicago 2025 plan that began in 2020 and includes elevating youth leaders and focusing on Black, low-income Chicagoans.

“There are too many people struggling every single day to figure out where they’re going to lay their head at night and how they’re going to have some money to address their basic needs. Healthy Chicago 2025 institutes health equity zones in every part of our city, primarily led by federally qualified healthcare centers. I want to continue to build on the work that we started. There’s a lot more work that needs to be done to right many historical wrongs that have held back Black Chicago and brown Chicago from low-income and working-class communities from being able to meet their God-given potential. We’ve taken great strides, but we’re not where we need to be yet.”

Environmental Injustice and black Chicago

Mayor Lightfoot shared her personal struggle with asthma and touched upon Green Corps, green infrastructure investments, and addressing urban flooding in the community of South Shore, Chicago’s only predominantly Black lakefront community.

“We invested just under $8 million, the largest investment in environmental policies in the history of our city. Chicago stepped back from any leadership role in any environmental justice, environmental integrity, or climate action after the disbanding of the Department of the Environment. ”

Emergency use of vacant Chicago Public School infra- structure for a new population of unhoused has been met with tense curiosity about access to those same solutions for Black Chicago. While the community of Woodlawn has been reimagined for asylum seekers community members feel conflicted over the use of infrastructure that is unavailable for unhoused Black Chicagoans. More than half of those living without permanent shelter are Black. Lightfoot was invited to share how she plans on removing red tape to make money easier to access by community leaders like Dr. Aleta Clark who are working at the community level to get resources to those in need. “The Woodlawn elementary school closed as part of the 50 school closures is going to house homeless and migrants” shared Lightfoot. “Most migrants coming to our city are from Central and South America and most homeless people on the street in Chicago are Black. We get migrants from Haiti, Ghana, and other African countries that need our help too. Our solutions for the homeless have been painted as a Black vs. brown issue and I want to make sure people understand that some migrants we are helping look just like me.”

The Obama Presidential Center Confusions and Conflicts

Former President Obama decided against building a physical NARA-operated Presidential Library. 95% of Former President Obama’s materials from in office were in the form of online content. Chicago is now home to the first digitally archived collection of a former president with administration artifacts and original records preserved and stored at the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) in Hoffman Estates, IL. The Obama Center is a “privately operated, non-federal organization”. NARA will loan records and artifacts to be on display for guests to engage. Tensions were high as the Obama Foundation received approval and resources to build a private building on 19.3 acres of public land. Lightfoot responds to the confusion and clarifies the project.

“So there will be some materials that are traditional presidential The Obama Foundation will have digitized Presidential records and they are going to be available from anywhere” she responded. There will be a new Chicago Public Library branch open to the public at the Obama Center. Residents are already feeling the impact of the development on increased housing costs. Reparations Remixed and Redefined

The pursuit of reparations for African descendants of slavery requires first protection of the definition of reparations. Lightfoot’s’ interpretation of reparations is liberal at best, but it is dangerous to dilute the definition of reparations. The Mayor shared a set of programs and investments that she believes constitutes reparations; the Black Press was not in agreement with this new definition.

“Everything that I am doing is focused on equity and inclusion. It’s called “Invest South /West”. Reparations is a column, the procurement reforms that we’ve done to make sure that larger chunks of the city $3.5 billion, then go into Black and brown Chicago.” said, Lightfoot. The Invest South/West program is specifically a development initiative that is investing dollars into commercial corridors and directs monies to businesses and nonprofits in 10 communities on the city’s south and westside.

“Reparations are the $31 million that we’ve put into mostly Black Chicago through our targeted financial assistance distributing $500 per month for a year to help them overcome financial challenges. Some people want to call it reparations, and that’s fine. I call it building Black wealth.” black and brown Relations

Mayor Lightfoot was referring to Chicago’s Resilient Communities Pilot Program which began as a way to support Chicagoans living in poverty to have income with no strings attached. The program is still accepting applications but is not in alignment with the definition of reparations for African descendants of slaves.

Still left largely unanswered was Mayor Lightfoot’s position on simmering down tensions and building alliances between the city’s Black and Hispanic communities. The escalation between Black and Hispanics in the latter half of Lightfoot’s leadership came about during the summer of unrest. Black Chicagoans found themselves being attacked in predominantly Hispanic communities. Hispanic communities were postured in the media as thugs by some and by heroes protecting property by others. Reports of bricks hurled at vehicles with Black drivers and passengers prompted Black and Hispanic leaders to call for cooler heads.

Ward redistricting followed and the Latino Caucus and Black Caucus found themselves in challenging debates over boundaries. Some argued intentional attacks on Black power and leadership in City Council while others were advocating for more representation of Latinos because of population increase. Lastly, Black communities are becoming temporary shelters for migrants from Central and South America leaving residents confused about Mayor Lightfoot’s commitment to housing issues and homelessness for Black Chicagoans.

CNW reached out to Mayor Lightfoot for clarification on her definition of reparations and statements on financial programs for increasing Black wealth as well as clarity on her plans for addressing the perceived conflicts between Black and Hispanic Chicagoans, we were unable to receive further comments at the time of this publication.

Dorothy Leavell was 24 years and two days old in October of 1968 when she assumed the big responsibility of the Chicago Newspaper Group (Chicago, IL and Gary, IN Crusader Newspapers) after the passing of her first husband Balm L. Leavell, Jr., co-founder with his partner Joseph Jefferson of both publications in 1940 and 1961 respectively. Ms. Leavell recalls, “ I had been married only five years and suddenly I was a widow with two young children a son 4 and daughter 2 years old and without notice was thrust into the leadership role of publisher.”

The story doesn’t begin there but rather at her birth. I had the opportunity to hear Ms. Leavell’s fascinating life story. And as, much as I‘d like to share the details of her story we’ll have to wait for her memoirs.

“I should begin by sharing that Dorothy R. Leavell, is my professional name, but Dorothy R. Leavell Smith is my married name.”

Born in Pine Bluff Arkansas to middle-aged parents 30 and 55 years old. She was the youngest born two years after her brother and ten years following the death their sister who died very young from spinal meningitis.

She speaks of her curiosity as a young person as to why her parents, were so much older than her childhood friends’ parents, but speaks to the advantage of their maturity and financial stability that allowed them to purchase and furnish a fine home thus, she and her brother never wanted for anything. “I have to say that we grew up in a loving home and community.” Of her mother, she says, “Had she continued her education she would have made an excellent psychiatrist. My mother never told me what to do where a choice was involved but rather, she’d say, ‘If I were you, I would not do such and such, but you do what you choose to do.”

Ms. Leavell l says that she is grateful that her mother allowed her to make decisions from which she learned from the consequences of her choices and in turn developed her sense of discernment and making sure that she chose wisely.

She speaks of the education received at Pine Bluff segregated Black schools, particularly Merrill High School from which she graduated in 1962. With excitement Ms. Leavell spoke of the teachers and the principal who she says, “We had teachers who cared about us and would not accept anything less than excellence from us. You were not given a pass because you were a slower learner. You had to find your pace and succeed.”

Principal M.D. Jordan made sure that we had the best schoolbooks, equipment, and other educational aids necessary for them to compete in the world. “Let me tell you, I was shocked when I got to Chicago, and I went into some of the public schools and observed that they didn’t have chemistry, biology, physics, or foreign language labs. Merrill H.S. had the best.”

She raved about the teachers who were most memorable like Dr. Margaret Clark, the foreign language instructor who was recently inducted into the Arkansas Women’s Hall of Fame which she attended with her family; the math teacher Pamela Simms Davis who is responsible for her foundation in math that was a skillset that helped her advance at her first place of employment. It was the kindness of Ms. Ella McPherson who came to her aid at very crucial apex of her educational journey.

Ms. Leavell tells of her fascination with Chicago, not-