SSW 01.18.24

2 SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY ¬ JANUARY 18, 2024

SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY The South Side Weekly is an independent non-profit newspaper by and for the South Side of Chicago. We provide high-quality, critical arts and public interest coverage, and equip and develop journalists, artists, photographers, and mediamakers of all backgrounds.

Volume 11, Issue 1 Editor-in-Chief

Jacqueline Serrato

Managing Editor

Adam Przybyl

Senior Editors Martha Bayne Christopher Good Olivia Stovicek Sam Stecklow Alma Campos Jim Daley Politics Editor Labor Editor Immigration Editor

J. Patrick Patterson Jocelyn Martínez-Rosales Wendy Wei

Community Builder

Chima Ikoro

Public Meetings Editor Scott Pemberton Visuals Editor

Kayla Bickham

Deputy Visuals Editor Shane Tolentino Staff Illustrators Mell Montezuma Shane Tolentino Director of Fact Checking: Savannah Hugueley Fact Checkers: Rubi Valentin

Isi Frank Ativie Bridget Killian Christopher Good Kate Linderman Layout Editor

Tony Zralka

Program Manager

Malik Jackson

Executive Director

Damani Bolden

Office Manager

Mary Leonard

Advertising Manager

Susan Malone

Webmaster

Pat Sier

The Weekly publishes online weekly and in print every other Thursday. We seek contributions from all over the city.

Send submissions, story ideas, comments, or questions to editor@southsideweekly.com or mail to: South Side Weekly 6100 S. Blackstone Ave. Chicago, IL 60637 For advertising inquiries, please contact: Susan Malone (773) 358-3129 or email: malone@southsideweekly.com For general inquiries, please call: (773) 643-8533

Cover by Kayla Bickham

IN CHICAGO

IN THIS ISSUE

Illinois workers owed back wages More than $5 million in back wages were recovered by the U.S. Department of Labor’s Wage and Hour Division (WHD) and is owed to around 7,000 Illinois workers.

The WHD is responsible for enforcing labor laws and when violations are found, the agency recovers the unpaid wages on behalf of the employees. When an employee is not able to be tracked down, WHD holds on to their wages for three years. Once those three years are up, the money is then sent to the U.S. Treasury.

A new online search tool created by the Department of Labor allows Illinois workers to search a database for unclaimed wages. WOW or Workers Owed Wages lets you search for an employer by name. The same search tool will allow workers to submit a claim if they find they are owed wages. The online search tool can be accessed at webapps.dol.gov/wow/.

police oversight commission applications open

Class action settlement with MAT Asphalt The January 22 deadline is approaching for eligible households in McKinley Park, Brighton Park, and Back of the Yards to claim to claim settlement funds from the class-action lawsuit against MAT Asphalt LLC, which was preliminarily approved by a Cook County Circuit Court judge in November. Rodriguez vs MAT Asphalt LLC was filed in 2020 after McKinley Park residents alleged noxious odors emitting from the plant created a nuisance for neighbors inside and outside their homes.

The settlement includes a cash fund of $1.2 million (minus costs and attorney fees) for parties eligible to receive compensation, defined as “All owner/occupants and renters of residential property with a physical, residential structure or any part thereof located within a half (.5) mile of the facilities’ property boundary located at 2055 W. Pershing Rd, Chicago, Illinois at any time since July 20, 2018.” The settlement also dictates that Mat Asphalt implements $900,000 worth of certain facility improvements, including requiring tarp coverings for trucks and a capture system to remove blue smoke emissions from silos, by April 30, 2024.

The settlement amount will be divided between the number of households who file a claim and whose claim is validated by court. The deadline to submit a claim is January 22, 2024. The claim must be sent via physical mail and postmarked on or before January 22 in order to receive cash payment from the settlement fund. Questions can be directed towards the attorneys directly at info@LSCcounsel.com or 1-800-5360045. More information available at lsccounsel.com/matasphaltsettlement

local author’s new book dives into parole reform

Acuerdo de demanda contra MAT Asphalt Se acerca la fecha límite del 22 de enero para que los hogares elegibles en McKinley Park, Brighton Park y Back of the Yards reclamen fondos del acuerdo de una demanda colectiva contra MAT Asphalt LLC, que fue aprobada preliminarmente por un juez de la Corte del Circuito del Condado de Cook en noviembre. Rodríguez vs MAT Asphalt LLC se presentó en 2020 después de que los residentes de McKinley Park alegaran que los olores nocivos que emitía la planta de asfalto creaban una molestia para los vecinos adentro y afuera de sus hogares.

El acuerdo incluye un fondo en efectivo de $1.2 millones (menos los costos de abogados) para las partes elegibles para recibir compensación, definidas como "Todos los propietarios/ocupantes e inquilinos de propiedades residenciales con una estructura física residencial o cualquier parte de la misma ubicada dentro de media (.5) milla de las instalaciones en 2055 W. Pershing Rd, Chicago, Illinois en cualquier momento desde el 20 de julio de 2018”. El acuerdo también dicta que MAT Asphalt implemente ciertas mejoras en sus instalaciones con un valor de $900,000 antes del 30 de abril de 2024, incluyendo el requisito de cubrir los camiones con lonas y un sistema de captura para eliminar las emisiones de humo azul de los silos.

La cantidad se dividirá entre el número de hogares que presenten un reclamo y cuyo reclamo sea aceptado por la corte. La fecha límite para presentar un reclamo es el 22 de enero de 2024. El reclamo debe enviarse por correo y tener un sello de envío del 22 de enero o antes para poder recibir el pago en efectivo. Las preguntas pueden dirigirse a los abogados directamente por email a info@LSCcounsel.com o por teléfono al 1-800536-0045. Más información disponible en lsccounsel.com/matasphaltsettlement

Chicagoans who wish to serve on the commission responsible for civilian oversight of the Chicago Police Department have until February 7 to submit their applications. jim daley...................................................4 court appoints receiver for distressed kenwood apartment building

HUD and Freddie Mac attorneys said Apex had effectively given up on the property in recent months. max blaisdell hyde park herald..........5 A review of Correction: Prison, Parole, and the Possibility of Change max blaisdell, hyde park herald..........6 wvon celebrates sixty years of community-driven content

Chicago’s only Black-owned and operated all-talk radio station provides opportunities for listeners to engage in discussions about themselves and their community. malaya tindongan...................................7 a south sider in toronto

Campbell’s memoir explores his family fights, legacy, and growing up Black in Canada with South Side Chicago roots. evan f. moore............................................8 exonerated, graduated, and ready for law school

James Soto was released from prison in December after a forty-two-year fight to prove his innocence. anthony ehlers, chicago reader..............11 por fin libre

Jimmy Soto reflexiona sobre su liberación tras pasar 42 años en prisión. anthony ehlers, chicago reader traducido por alma campos, south side weekly.................................14 the exchange

The Weekly’s poetry corner offers our thoughts in exchange for yours. chima ikoro and e’mon lauren.................16 volunteers open free store in washington park

Also known as the “The Muffler Shop,” the space will last through March. zoe pharo, hyde park herald.................18 calendar

Bulletin and events. zoe pharo................................................26

POLICE

Police Oversight Commission Applications Open

Chicagoans who wish to serve on the commission responsible for civilian oversight of the Chicago Police Department have until February 7 to submit their applications.

BY JIM DALEY

A

fter a monthslong process to set policies around everything from conducting meetings to vetting applicants, the Police District Councils nominating committee opened applications for the seven-seat Community Commission for Public Safety and Accountability (CCPSA) on January 8.

The deadline to apply is February 7. On March 8, the PDC nominating committee will meet to select nominees, whom the mayor has until April 7 to choose from.

The nominating committee includes one representative from each of the city’s twenty-two Police District Councils (PDCs). Each PDC consists of three members who took office in May 2023.

Elected in February’s municipal election, the PDC members are the first to ever hold that office. The CCPSA’s current interim commissioners were nominated by the City Council and appointed by former Mayor Lori Lightfoot in August 2022. Permanent commissioners, once nominated by PDCs and selected by the mayor, will serve fouryear terms and be paid monthly stipends of $1,000.

In 2021, City Council passed the Empowering Communities for Public Safety (ECPS) ordinance that established the CCPSA and PDCs after years of work by organizers, some of whom are now serving as district councilors.

Other councilors were endorsed by the Fraternal Order of Police and some are former officers. The ordinance requires the nominating committee to suggest a minimum of fourteen names to the mayor, who chooses seven. But it has scant details on what the nomination process should

look like, which left the task of designing the vetting and nominating process up to the new district councilors. Most are brand-new to government and were guided through meetings by CCPSA staff.

“It required us doing multiple things at once. We’ve had to approve an application, decide how to evaluate applications to choose candidates to interview, and determine what criteria are most important to see in the next Commission,” 19th (Town Hall) PDC member Sam Schoenburg, who is on the nominating committee, told the <i>Weekly</i>. “Meanwhile we’ve had to figure out how to operate as a new public body and deliberate among ourselves to make progress. Given that this is the hardest this process will ever be, I’ve come away from every nominating committee meeting impressed by the dedication and thoughtfulness of my fellow district councilors. We are a diverse bunch, but through our differences, we’ve managed to arrive at a common direction and set of values that makes me confident this is a process we can all be proud of.”

The CCPSA has several responsibilities outlined in the ECPS ordinance. It nominates candidates for police superintendent, the Police Board, and the chief administrator of the Civilian Office of Police Accountability (COPA), which investigates allegations of officer misconduct. Each year, the CCPSA sets goals for each of those positions and evaluates their performance during the previous year. It can fire COPA’s chief administrator for cause and hold hearings about the superintendent and police board members where a vote of no confidence by commissioners would trigger City Council

4 SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY ¬ JANUARY 18, 2024

hearings and a vote on whether to retain them.

CCPSA’s oversight power extends to setting policy for the police department as well. The commission can draft general orders, but not special orders or policies covered under the federal consent decree established in 2019 in response to the 2014 police murder of Laquan McDonald.

During their eighteen months in office, the interim CCPSA commissioners have used their policy-setting powers to achieve a number of reforms, including several measures long sought by organizers.

In perhaps their most significant move, the commissioners voted unanimously to abolish the police department’s notorious gang database, which activists criticized as being racist and riddled with errors, last year. Tens of thousands of people were listed in the database. The youngest person listed in it was nine years old, and the oldest was seventy-nine, according to a 2019 audit by the city’s Inspector General. CCPSA President Anthony Driver’s father was listed in the database. At a public meeting last January, Driver said the database contributed to a pattern of the Chicago Police Department (CPD) focusing on the wrong issues. “The gang database as we know it is a racist policy. It is a policy that harms people,” he said in remarks at that meeting. “My father is in the gang database and he has never been in a gang a day of his life.”

In November, the CCPSA unanimously changed a CPD policy to prohibit officers from associating with extremist groups such as the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers, both of which were implicated in the January 6, 2021

insurrection. Nine CPD officers were identified as Oath Keepers members by a <i>Sun-Times</i> and WBEZ investigation. At least one officer has been identified as a member of the Proud Boys.

CPD superintendent Larry Snelling, who was appointed by Mayor Brandon Johnson in September, is the first police chief to be nominated by the CCPSA. The entire process was unprecedented in that civilian oversight was central to it. At a public meeting ahead of his appointment, several members of the Police District Councils’ progressive caucus, an alliance of councilors from multiple PDCs, grilled Snelling about issues such as Chicago’s mental-health crisis co-responder program and asylum seekers then staying at police stations.

Applications for the CCPSA are open until noon on Wednesday, February 7. To be eligible, applicants must be Chicago residents for the last five years and have five or more years of combined experience in law, public policy, social work, mental health, psychology, public safety, civil rights, community organizing, or advocacy for marginalized communities. They cannot have been employed by CPD, COPA, or the Police Board in the last five years. Two commissioners must be between the ages of eighteen and twenty-four.

More information on qualifications and how to apply can be found at bit.ly/ CCPSA_Apps. Jim Daley is the Weekly’s investigations editor.

HOUSING

Court Appoints Receiver For Distressed Kenwood Apartment Building

Attorneys for the U. S. Department of Housing and Urban Development and Freddie Mac said that Apex had effectively given up on the property in recent months.

BY MAX BLAISDELL, HYDE PARK HERALD This story was originally published in the Hyde Park Herald. Reprinted with permission.

A

fter years of tenant outcry, the court has taken control of a troubled Kenwood apartment building and appointed a receiver to address persistent dirty and dangerous conditions.

On Friday, January 12, Cook County Circuit Court Judge Lloyd Brooks ordered Apex Chicago IL, owner of the Ellis Lakeview Apartments, to hand over management responsibilities of the 105unit property to a court-appointed receiver, Trigild IVL. Brooks selected Trigild IVL, a commercial real estate firm that specializes in managing distressed properties like Ellis Lakeview, to fully address a host of its resident concerns and issues identified by a recent inspection of the property, ranging from pest infestations and garbage buildup to repeatedly broken elevators and poor access to hot water.

According to Block Club, 5T Management will stay on as the property manager, which a court had assigned back in 2022 to handle the building’s daily operations upon ousting Apex’s preferred manager. In addition to the eleven-story Ellis Lakeview tower, 4624 S. Ellis Avenue, 5T operates four other large affordable apartment buildings on the city’s South Side, including two in Washington Park.

Brooks handed down his ruling amid a foreclosure effort by the Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corporation, commonly known as Freddie Mac. The ruling comes after several years of residents fighting for

As other building residents and tenant-activists listen as Ellis Lakeview Apartment, 4624. S. Ellis Ave., tenant Nadrea Satchell speaks about conditions in the building during a press conference on Wednesday, Dec. 29, 2021.

Photo by Marc C. Monaghan

necessary repairs to be made, including past efforts to seize control of the property from the owner.

Tamashay Brown, a resident of the building for more than twenty years, said she and other tenants have been documenting issues for years to little avail.

Feeling like tenants' complaints went unheard, Brown said she has since deleted many of the photos of the problems she has witnessed at the property.

“I’ve shown up to every court appearance along with others to constantly plead with HUD, Freddie Mac, the city’s attorneys, FHFA and anyone else that would listen, so I’m glad we’ve made it this far,” she said.

Brown said she is cautiously optimistic about what the future holds for the building’s management. “It’s still a fight ahead for the new owners to do right and put the proper monies that should be spent

inside the building,” she said. “We won’t settle for a slum lord at all.”

Attorneys for the U. S. Department of Housing and Urban Development and Freddie Mac, who were at the hearing on Friday, said that Apex had effectively given up on the property in recent months.

In 2022, the company avoided having the property put into receivership by agreeing to maintain a repair fund of $350,000 for the building’s maintenance.

But, over the past several months the actual amount in the account has been far short of that requirement—only about $42,000— according to Freddie Mac attorney Shannon Condon.

Nonetheless, Apex was still receiving federal housing subsidies during that time, with the federal government contributing more than $240,000 in November and December to keep the building afloat.

But instead of paying 5T Management

to maintain the property as required by the court order, Apex spent tens of thousands of dollars of public money paying its own affiliate companies and legal bills, Condon told the court.

Things got so bad that 5T Management signaled they would abandon the property if they were not paid promptly, which prompted the feds to intervene and pay the company directly for 5T to continue overseeing day-to-day operations at the building, Condon said. Freddie Mac was also forced to pay for the insurance and security at Ellis Lakeview, after Apex stopped paying those bills, she said.

And this came while Apex’s former manager for Ellis Lakeview, Boruch “Barry” Drillman, pled guilty to participating in a vast, multiyear real estate fraud with four other unnamed co-conspirators. All together, they fraudulently obtained more than $165 million in loans.

According to the Department of Justice, Drillman is scheduled to be sentenced in April and faces up to five years of time in prison. As of press time, the DOJ could not be reached for comment as to whether other people affiliated with Apex are among Drillman’s co-conspirators.

As Trigild IVL takes over as receiver, the federal government’s filing to foreclose on the property will still proceed. A separate city lawsuit against Apex that was launched in 2021 over code violations at the property will also go forward, with a hearing scheduled next week, January 25. Max Blaisdell is a fellow with the Invisible Institute and a staff writer for the Hyde Park Herald.

JANUARY 18, 2024 ¬ SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY 5

LIT

Local Author’s New Book Dives Into Parole Reform

A review of Correction: Prison, Parole, and the Possibility of Change

BY MAX BLAISDELL, HYDE PARK HERALD This review was originally published in the Hyde Park Herald and is being reprinted with permission.

This year marked fifty years since mass incarceration took off in the United States.

In those years, the prison population has exploded, growing from 200,000 people in 1973 to nearly 1.2 million by 2023.

Today, only China has a larger prison population, but the U.S. nonetheless holds the dubious honor of having the highest prison population rate in the world, according to the International Centre for Prison Studies. And yet, these startling statistics don’t appear to strike Americans as a sign that something in our society has gone horribly amiss. In 2021, well after George Floyd’s murder by police prompted Americans to revisit their views on policing and prisons, a full 69 percent of those surveyed by Pew said the U.S. locks people up either for the right amount of time or not enough.

And so enters Hyde Park-native Ben Austen’s new book, “Correction: Prison, Parole, and the Possibility of Change,” a refreshing addition to the slew of titles about prison reform and abolition, both for its clear-eyed presentation of the history of parole in America (as an entry point into mass incarceration and mass surveillance) and its stirring narrative charting two men’s quests to win their release after decades spent behind bars. (Austen is a board member of South Side Weekly NFP, the nonprofit that publishes the Herald and Weekly.)

The book is the product of more than four years of intensive reporting and research involving hundreds of interviews with prisoners, their families and lawyers, policy experts, and lawmakers; the

tracking down ancient police reports and old trial transcripts; and a trip Austen took to Norway and Finland to see up close how those Northern European countries’ carceral policies function. (These systems, he learned, are highly focused on rehabilitation, not retribution and punishment, as in the U.S.) Chapters unfold with Johnnie Veal of Cabrini-Green in Chicago and Michael Henderson of East St. Louis, Illinois as the principal subjects. Driving the book forward is the chronicle of the crimes for which each was incarcerated, how their trials unfolded and resulted in harsh sentences, and how they managed to not only survive in prison but transform themselves in spite of the myriad ways their prisons were criminogenic (meaning crime inducing) rather than geared towards their rehabilitation.

Interspersed are sections providing background, such as about the introduction of parole as a penal concept in the 1870s and its application in the century or so thereafter, and helpful context linking events and political movements outside of prisons to shifting conditions on the inside.

Parole, as the book explains, is the practice of releasing someone from prison early based on their good behavior. From the French for “word of honor” or “oath,” the idea behind parole is that the person is swearing to never commit another crime in exchange for their freedom. Although parole boards are meant to strictly assess whether a person is fit for release, “the original conviction, something that could never change, tended to overwhelm everything that had happened since,” Austen writes.

And, as he points out, their decisions were often arbitrary, based on members’ “politics and subjective views on public safety.”

6 SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY ¬ JANUARY 18, 2024

In America, the policy of offering parole has gone through ebbs and flows. In 1884, Ohio was the first state to introduce a parole system, which gained widespread adoption throughout the U.S. by the 1920s.

By the late 1970s, however, states like Illinois turned away from offering people with long prison terms discretionary parole except for men like Veal and Henderson who were grandfathered into the old system.

Partly, as Austen deftly shows, the decisive turn in America in the late 1970s towards extreme punishment over rehabilitative measures was the result of the concerted efforts by the nascent victims’ rights movement. While their advocacy led to important protections for vulnerable people, such as battered women and children, victims also began exerting a decisive influence in parole board decisions by showing up at hearings and arguing against a candidate’s release by recounting their suffering in heartrending testimony.

Many scenes are gripping to read, as in a crime novel, such as when at Veal’s packed trial for the murder of two Chicago police officers a fire alarm suddenly goes off, upon which the courtroom clears of everyone save he and his co-defendant, George Knight. The two accused are faced with an open doorway through which freedom seems to beckon, but when Veal peers out a window looking down the alleyway by which they might escape, he sees a line of policemen armed and ready to shoot them down in cold blood.

So too are the parole board hearings in which Henderson and Veal’s fates are determined. Although those hearings occur in staid offices in Springfield or, during the pandemic, over Zoom, Austen fills them with drama, turning them into scenes that encapsulates “the story of the country in

all its fevered conceptions of safety and punishment.”

But the book doesn’t veer into the sentimental, despite documenting all the ways in which Veal and Henderson (who were boys when they entered prison) become upstanding men in prison, lauded even by staff for their efforts assisting other inmates and educating themselves.

Unlike the true crime genre, Austen is not so much interested in proving the innocence of the two men (while Veal protests his innocence, for which Austen provides ample evidence supporting his claim, Henderson readily admits to his crime)—rather, his aim is to show that no matter how heinous the crime, locking people like Henderson and Veal up for decades into old age serves no purpose from the standpoint of public safety, because past age fifty-five people present a near zero statistical risk of committing a new crime. Thus, for Austen, lies the importance of parole, warts and all, as it provides a necessary “release valve” by which men and women like them can go free.

“It's a system of second chances that gives people in prison, and particularly those convicted of violent crimes and serving extreme sentences, an opportunity literally to be seen and heard,” Austen writes in the book’s coda, arguing for the expansion of discretionary parole. “A parole consideration is a way to contend with their humanity in a legal system that too often ignores it.” “Correction: Prison, Parole, and the Possibility of Change” by Ben Austen.

MacMillan, 336 pp., $29.99 (hardcover).

Max Blaisdell is a fellow with the Invisible Institute and a staff writer for the Hyde Park Herald.

CULTURE

WVON Celebrates Sixty Years of Community-Driven Content

Chicago’s only Black-owned and -operated all-talk radio station provides opportunities for listeners to engage in discussions about themselves and their community.

BY MALAYA TINDONGAN

U

napologetically Black” is the phrase used by both host Atiba Buchanan and longtime listener Shapearl Wells to describe WVON. For sixty years, WVON, found on the radio at 1690 AM, has served the Chicago community by engaging in conversations on topics affecting Black Americans. Now called “The Voice of the Nation,” WVON continues to honor its roots as “The Voice of the Negro” by providing a platform for conversation, discourse, and information.

The station began its journey in 1963 when it was purchased by brothers Leonard and Phil Chess of Chess Records—the legendary record label that distributed the work of Chicago’s great blues musicians.

WVON was born as a music station featuring jazz, blues, gospel, and more.

However, since its original purchase, the station has gone through changes in ownership, frequency, and format.

The station joined the airways during the Civil Rights movement as a media outlet providing news and conversations from Black individuals for Black individuals. The original group of disk jockeys, nicknamed “The Good Guys,” was composed of twelve hosts.

The Good Guys were not only entertaining but also representative of listeners. Many of the original hosts were children of migrants or migrants themselves like much of Chicago during and following The Great Migration.

Although originally music-oriented, WVON was home to an early segment called “Hot Line” that covered civil rights issues in Chicago and beyond. In 1986, the station shifted to the all-talk format listeners recognize today.

Over the years, WVON has featured

notable guests such as Martin Luther King Jr., the Rev. Jesse Jackson, and Barack Obama.

Civil rights leader Jackson was introduced to the station through “Hot Line” as a guest in 1965 and became a recurring voice on the program through 1970. WVON amplified Jackson’s voice in promoting Operation Breadbasket—a program that encouraged businesses with little to no racial diversity to hire a percentage of Black workers—among other civil rights pursuits.

In 2004, Jackson launched his own radio talk show “Keep Hope Alive with Rev Jesse Jackson” now co-hosted with his daughter and former WVON host, Santita Jackson.

A Space for Discussion Today, as in the past, WVON’s twentyfour-seven talk programming often invites audience participation. Hosts of the station would pose questions or topics to listeners, and take calls offering a space for them to share their thoughts.

In using and maintaining this format, WVON created a “Black Public Sphere,”

Host Atiba Buchanan has been working with the station since 2019.

“The relatability I think is [WVON’s] greatest asset, and the freedom to disagree,” Buchanan said “One phrase you will hear a lot is Black people are not a monolith.”

Hosts of WVON, like listeners, maintain their own viewpoints while encouraging listeners to share differing opinions. Buchanan says a goal of the station is to give everyone a voice and let them be heard.

WVON host Atiba Buchanan

Photo by jesus J. montero

However, mainstream public spheres traditionally excluded marginalized groups, pushing such groups to form their own public spheres that speak to their experiences and opinions. Ramsay holds up Black talk radio, like WVON, as a part of the Black Public Sphere.

While many aspects of traditional

“Listeners can call in to WVON and no one’s going to ask to feel their hair.” as Edmund Ramsay describes in a DePaul University master’s capstone paper. Ramsay refers to German philosopher Jürgen Habermas’ concept of the Public Sphere: a space for discourse and public opinion to be formed.

public spheres have splintered along with traditional media ecosystems, WVON continues to offer a place for Black Americans to share comments and opinions, and for listeners to disagree with each other or with hosts.

A Space for Community Shapearl Wells, creator of the podcast Somebody, has been a listener since the mid2000s.

“I would actually listen to [WVON] from the top of the morning all the way down to the evening,” Wells said.

Wells began calling in to the station in 2007 following the announcement of Obama’s candidacy. One host who frequently took her calls over the years was Santita Jackson.

In 2016 Wells’s son, Courtney Copeland, was killed by an unknown shooter. One of the first people Wells called following his death was Jackson.

“You need to record, that is, write down, everything that you heard and saw and felt, because you will lose it as we go, as time goes on,” Jackson recalled telling Wells in an episode of Somebody.

Wells additionally found support from other listeners of WVON. “I’d probably say twenty-five percent of my Facebook friends now I have met because they have heard me on the radio,” Wells said.

The station helped get the message out about the death of her son. Audience

JANUARY 18, 2024 ¬ SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY 7

CULTURE

A South Sider in Toronto

Campbell’s memoir explores his family fights, legacy, and growing up Black in Canada with South Side Chicago roots.

BY EVAN F. MOORE

Shapearl Wells

members recognized Wells as a caller and aided in attempting to find out what happened to her son.

During events hosted by WVON, Wells has met other callers and virtual friends in person.

“I would attend [WVON] events and we became a little community and a little family of callers and listeners,” Wells said.

“You began to put the voice with the face and vice versa, and you become like a little online community.”

A Space for Information In addition to WVON’s traffic updates, talk shows, and top-of-the-hour news coverage, the station also provides information and resources for its listeners.

WVON has a collective of hosts supplying content across various shows featuring conversations and themes throughout the day.

The Hill and Buchanan show, cohosted by Atiba Buchanan, discusses a variety of topics and their impacts on the Black community. Discussions include politics, health, climate impacts, relationships, and resources like mentoring and apprenticeship programs.

WVON’s twenty-four-hour format includes daily special features like news from The Black Information Network featuring a short review of news at the top of every hour and an hour-long segment at

illustrated by Savanna Steffens

5am.

WVON hosts guest speakers and inperson events to deliver information to listeners.

In September, the station held a Family Care Exposition with workshop themes including finance, caretaking, and health.

In 2020, WVON launched a TV streaming network called VON TV. The streaming platform is free to use and has content for educational viewing and entertainment. The network has live talk shows, documentaries, movies, children's programming, interview archives, and more.

Over sixty years on air WVON has gone through multiple iterations before arriving at its current identity. Despite the shifts in programming, shape, and style, WVON retains its critical message of being a voice for Black America and allowing the voices of Black Americans to be heard.

From topics from health to politics and guests from artists to dentists, WVON distributes information and engages listeners in conversations about themselves.

“As a minority in this country not every place is a safe space for us,” Buchanan said “[Listeners] can call in to WVON and no one’s going to ask to feel their hair.” Malaya Tindongan is a freelance journalist living in the Chicago area

8 SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY ¬ JANUARY 18, 2024

N

orthern cities like Chicago, Detroit, Cleveland, New York City, and Philadelphia have often represented opportunities for Black folks to reboot their lives amid racism in Southern states. Between 1910 and 1970, some of those families took the Great Migration one step further by uprooting their families and moving to Canada.

Black families left behind a world they knew, which by all accounts was terrible thanks to systemic racism, for the unknown, which says all one needs to know regarding the state of race relations in post-Reconstruction America.

These types of family stories aren’t told in a similar frequency within the Black diaspora. Black folks went to Canada by any mode of transportation possible—car, train, plane, and hitchhiking—to look for work and treatment they were convinced they wouldn’t get in the United States.

Anyone who is a part of a large extended family will most likely nod in agreement or at least be triggered when reading Canadian award-winning sportswriter Morgan Campbell’s book, My Fighting Family: Borders and Bloodlines and the Battles That Made Us. Campbell’s maternal grandfather was a 1960s Chicago jazz musician, Claude Jones, who took the road less traveled by moving his family out of the country.

This was a decision that has had a staunch effect on his descendants for decades to come. Campbell and his family witnessed how racism takes an enormous toll on Black folks in multiple ways—in the

States and Canada.

Campbell appears to have been immersed in the Black South Side of Chicago experience despite not being a full-time Chicagoan. He and his family came back from Canada to visit frequently. He would attend Jack and Jill parties at the South Shore Cultural Center (longtime South Shore residents still call it “the country club”), make several pilgrimages to Lem’s Bar-B-Q, a well-known barbeque eatery, recognize the smell surrounding the vicinity of the Jays Potato Chip factory at 99th Street and Cottage Grove Avenue, and he hit up 87th Street storefronts to purchase “Short Sets” or clothing with matching patterns.

In his book, Campbell, a longtime Toronto Star reporter, shrewdly recounts stories involving family squabbles, heists, sexism, mob hits (possibly in jest), grudges, racism, fistfights, and sneak dissing in a vivid and emphatic fashion that would make the Berzatto clan of the Chicago-based Hulu series “The Bear” squirm and run for cover.

Where the Mayweathers traded punches for a living, the Jones Campbell specialty was the Family Fight, where a perceived slight ignites an all-out, sides-choosing rumble that splits kin into bitter factions before settling into a cold war lasting years, sometimes outliving its participants.

There was always somebody to set them off.

Like when my sister Courtney got into

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sleeping on the floor of my Aunt Edith’s living room with fans [on] because it was hot in the summer and they didn’t open windows because they didn’t want people to break in.

What were conversations like when you told the family that you were writing a book about some of the feuds and stories you witnessed and heard about growing up?

Portrait of author Morgan Campbell.

Photo by Quincy Carter. Provided

it with our uncle Jeff ’s father-in-law over rent money.

The old man was the landlord, a lax record-keeper who preferred that his tenants pay in cash. Courtney said she paid him on time every month. He said he couldn’t find the money and accused Courtney of stiffing him. They could have worked it out as adults, but somebody jumped in on the father-inlaw’s side, concerned the conflict would cost the family a white person’s esteem. My mom and I had to back Courtney, and we all said stuff we had to apologize for later. Barack Obama was a state senator from Chicago when that fight started; he was finishing his first campaign for president when it ended.

out that both our families have deep roots in South Shore. Over time, I continue to appreciate Campbell’s attention to detail, and that type of minutia is a major factor in My Fighting Family.

Campbell sat down with the Weekly to discuss My Fighting Family, as well as his family’s complicated Bears fandom, family feuds, sussing out tall tales, the differences between how racism manifests itself in the United States as opposed to Canada, and, perhaps most importantly, how to make sense of it all.

As I read My Fighting Family, I was reminded of when I met Campbell in 2014 during a Medill reception that took place during the National Association of Black Journalists (NABJ) national conference in Boston.

I mentioned that I’m from Chicago.

He quizzed me to see if I really was from the city proper— not a suburb. It turns

Do you remember the conversation we had when we first met? I’m asking because in the book’s prologue you discussed meeting a woman who asked about your heritage during the commute back and forth between Detroit and Windsor [in Canada]. I think you grilled me in a similar way [laughs].

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

When someone says they’re from Chicago and I say what part, they say Waukegan, then I say: You’re not from Chicago. I’m personally not from Chicago but I’m the son of two hardcore Chicagoans.

It's fascinating what you can learn about people and where they’re from based on the answer to that question. When that woman was doing that to me in Windsor, Ontario, I understood why. In Southwest Ontario, there are all these Black families and a lot of them have surnames that keep coming up. I’m sure when people read the book and see the name “Bonner,” they’ll say: I know his folks. If I didn't keep asking you what neighborhood in Chicago you’re from, I would not have known that you’re right down the street.

I wrote the book to be able to use my family as a framework for those kinds of conversations and maybe inspire those other types of conversations with other people.

What are some of your first memories of visiting the South Side?

My early memories of Chicago are catching lightning bugs,my grandmother’s house on Lafayette [Avenue], my aunt’s house on Langley [Avenue]; the smell of the Jays Potato Chip factory; could smell the grease and the salt from the highway.

Family reunions in Abbott Park. Also,

I didn’t consult my family too much.

You’re going to wind up with everybody trying to tell you to write the story that they would write. That's not a good way to write any story at all. [My Fighting Family] is not a list of grievances because no one’s gonna read that—that's not a compelling story. So the trick was really getting inside the fights where something changes. Stories have the beginning, the middle, and something changes for the characters, the narrator, and supporting characters. All kinds of people will read [My Fighting Family] and say: my family's experience wasn’t exactly like this, but I see it reflected.

And what about fact checking the incidents that took place before you were born?

For example, [the part in the book] where the mafia enforcer offers to kill the neighbors. Where my grandfather would tell that story, he would just say: Well, I was playing downtown and this mob guy came up and started talking to me offering to kill the neighbors. For my grandfather, that story was all about the punchline, and it didn't necessarily matter. When I ran that story by my mom, she said that it wasn’t just a mob guy. That was Marshall Caifano (a member of the Chicago Outfit). I looked up Marshall Caifano.

And so, that detail unlocks a whole new level of richness to that episode. Also, my great-grandparents basically sacrificing their daughter's future by withdrawing her from junior college so they could take her tuition money and invest in [ Joneses] piano lessons. In my family, that story is well known, and it’s basically told as a story of sexism. But then my mom mentioned that my grandfather

JANUARY 18, 2024 ¬ SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY 9

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humble ourselves and ask for guidance on ways to do it better than our dads did it and their dads did it.

was born en caul (a baby is born in the encased amniotic membrane). In some religions, being born en caul is considered a blessing). And so I've lined those details and it looks to me now that this story isn’t just about sexism. The story is about two people from the old country and their beliefs about [en] caul babies.

What was it like to discover your grandfather’s music and a lot of other things about him?

As you read the book, a lot of people in my family had very real reasons to dislike him. He enjoyed starting these family fights or jumping into fights just to flex and just to feel like he won a family fight.

But no matter how you felt about him, again, if you liked the life you have in Canada, he was the one that put Canada on people’s radar.The only reason that happened is because he was a musician… it's a really difficult process but it’s a necessary process of loving people you don’t necessarily like.

Can you explain the gist of the conversations your parents were having when they realized that Canada has issues with race relations like the Unites States does? Also, in the book you discussed your reaction to a teacher showing the Ku Klux Klan propaganda film, “The Birth of a Nation,” in one of your classes at school and your fight with a classmate who called you a “n---r.”

Any place in Canada where Black people have lived for a long time—Southwest Ontario and Nova Scotia—there is a long and well documented history of anti-Black racism against those folks.

Black Americans looking at Canada don’t necessarily know that going in. And so, for my grandparents when they first made the move, the thing they noticed was Toronto was not segregated the way Chicago was. Black Chicago has to factor in race and racism and how the city’s built in segregation affects the decisions you’re going to make about where you’re going to live, where you think you might want to live, and where you can realistically expect to live. My parents were realistic with [me and my sisters] about race and what we might encounter in Canada.

Chicagoans of a certain generation fondly remember the 1985 season as the Bears won Super Bowl XX—especially how the team dominated from start to finish. How did your parents’ Bears fandom have an effect on the family?

Bears fandom is something most Chicagoans near and far no matter the race, economics, and political beliefs tend to agree upon.

My mom is from 118th and Halsted and she followed her parents to Canada. In a lot of ways she adapted to Canada. My dad is a transplanted Chicagoan. Put

Anything else you’d like to add?

Chicago jazz musician and author’s grandfather.

him in Canada and he just kept living as the guy from 95th Street. They’re both hardcore Chicagoans… They had never really seen a winning Bears team, [so] for them to finally see their team start making noise was a huge deal since we lived across the border from Buffalo; we lived in Mississauga [Ontario, Canada] just west of Toronto. It’s also the same time I’m aware that my parents’ marriage is falling apart. The Bears, on one hand, gave our family this gravitational center and gave my parents a reason and an excuse to spend some time together.

But it was a respite from the mess their marriage had become at that point. But not long after that Super Bowl comes the separation. And looking back at the Bears, it was the thing that held us together for

10 SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY ¬ JANUARY 18, 2024

Photo provided

those last four or five months.

What are some of the lessons learned growing up that you may pass on to your daughter?

In terms of being a husband, I try not to pass on what I learned from my dad about a husband because he was not a very good husband. But he was not as bad of a husband as his dad; my dad did the best he could given the role models he had. So a lot of it is trying to carve out a path as a father and a husband. My dad did the best he could. He was very dedicated to my sisters and I; always made time for us…now we live in an era where it’s okay for men not to be too proud to ask for help for ourselves. To

It was really important for me to write this love letter to Black America. When I look at how the rest of the world and every other ethnic group in the world looks at Black America what I see is a lot of flattery via imitation. There is no other culture in the history of this planet that has been as pervasive as Black American intellectualism. It’s the only one that has been this influential that has traveled as far and wide not at gunpoint. I want to show some authentic heartfelt appreciative bone deep love for Black America and that’s one aspect that I hope comes through to the reader. Some people will get it and then some people won’t get it because they still think Black Americans don’t have any culture. But at the same time, I’m not talking to them.

I’m talking to people who get it. Morgan Campbell. My Fighting Family: Borders and Bloodlines and the Battles That Made Us. 318 pages. McClelland & Stewart, 2024. $26 Hardcover.

Evan F. Moore is an award-winning writer, author, and DePaul University journalism adjunct instructor. Evan is a third-generation South Shore homeowner.

JUSTICE

Exonerated, Graduated, And Ready For Law School James Soto was released from prison in December after a forty-two-year fight to prove his innocence.

BY ANTHONY EHLERS, CHICAGO READER This story was originally published by the Chicago Reader and is being reprinted with permission.

O

n December 14, James Soto and his cousin David Ayala were released from Stateville Correctional Center after a forty-twoyear-long fight to prove their innocence.

At the time of his release, Soto was the longest-serving wrongfully convicted prisoner in Illinois history. Earlier that week, a Cook County judge vacated Soto’s sentence, stating that neither he nor Ayala received adequate counsel during the initial trial. Cook County state’s attorney Kim Foxx declined to retry Soto for lack of evidence.

Soto was convicted in 1981 after prosecutors said he committed a double murder of a young couple on Ayala’s orders.

Soto was convicted despite there being no eyewitnesses and no physical evidence tying him to the crime.

I know Jimmy Soto personally. We were both students in the first cohort of Northwestern University’s Northwestern Prison Education Program at Stateville (NPEP). In November, we both graduated with bachelor’s degrees from the program.

Jimmy is kind and generous, highly educated, and truly cares about other people.

He is humble and a man of integrity and principle. Those qualities would be difficult to find in one man, let alone someone who spent the last forty-two years behind bars after being wrongfully convicted. I interviewed him shortly before his release.

Jimmy Soto speaks.

“I had never been to trial for anything before,” Soto said. “I was young, only nineteen years old. I had no idea what was going on. A lawyer has to have a college degree, he has to go through years of training and studying. Then he has to pass the bar exam in order to be a lawyer, yet the courts expect you to know just as much if not more than your lawyer. You have to hold him accountable. You are responsible, legally, for what your lawyer does. The courts don’t hold your lawyer responsible for errors and inadequacies, they hold you responsible. How is any kid off the streets supposed to know more than their lawyer?

The system is set up for you to fail.”

The problem lies in procedure.

Photo by Jim Daley

Understanding procedure is the door to the corridors of power, where the people with the capacity to determine a criminal defendant’s fate reside. If you cannot gain entry, you have no chance of justice.

“I was telling everyone I could that I was innocent,” Soto said. “No one would listen.” Procedural barriers all too often stop innocent inmates from getting out of prison.

“The system values finality over accuracy,” Soto said. “People like to say that the system is broken. But the truth of the matter is, the system runs just like it’s supposed to. It’s the way that those at the top keep those at the bottom from moving up, ways that are all dressed up in the stiff

and sterile legal language.”

Illinois has one of the highest rates of wrongful convictions in the nation.

According to the National Registry of Exonerations (NRE), at least 3,454 people nationally have been exonerated after a wrongful conviction since 1989. The NRE’s 2022 annual report showed that for the fifth year in a row, Illinois had the most exonerations (accounting for more than half of the total exonerations in that calendar year). A disproportionate number of the wrongfully convicted are Black or Brown people.

While these facts should be shocking and abhorrent to every person, the sad fact is, in Illinois, it’s all too common. The danger of this being commonplace is that miscarriages of justice that destroy so many lives are effectively an accepted part of the criminal justice system.

“This cannot become the norm,” Soto lamented. “It cannot become an acceptable part of the process for innocent men and women to languish in prison for crimes they didn’t commit, only to be set free decades later, after their life has passed them by, their children have grown up without a mother or a father, and loved ones die. It’s unacceptable that Illinois is the worst in the nation when it comes to police misconduct and wrongful convictions.”

I asked Soto why he thought that this problem continues to plague the people of Illinois specifically.

“Honestly, it comes down to a lack of political will; that’s the major impediment,” he said. “We hear a lot about criminal

JANUARY 18, 2024 ¬ SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY 11

JUSTICE

justice reform, but nothing ever gets done.

These politicians play three-card monte with their words. They offer lip service to the idea of change because they know it’s what most people want, but then they make political calculations and all too often those calculations don’t add up to change. They won’t change the procedures to help because they have a fear of guilty defendants convicted of violent offenses exploiting procedural loopholes to get out of prison. It all comes back to how this may affect them in their bid for reelection. It’s political gutlessness.”

Soto told me when he came to prison he was young and angry, but he saw something right away that changed his trajectory. “On my third day in prison, we went to the movie hall to watch a film. I saw a guy get stabbed up. He laid in the aisle and bled to death. The CO didn’t notice until the movie was over. I saw right away what a highly aggressive and violent place prison can be, and I had to learn how to navigate that.”

Soto decided right away that he wanted to get an education. He took a vocational class in small engine repair and was certified through Joliet Junior College.

Using Pell grants, he earned forty-two credit hours from Lewis University and became a certified paralegal. “I’ve always held education in high esteem,” he said. “It was instilled in me as a child that in order to have a level playing field I needed a good education because as a Mexican, American people would look down on you if you were stupid. Education was something that no one could take away from me.”

He also decided that even though he was wrongfully convicted, he wanted to help people. He was accepted into the Jaycees, a leadership training service organization, in 1988, then became a chapter vice president. He taught business, accounting, and entrepreneurial classes.

He volunteered to tutor Spanish-speaking prisoners. He began working at the prison law library and helping others with their cases. As a legal advocate, Soto helped get fourteen new trials for other prisoners.

Soto’s tireless legal work has led to twenty exonerations and more than 100 resentencings. He has worked on almost 1,000 cases and helped hundreds of fellow prisoners. He got results that their own

Jimmy Soto waves.

legal counsels couldn’t get them. Here is a man who was wrongfully convicted and sentenced to life in prison, yet was still trying to help other people.

“I feel like I was in a unique situation to help,” Soto said. “I know what it’s like to be wrongfully convicted and stuck in this hellhole with no help, and no one listening to you. I didn’t want anyone else to feel that way. It also helped me grow and learn as a

Photo by Jim Daley

and recalled his junior year as a teenager at Quigley Preparatory Seminary South.

“We had a college recruitment day,” he said. “There was this senior from Notre Dame with an orange jacket and these gold pamphlets. I really wanted to go to college.”

He was accepted into NPEP’s first cohort, becoming one of twenty men selected out of hundreds.

“Professor Jennifer Lackey’s vision of

It cannot become an acceptable part of the process for innocent men and women to languish in prison for crimes they didn’t commit, only to be set free decades later, after their life has passed them by. legal advocate; here I was in prison winning cases, helping to get guys home. I knew I had what it took to get myself home. It was a good feeling. These things helped me grow in ways that are hard to define. I’ve become less critical. I learned that power wasn’t always equated with money. There is power in knowledge and words. I learned that and have tried to teach it to others.”

When he heard about NPEP’s program, Soto knew he had to get in,

12 SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY ¬ JANUARY 18, 2024

higher education for men and women in prison was amazing,” Soto said, referring to the Northwestern law professor who is the founding director of NPEP. “I was being taught the same courses that are taught on campus. In prison, they take away so much. This program gives you back a sense of being a person. I have forged lasting relationships with individuals I never would have otherwise met. This is the vision of community that Jennifer Lackey

tried to build for us.”

Soto recently took the Law School Admission Test (LSAT), becoming the first incarcerated person in Illinois history to do so. I asked him how he did.

“I don’t like to brag, but it was good.

You know I was nervous, but I did well,” he said. “I want to go to law school. You don’t need a law license to help somebody; I’ve done it my whole time in prison, but I want to pass the bar. There are other innocent men and women in prison; we know some of them. Even those who aren’t innocent need help, [such as] people who have death-by-incarceration sentences who no longer need to be in prison. When you keep somebody in prison for years and years who is changed and is rehabilitated, and not a danger to society any longer, you’re just wasting taxpayer money and robbing society of someone who will be a productive, strong addition to society. How can we expect other people to do better if we as a society won’t do better?”

What, I asked, can be done to fix the criminal legal system?

“You have to tweak some things a little bit, like the appellate procedures so guys are allowed to put forth innocence claims, and even the post-conviction process,” he said. “You have to make things easier for prisoners’ pleas of innocence to be heard.

But, it goes farther than that. You have to encourage the election of progressive prosecutors like Kim Foxx, and more conviction integrity units. You have to establish innocence commissions to get into wrongful convictions. In a state like Illinois with the corruption and manufacturing of evidence, more leeway should be given to a prisoner claiming innocence, not less. I’d also like to point out that clemency and parole are only as good as the officials in charge. We need to make sure we have the right people in those positions.”

I asked Jimmy Soto what was next for him.

“Spending time with my family and friends, getting my certificate of innocence, and going to law school,” he said. Anthony Ehlers is a writer incarcerated at Stateville Correctional Center. Find out more about incarcerated journalists via the Prison Journalism Project.

JUSTICIA

Por fin libre

Jimmy Soto reflexiona sobre su liberación tras pasar 42 años en prisión.

POR ANTHONY EHLERS, CHICAGO READER TRADUCIDO POR ALMA CAMPOS, SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY

E

l 14 de diciembre, Jimmy Soto y su primo David Ayala salieron del Centro Correccional de Stateville después de 42 años de prisión en los que se esforzaron por comprobar su inocencia.

Al momento de ser liberado, Soto era el preso más duradero con una condena injusta en la historia de Illinois.

La semana pasada, un juez del Condado de Cook anuló la sentencia de Soto, alegando que ni él ni Ayala recibieron la asistencia legal adecuada. La fiscal del Condado de Cook, Kim Foxx, se negó a volver a juzgar a Soto por falta de pruebas.

Soto fue condenado en 1981 después de que los fiscales afirmaran que cometió un doble asesinato de una joven pareja bajo orden de Ayala. Soto fue condenado a pesar de que no había testigos ni pruebas físicas que lo relacionaran con el crimen.

Conozco personalmente a Jimmy Soto. Ambos fuimos estudiantes del programa Northwestern Prison Education Project (NPEP, por sus siglas en inglés), una iniciativa de la Universidad Northwestern que ofrece una educación de artes liberales a estudiantes encarcelados en Illinois. Nos graduamos en noviembre.

Soto es amable y generoso, muy educado y se preocupa por las demás personas. Es humilde y un hombre de integridad y principios. Esas cualidades son difíciles de encontrar en un hombre, y menos en alguien que ha pasado los últimos 42 años tras las rejas luego de ser condenado injustamente. Lo entrevisté poco antes de ser dejado en libertad.

“Nunca había ido a juicio por algo”, me dijo Soto. “Era joven, sólo tenía 19 años. No tenía ni idea sobre lo que estaba pasando. Un abogado tiene que tener un título universitario, pasar por

años de entrenamiento y estudio. Luego tiene que pasar el examen de acceso a la abogacía, pero las cortes esperan que sepas prácticamente lo mismo que tu abogado o hasta más. Tú eres el que tiene que rendir cuentas. Tú eres responsable, legalmente, de lo que hace tu abogado. Las cortes no tienen a tu abogado como responsable de los errores e insuficiencias, te tienen a ti como responsable. ¿Cómo un chico de la calle va a saber más que su abogado? El sistema está diseñado para que fracases”.

El problema está en el procedimiento.

Entender el procedimiento es la puerta de entrada a donde están las personas con el poder de determinar el destino de un acusado. Sin esa ventaja, no tienes ninguna posibilidad de que se haga justicia. “Yo le decía a todo el mundo que era inocente”, contó Soto. “Nadie me escuchaba”.

Los obstáculos procesales impiden con demasiada frecuencia que los presos inocentes salgan de la cárcel.

“El sistema valora más la finalidad que la precisión”, dijo Soto. “Las personas dicen que el sistema no funciona. Pero la verdad es que el sistema solo funciona como debe funcionar. Es la forma en que los de arriba impiden que los de abajo asciendan. Todo está disfrazado en el lenguaje legal rígido y estéril.”

Illinois tiene una de las tasas más altas de condenas injustas en el país.

Desde 1989, al menos 2,240 personas han sido condenadas injustamente en todo el país. Illinois ocupa el tercer lugar de la lista, con al menos 225 desde entonces.

Las personas injustamente condenadas han sido, en su gran mayoría, personas negras y latinas.

Aunque estos hechos deberían ser impactantes y aborrecibles para cualquier persona, en Illinois la triste realidad es que es demasiado común. El peligro

de que esto sea normalizado es que los errores judiciales que destruyen tantas vidas sean aceptados como parte del sistema de justicia.

“Esto no puede ser la norma”, lamentó Soto. “No puede ser una parte aceptable del proceso el que hombres y mujeres inocentes sufran en prisión por delitos que no cometieron, sólo para ser puestos en libertad décadas más tarde, después de los mejores años de su vida, después de sus hijos hayan crecido sin madre ni padre y sus seres queridos hayan muerto. Es inaceptable que Illinois sea el peor en el país en cuanto a mala conducta policial y condenas injustas”.

Le pregunté a Soto por qué este problema sigue afectando específicamente a las personas de Illinois.

“Honestamente, todo se reduce a la falta de voluntad política; ése es el principal impedimento”, dijo. “Oímos hablar mucho de la reforma de la justicia penal, pero nunca se hace nada. Estos políticos juegan con sus palabras. Mienten sobre hacer cambios porque saben que es lo que quiere la gente, pero luego hacen cálculos políticos y, con demasiada frecuencia, esos cálculos no aportan nada al cambio. No cambian los procedimientos para ayudar porque temen que los acusados que sí son culpables de delitos violentos vayan a aprovechar de los tecnicismos para salir de la prisión. Todo se trata de cómo esto puede afectarles en su reelección. Es cobardía política”.

S

oto me dijo que cuando entró a prisión, era joven y tenía mucho coraje, y que enseguida vio algo que cambió su trayectoria. “En mi tercer día en prisión, fuimos a la sala de cine a ver una película. Y vi a un hombre que fue apuñalado. Quedó tendido en el piso y

murió desangrado. El oficial encargado no se dio cuenta hasta que terminó la película. Enseguida vi lo agresiva y violenta que puede ser la prisión, y tuve que aprender cómo navegar eso”.

Soto decidió enseguida que quería estudiar. Tomó clases vocacionales en reparación de motores y obtuvo un certificado de Joliet Junior College. Gracias a las becas Pell, obtuvo 42 horas de crédito en la Louis University y comenzó a trabajar como asistente jurídico (paralegal).

“Siempre he valorado la educación”, afirmó. “Me inculcaron de niño que para tener igualdad de condiciones necesitaba una buena educación porque, como mexicano, las personas estadounidenses te menospreciaban si no eras inteligente.

La educación era algo que nadie podía quitarme”.

Soto también decidió que, aunque había sido condenado injustamente, quería ayudar a otras personas. En 1988 ingresó en Jaycees, una organización de formación de líderes, y después ocupó el cargo de vicepresidente de su sección. Impartió clases de negocio, contabilidad y emprendimiento.

Se ofreció como voluntario para dar clases a presos que solo hablaban español. Empezó a trabajar en la biblioteca legal de la prisión y a ayudar a otros con sus casos. Como defensor legal, Soto ayudó a conseguir 14 nuevos juicios para otros presos.

El esfuerzo de Soto por trabajar en el ámbito jurídico ha dado lugar a 20 exoneraciones y a más de 100 nuevas condenas. Ha trabajado en casi 1,000 casos y ayudado a cientos de compañeros presos.

Les consiguió resultados que sus propios asesores jurídicos no pudieron conseguirles.

Aquí tenemos a un hombre que fue injustamente condenado a cadena perpetua y que, sin embargo, sigue intentando ayudar a otras personas.

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“Siento que estaba en la condición de ayudar”, dijo Soto. “Sé cómo es ser condenado injustamente y estar atrapado en este infierno sin ayuda y sin que nadie te escuche. No quería que nadie más se sintiera así. Esto también me ayudó a crecer y a aprender como defensor legal; aquí estaba, en prisión, ganando casos, ayudando a que hombres volvieran a casa. Sabía que podía hacer lo necesario para volver a casa.

Esto me ayuda a crecer de maneras que son difíciles de explicar. He aprendido a ser menos crítico. Aprendí que el poder y el dinero no siempre van de la mano. Hay poder en la educación y en las palabras. Yo aprendí eso, y he intentado enseñárselo a los demás”.

Cuando se enteró del programa de NPEP de Northwestern, Soto supo que tenía que apuntarse. Esto le hizo recordar su tercer año en la secundaria Quigley South Preparatory Seminary School. “Tuvimos un día de reclutamiento de universidades”, dijo. “Había un estudiante de cuarto año de la universidad de Notre Dame con una chamarra anaranjada y unos panfletos de

color dorado. Yo tenía muchas ganas de ir a la universidad”.

Soto fue aceptado en el programa de NPEP, y se convirtió en uno de los 20 seleccionados de entre cientos de estudiantes.

“La visión de la profesora Jennifer Lackey sobre la educación superior para hombres y mujeres en prisión es increíble”, dijo Soto, refiriéndose a la profesora que fundó el NPEP. “Me enseñaban los mismos cursos que se imparten en el campus de la Universidad Northwestern. En la prisión te quitan tantas cosas. Este programa te devuelve el sentido de que eres un ser humano. He forjado relaciones duraderas con personas que de otro modo nunca habría conocido. Jennifer Lackey trató de construir para nosotros un sentido de comunidad”.

Soto tomó recientemente la prueba LSAT, lo que lo convirtió en la primera persona encarcelada en la historia de Illinois en hacerlo. Le pregunté qué tal le había ido.

“No me gusta presumir, pero me fue bien. Estaba nervioso, pero me fue bien”,

14 SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY ¬ JANUARY 18, 2024

dijo. “Quiero estudiar derecho. No hace falta hacerse licenciado para ayudar a alguien; yo lo he hecho todo el tiempo que he estado en prisión, pero quiero pasar el examen de acceso a la abogacía. Incluso los que no son inocentes necesitan ayuda. Como las personas condenadas a cadena perpetua que no deberían estar en prisión. Cuando una persona está en prisión durante años y años y la persona ha cambiado y se ha rehabilitado y ya no es un peligro para la sociedad, sólo se está malgastando el dinero de los impuestos y robandole a la sociedad alguien que será una adición productiva y fuerte en la sociedad. ¿Cómo podemos esperar que estas personas hagan bien si nosotros, como sociedad, no hacemos mejor?”. ¿Qué se puede hacer, le pregunté, para arreglar el sistema judicial penal?

“Hay que modificar algunas cosas, como los procedimientos de apelación para que los presos puedan presentar alegaciones de inocencia, e incluso el proceso posterior a la condena”, dijo. “Hay que hacer las cosas más sencillas para que se escuchen los testimonios de inocencia de los presos. Pero

va más allá. Hay que fomentar la elección de fiscales progresistas como Kim Foxx, y más unidades de integridad en las condenas.

Hay que crear comisiones de inocencia para investigar las condenas erróneas. En un estado como Illinois, con tanta corrupción y fabricación de pruebas, hay que darle más peso a un preso que alega inocencia, no menos. También me gustaría señalar que tenemos que asegurarnos de tener a las personas adecuadas en los procesos del sistema judicial como en la clemencia y la libertad condicional.

Le pregunté a Soto qué es lo sigue en su vida.

“Pasar tiempo con mi familia y amigos, obtener mi certificado de inocencia y estudiar derecho”, dijo. Anthony Ehlers es un escritor encarcelado en el Centro Correccional de Stateville. Puede obtener más información sobre los periodistas encarcelados a través del Prison Journalism Project.

–

SERVICE DIRECTORY CLASSIFIED Section To place your ad, call: 1-773-358-3129 or email: malone@southsideweekly.com Ad copy deadline: 1:00 p.m. Friday before Thursday publication date

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malone@southsideweekly.com JANUARY 18, 2024 ¬ SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY 15

LIT

T

Our thoughts in exchange for yours. he Exchange is the Weekly’s poetry corner, where a poem or piece of writing is presented with a prompt. Readers are welcome to respond to the prompt with original poems, and pieces may be featured in the next issue of the Weekly.

Autopay

by chima “naira” ikoro

I tried not to spend money, but it costs.

Opened my eyes this morning, realized I left the heat on and it costs.

In the bathroom to wash my body, turn on the water and it costs.

No tissue to wipe my ass, can’t flush paper towels or they cost.

Outside with no add-ons gotta be free, wanna do anything but breathe? Well it costs.

Would go for a drive but despite the mess they made of the planet the gas still costs (more, actually).

Went on a walk, walked past my car and saw a ticket. Costs.

Expired license, sticky piece of paper on a chunk of metal costs.

Don’t have the money to buy it, we’ll just ask for more money cause not having money costs.

Wanna contest it? Take an Uber to the courthouse, don’t drive with those plates or it’ll cost.

Might cost you your life if you’re lucky, or Black—these days I can’t tell the difference cause it all costs.

Forget about the ticket, keep walking, sprain your ankle on a pothole, now it costs.

Price of the sticky piece of paper on your car should have paid to fill that hole…I thought it cost.

Take 4 ibuprofen, could go to the ER but you know it’s gonna cost.

Don’t matter if you fell unconscious, when you wake up that ambulance is gonna cost.

It’s more than just a sprain, everything and everyone is broke and it costs.

Hold your emotions over your head, don’t let them crush you or it’ll cost.

Hear your family members saying open your eyes, don’t die please, it costs.

Chima Ikoro is the Weekly’s Community Builder.

THIS WEEK'S PROMPT: “WRITE A POEM THAT EXPLORES THE DAILY EXPENSES OF LIFE, AND THE NOTION THAT EVERYTHING SEEMS TO COME WITH A COST, WHETHER IT’S FINANCIAL, EMOTIONAL, OR PHYSICAL.” This could be a poem, journal entry, or a stream-of-consciousness piece. Submissions could be new or formerly written pieces.

Submissions can be sent to bit.ly/ssw-exchange or via email to chima.ikoro@southsideweekly.com

16 SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY ¬ JANUARY 18, 2024

LIT

T

Our thoughts in exchange for yours. he Exchange is the Weekly’s poetry corner, where a poem or piece of writing is presented with a prompt. Readers are welcome to respond to the prompt with original poems, and pieces may be featured in the next issue of the Weekly.

FEATURED BELOW IS A POEM FROM A FAST SUMMER, A POETRY SERIES AND ZINE BY E’MON LAUREN.

Day 72: A Fast Summer by e’mon lauren

an angel sent me a ‘888’ today. wealth & prosperity is on my side. in the irish spelling of my name, ‘Eamon’, means protector of wealth. in islam & arabic, ‘faith & time’. and what is more secure than belief & patience. i am of the age now, where “my health is my wealth”, has really or fully solidified.

my blood runs clear. my juice bleeds water. my mind is in working progress and true order seeks balance. this is wealth. turned on its side infinitely. disaster is only as pure as irresponsibility. and what is living life to a flex. tomorrow may not come, so imma shake my ass for free today.

A Fast Summer is available for purchase at Dimo’s Pizza Wicker Park, 1615 N. Damen Ave. Chima Ikoro is the Weekly’s Community Builder.

THIS WEEK'S PROMPT: “WRITE A POEM THAT EXPLORES THE DAILY EXPENSES OF LIFE, AND THE NOTION THAT EVERYTHING SEEMS TO COME WITH A COST, WHETHER IT’S FINANCIAL, EMOTIONAL, OR PHYSICAL.” This could be a poem, journal entry, or a stream-of-consciousness piece. Submissions could be new or formerly written pieces.

Submissions can be sent to bit.ly/ssw-exchange or via email to chima.ikoro@southsideweekly.com

Photos courtesy of Xochitl-Quetzal Danza Azteca

JANUARY 18, 2024 ¬ SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY 17

IMMIGRATION

Volunteers Open Free Store in Washington Park Also known as the “The Muffler Shop,” the space will last through March.

BY ZOE PHARO, HYDE PARK HERALD This story was originally published in the Hyde Park Herald and is being reprinted with permission.

M

ore than a dozen volunteers gathered on a blustery Martin Luther King Jr. Day in a warehouse on the Arts Block of Washington Park, sorting clothing and other donations Spending the holiday in service, people arrived in shifts to help set up a “tiendita,” a new free store for migrants, and anyone in need, to get free clothing, hygiene kits and household items.

Volunteers, among them University of Chicago and Akiba-Schecter Jewish Day School students, signed up in one-hour shifts with Arcelia Guerrero Wolfe, the organizer of the drive.

Wolfe, who works in admissions for the U. of C. Laboratory schools and is also a master’s student at the U. of C., has been volunteering to help new arrivals since July of this year, where she observed a dire need for clothing, shoes, and other items.

By the end of the summer, Wolfe started collecting donations from neighbors using her campus network and distributing them to people sheltering at local police stations.

“It was pretty overwhelming for me, because what I was doing, I was actually going to each home picking up clothes and putting it into my car, and then going to [the police station] to distribute clothes,” she said.

At first, she and other volunteers assisted about fifty people at each of the mid-South Side’s two police stations. But as the cold set in and station populations doubled, “My car was packed all the time,”

Kevin Cajas, volunteering on behalf of the U. of C. alumni association, stands before rows of clothing inside the new free store, 353 E. Garfield Blvd., on Monday, Jan. 15, 2024.

Photo by Zoe Pharo

Wolfe said.

Upon hearing about some of the immense loads being shouldered by volunteers, Ané Maríñez-Lora, an assistant professor at the U. of C.’s Crown Family School of Social Work, Policy, and Practice, reached out to the university’s Office of Civic Engagement for help. The office helped volunteers obtain a free, physical space through its Commercial Real Estate Operations department.

Also known as the “The Muffler Shop,” 353 E. Garfield Blvd., the space is temporary; it will last through March.

“We have to be really grateful,” Maríñez-Lora said. “We’re not paying for the space. It has been heated, it has electricity, so it’s quite a generous temporary space that we’ve been provided.”

Since late August of 2022, per city data, more than 30,000 people have arrived in Chicago from the country’s southern

18 SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY ¬ JANUARY 18, 2024

border, most of whom have been bussed

by Texas Gov. Greg Abbot in protest of federal immigration policy.

The new arrivals, most of whom are from Venezuela, according to Wolfe, are living in the city’s more than twenty-seven temporary shelters created in repurposed schools, city facilities and hotels.

In the first couple weeks the shop has been open, Wolfe said, volunteers have served seventy to eighty people.

“We’ve had people come shopping from shelters, from apartments, especially now these past two weeks it’s gotten cold,” she said. “It’s very convenient for them to come here.”

She noted the store has already seen visitors from the Lake Shore Hotel shelter, 4900B S. Lake Shore Dr., the Wadsworth shelter, 6420 S. University Ave., and from a third shelter in the West Loop, 344 N. Ogden Ave.

“I just talked to one family last week, she had just got off the bus and was in flip flops,” Wolfe said. “The kids were wearing gym shoes, they didn’t have coats, they had these thin little sweatshirts.”

“A couple weeks ago, [Chicago] had 600 people come from Texas to a ‘landing zone,’ Wolfe said. “When we hear of situations like that … we load up our cars, stuff it with blankets, with anything, all warm gear, and we drive to the ‘landing zone’ to give clothes out.”

On Saturday, due to extreme cold and wind chills, the City of Chicago announced that migrants awaiting shelter placement at the city’s West Loop landing zone, a designated area where buses are supposed to drop off new arrivals, would be relocated to one of seven warming centers. The city also announced Friday that it would put a pause on its sixty-day shelter limit, due to the cold temperatures, and temporarily hold off on evicting migrants.

Donations currently being accepted for the store include clothing, shoes, blankets, and towels, as well as items like bed sheets, shower curtains, kitchenware, and furniture.

After March, plans for the store are up in the air.

As of now, the shop is open every Saturday and Sunday from 10am to 1pm, and volunteers can sign up for shifts online at signupgenius.com/ go/10C0F4BA4A623A4F85-47017313volunteer#/ Zoe Pharo is a staff writer at the Hyde Park Herald.

Chicago International Puppet Festival

Various times and locations. Thursday, January 18–Sunday, January 28. Ticket prices vary. chicagopuppetfest.org/events/ The Chicago International Puppet Festival returns to locations across the city, with myriad performances, including at the DuSable Black History Museum and Education Center, the Reva & David Logan Center for the Arts and Eta Creative Arts Foundation.

(Zoe Pharo)

Beauty and the Beast at Beverly Arts Center

Beverly Arts Center, 2407 W. 111th St. Friday, January 19–Saturday, April 27, 6–7pm. Single tickets range from $18 to $22, group deals are available. chicagokidscompany.com/beauty-and-thebeast/ Beverly Arts Center presents “Beauty and the Beast” by the Chicago Kids Company, which promises to be “full of comedy, romance, and plenty of audience participation.” The one-hour musical adaptation is geared for children ages 2 to 10. (Zoe Pharo)

Kids’ DIY-U Workshop

Lowe’s Home Improvement, 8411 S. Holland Rd. Saturday, January 20, 10am–1pm. Free. bit.ly/48AXp6O Lowe’s Home Improvement is hosting a Kids Toolbox Workshop to help kids

make their first toolbox, so they can help with projects. (Zoe Pharo)

ConTextos Family Publication Event

Row 24 Chicago, 2411 S. Michigan Ave. Saturday, January 20, 11am–3pm. Free. bit.ly/3SnIqYl This event celebrates the publication of memories by the tenth cohort of authors in ConTextos, a program in collaboration with the Cook County Sherriff ’s Office and Cook County Department of Corrections. There will be a live videoconference with recently published ConTextos Authors in Cook County Department of Corrections, reflections on the journey of the Authors Circle an opportunities to read the individual illustrated memoirs written by the authors. (Zoe Pharo)

Curator Tour: Poetry is Everything

Smart Museum of Art, 5550 S. Greenwood Ave. Saturday, January 20, 12pm. Free. smartmuseum.uchicago.edu/events/2164/ curator-tour-poetry-is-everything/ Join co-curators of the Smart Museum’s exhibition “Smart to the Core: Poetry is Everything” for a guided tour and a discussion about poetry. Berit Ness and Sarah Nooter, professor of Classics at U. of C., will guide guests through the exhibition, showing them how poetry can be viewed and understood through visual art. (Zoe Pharo)

Opening Celebration for “Holdings”

from Highly Flavored Chicago.

(Zoe Pharo)

The Renaissance Society, 5811 S. Ellis Ave. Saturday, January 20, 4pm–7pm.

Free. renaissancesociety.org/events/1355/ holdings/

10th Driver’s License Reinstatement Expo

The Renaissance Society is hosting an opening celebration for Ghislaine Leung’s solo exhibition, “Holdings,” with a reception at the gallery and refreshments. Leung’s work explores the “dynamics of value, labor, and access, as well as the kinds of dependencies and displacements that shape her life and ours.” This marks Leung’s first solo exhibit at a U.S. museum.

The Renaissance Society is hosting an opening celebration for Ghislaine Leung’s solo exhibition, “Holdings,” with a reception at the gallery and refreshments. Leung’s work explores the “dynamics of value, labor, and access, as well as the kinds of dependencies and displacements that shape her life and ours.” This marks Leung’s first solo exhibit at a U.S. museum. (Zoe Pharo)

School Choice in Illinois

Grove Heights Baptist Church, 9800 S. Greenwood Ave. Sunday, January 21, 3pm–6pm. Free. bit.ly/4b0f4q3 The Christian Home Educators Support System is hosting a workshop and discussion on school choice in Illinois.

A panel will delve into topics such as microschools, private schools and homeschooling. Food will be catered

Malcolm X College, 1900 W. Jackson Blvd.

Saturday, January 27, 9am–3pm. Free.

The expo is a restorative justice event, where members of Cook County have the opportunity of starting the process of having their driver’s license reinstated.

According to organizers, Pilsen Neighborhood Community Council and its partners are the only organizations that host this type of event outside of the city’s downtown circuit courts.

(Zoe Pharo)

We Insist: Max Roach 100th Birthday

The DuSable Black History Museum and Education Center, 740 E. 56th Pl. Friday, February 2, 6:30pm–8:30pm. Free. www. dusablemuseum.org/events/ The DuSable Museum is hosting a film screening nd tribute to American jazz drummer and composer and pioneer of bebop Max Roach for his 100th birthday.

The night will feature a screening of “Max Roach: The Drum Also Waltzes” and a live performance by Jeremiah Collier and the REUP. (Zoe Pharo)

JANUARY 18, 2024 ¬ SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY 19

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Dates Jan. 10, 17, 24, 31, Feb. 7, 14 Feb. 8, 15, 22, 29, March 7, 14 March 6, 13, 20, 27, April 3, 10 April 4, 11, 18, 25, May 2, 9 April 2, 9, 16, 21, 30, May 7

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For more information, contact Danielle Riley at 312-743-1475 email: Danielle.Riley@cityofchicago.org or Victoria Russo at 312-743-3528 email: Victoria.Russo@cityofchicago.org

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Rates current as of 01/11/2023 and based on a $320,000 loan for the purchase/rate-and-term refinance of an owner-occupied single family home with an 80% loan-to-value and a borrower FICO score of 760. Contact your DKMC loan officer for current rates. Interest rates and annual percentage rates (APRs) are estimates and not to be construed as exact quotes but a reasonable approximation for informational purposes only, are subject to change without notice and may be subject to pricing adjustors related to property type, loan amount, loan-to-value, credit score and other variables. Actual APR may differ depending on borrower’s credit history and loan characteristics. Other programs are available based on the individual needs of the applicant. This information does not constitute a loan approval or commitment and is not an invitation to extend credit as defined by section 226.2 of Regulation Z. All information presented is subject to change, and all programs are subject to Draper and Kramer Mortgage Corp.’s underwriting guidelines.

EQUAL HOUSING OPPORTUNITY * annual percentage rate Draper and Kramer Mortgage Corp. (NMLS ID # 2551 (www.nmlsconsumeraccess.org) IL:MB.0004263) an Illinois Residential Mortgage Licensee located at 1431 Opus Place, Suite 200, Downers Grove, IL 60515. Telephone 630-376-2100. Regulated by IDFPR located at 100 West Randolph, 9th Floor, Chicago, IL 60601. Telephone 312-814-4500. © 2023 Draper and Kramer Mortgage Corp. All Rights Reserved. 04600-121 01/2024.

Polar Adventure Days BIG MARSH PARK

11559 S. Stony Island Ave. January 20 February 17 12 — 3pm

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FREE!

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Have fun while enjoying all the wonders of nature at Polar Adventure Days at Big Marsh Park!

Big Marsh Park is located at 11559 S. Stony Island Ave. Limited parking is available during Polar Adventure Days.

For more information visit www.ChicagoParkDistrict.com or call 312.742.7529

For more information about your Chicago Park District, visit www.ChicagoParkDistrict.com or call 312.742.7529.

City of Chicago | Brandon Johnson, Mayor Chicago Park District Board of Commissioners | Rosa Escareño, General Superintendent & CEO

20 SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY ¬ JANUARY 18, 2024