SSW 03.14.24

Are you a caregiver of a family member or friend with Alzheimer’s or a related dementia? This program is for you!

Join us for SAVVY CAREGIVER™, a free, interactive 6-week training series designed to support family caregivers. “…It was therapeutic to empathize with everyone and get to meet people in the same situation.

As a SAVVY CAREGIVER, you will be able to: • Develop strategies and master skills to help your caregiver situation • Find ways to reduce the effects of stress through planning and self-care • Manage daily life and behaviors • Effectively communicate with a person with dementia

Online Winter/Spring Schedule 2024 Series 1 2 3 4 Evening

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

Day Wednesdays Thursdays Wednesdays Thursdays Tuesdays

Register Today!

Time 9:30 AM - 11:30 AM 2:00 PM - 4:00 PM 9:30 AM - 11:30 AM 2:00 PM - 4:00 PM 6:00 PM - 8:00 PM

To register, please go to the link: http://bit.ly/SavvyCG Spaces are limited!

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

DFSS

Department of Family and Support Services

2 SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY ¬ MARCH 14, 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 5 Editor-in-Chief

Jacqueline Serrato

Managing Editor

Adam Przybyl

Investigations Editor

Jim Daley

Senior Editors Martha Bayne Christopher Good Olivia Stovicek Sam Stecklow Alma Campos 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 Patrick Edwards Sebastiana Smith Lauren Sheperd Mo Dunne Layout Editor

Tony Zralka

Interim Executive Director

Malik Jackson

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

IN CHICAGO Bring Chicago Home is back Bring Chicago Home is “back” on the ballot. Near the bottom of the March 19 primary election ballot, voters will have the option to support or reject the referendum that would raise the marginal tax rate on purchasing homes over $1 million to fund programs for unhoused Chicagoans. Last Wednesday, an Appellate Court ruled to reinstate and count the votes for the referendum. This ruling follows a previous Circuit Court decision on February 23, in which a Cook County judge struck the real estate transfer tax from the March primary ballot. Wednesday’s Appellate Court ruling stated that courts do not “have the jurisdiction to prevent the measure from being placed on the March 19 ballot” and would interfere with the legislative process, violating the separation of powers principle between judicial and legislative branches.

The referendum would raise the transfer tax to 2 percent on real estate sales above $1 million and 3 percent on property sales above $1.5 million, while lowering it to 0.6 percent on sales below $1 million. Proponents of the measure say it would generate $100 million each year to address homelessness.

MAT Asphalt settlement claim deadline extended to March 15 A new deadline is approaching for eligible households in McKinley Park, Brighton Park, and Back of the Yards to claim settlement funds from a class-action lawsuit against MAT Asphalt LLC alleging the plant emitted fumes and odors that polluted the area. Rodriguez vs. MAT Asphalt LLC was filed in 2020 and reached in November 2023.

The settlement applies to residents living within a half-mile of the MAT Asphalt plant on 2055 W. Pershing Road. The settlement is for $1.2 million (minus costs and attorney fees) which would be distributed among “all owner/occupants and renters of residential property.” The settlement also mandates MAT Asphalt to complete a total of $900,000 worth of facility improvements by April 30.

Attorneys from Liddle Sheets Coulson P.C. set a previous deadline of January 22 to file a claim, opt out, or object the settlement. A judge extended the deadline to March 15 after residents expressed overwhelming concern over the legal terminology, urgent deadlines, and language barriers since claim forms were only in English. Additionally, there were complaints about accessibility after a community meeting was held on the North Side. The law firm sent revised paper claim forms to residents and more information regarding eligibility and how to claim can be found on the law firm’s website.

Business accelerator welcomes new cohort of entrepreneurs Under the Garfield Green Line tracks in Washington Park, the L1 creative business accelerator has hosted cohorts of entrepreneurs to help them elevate their brands and test their products on the local community and the broader networks of Arts + Public Life, the UChicago Arts initiative that pioneered the program.

After two cohorts of entrepreneurs, the accelerator is welcoming their third, comprised of Oluwaseyi Adeleke and his clothing brand, prgrssn, Soma Gems by Joli Chandler, and Callie Decor by Twjuana Simone Robinson. For the next ten months their products and services will be housed under the tracks at L1, or 319 E. Garfield Blvd, and the grand opening to unveil the cohort is on March 15 at 11am.

IN THIS ISSUE your democratic primary guide to the statehouse

These are the candidates running to represent the South Side in Springfield. michael liptrot......................................4 shotspotter sues former employees

The company alleges the former employees posted secret company data on Twitter. max blaisdell...........................................6 stadium shenanigans

The White Sox are asking for a billion-dollar ballpark. But is it a good deal for the South Side? malachi hayes..........................................9 life on the south side immortalized in home movies

Many families who donate their reels cite the importance of establishing a family legacy and wanting the memories to be passed down. dierdre robinson...................................12 from fourth grade rhymes to neighborhood anthems

Auburn Gresham burgeoning artist Kayo teases yearly projects following his debut album success. ryan rosenberger..................................13 twenty-four-hour vigil for gaza ends in direct action, arrests

After reading 10,000 names, protesters blocked an intersection for nearly an hour in solidarity with Palestinians. jim daley..................................................15 jailhouse religion

Some faith-based rehabilitation programs offer a rare, non-punitive space for those incarcerated—but do they blur the separation of church and state? dylan comerford...................................17 a tale of three bronzevilles: how residents’ lives are shaped by affordable housing

As homelessness reaches record levels in Chicago and across the U.S., a dire need for housing has a drastic impact on the lives of three Bronzeville residents. ahmad sayles, troy gaston, city bureau...............................................19 bronzeville’s future as a real estate ‘gem’ threatens its legacy as chicago’s black metropolis

Longtime residents and advocates look to affordable housing plans and intentional investment to keep the celebrated Black neighborhood Black. nicole jeanine johnson, reema saleh, city bureau...............................................22 the exchange

Cover photo by Michael DiGioia

The Weekly’s poetry corner offers our thoughts in exchange for yours. chima ikoro.............................................24

Your Democratic Primary Guide to the Statehouse

These are the candidates running to represent the South Side in Springfield.

BY MICHAEL LIPTROT

T

his year’s primary election takes place during a legislative session filled with bills on a variety of issues ranging from allowing mobile driver’s licenses to overhauling the Chicago Public Schools Board of Education. Governor J.B. Pritzker seeks to pass his sixth budget in office, including increased education funding and state funding for newly arrived migrants.

Incumbents running unopposed in the March 19 primary are Aaron M. Ortiz (1st), Curtis J. Tarver II (25th), Kam Buckner (26th), Marcus C. Evans, Jr. (33rd), and Nicholas K. Smith (34th) Here are the contested races in South Side districts:

5th District: du Buclet vs. Smith Kimberly du Buclet has less than a year’s worth of experience representing Illinois’ General Assembly’s 5th District, which includes the Loop and South Shore. She was appointed in May 2023 to replace Lamont Robinson following his election to City Council in the 4th Ward. Du Buclet’s background includes a stint as state Representative for Illinois’ 26th District from 2011 to 2013. Most recently, she served as vice president of the Metropolitan Water Reclamation District from 2018 to 2023. Du Buclet emphasized her work on Senate Bill 3349, a 2012 piece of sentencing reform that reduced the required minimum length of supervised release, or parole, for certain felonies. She has introduced legislation in the General 4 SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY ¬ MARCH 14, 2024

Assembly to create accountability for corporate emissions and introduced a state holiday honoring Emmett Till.

Andre Smith has run four times for 20th Ward Alderman. Smith’s “We the people FIRST” campaign for the 5th District is notably tough on crime and outspokenly anti-Brandon Johnson.

“The mayor allowed the illegal migrants to invade our city, to invade Chicago,” Smith said on Fox News in January. A former campaign worker for Paul Vallas’s mayoral bid, Smith also appeared on Fox and Friends in a Naperville diner to bash the new mayor the morning of Johnson’s inauguration. He wants a referendum on Chicago’s Sanctuary City status and limiting funding for migrants. The Tribune sympathized with Smith’s frustrations, but did not view his approach towards migrants as practical or humanitarian, and endorsed du Buclet instead.

6th District: Harper vs. Williams Sonya Harper has served nearly a decade in the General Assembly. The 6th District includes Bridgeport, Englewood and McKinley Park. Harper, the youngest Joint Caucus Chair of the Illinois Legislative Black Caucus and the first Black Chair of the Agricultural Committee, has contributed to the Cannabis Regulation and Taxation Act, created the Gun Violence Prevention Caucus and served in a host of advisory roles. The Tribune endorsed Harper for reelection.

Joseph Williams, who was elected

POLITICS

last year to the Englewood (7th) Police District Council is challenging Harper.

A father of six, Williams founded the Mr. Dad’s Father’s Club, a nonprofit focused on cultivating social-emotional learning in Chicago youth. He has worked with CeaseFire, now known as Cure Violence, and in 2023 he was awarded The Destiny Foundation’s Leadership Excellence Award for his community engagement. Williams told Block Club that, if elected, he would focus on three points: “Affordable health care, youth empowerment and support for working families that would include child care assistance and wraparound services for parents looking to prepare for careers.” Specifically, Williams seeks to reopen shuttered 6th District mental health clinics, fund senior state health insurance programs and increase youth and returning citizen job opportunities.

22nd District: Guerrero-Cuellar vs.

Hernandez Angelica Guerrero-Cuellar has served the 22nd District since 2021, representing much of the city’s Southwest Side including Archer Heights, Garfield Ridge and West Lawn. Filling the seat once held by indicted former Democratic Leader Michael Madigan, GuerreroCuellar holds many House committee positions including Police and Fire, Health Care Availability and Access, and multiple transportation committees.

In its endorsement of her campaign, the Tribune described Guerrero-Cuellar as a moderate who’s supportive of reinstating the Invest in Kids tax credits and favors a fully elected Chicago Board of Education. She also backs an increased police presence in her district.

Joshua Hernandez and John Topps, both Garfield Ridge natives, are challenging Guerrero-Cuellar.

Hernandez seeks to increase police presence, attract more businesses to the area and end Illnois’ status as a sanctuary state. Few specifics are provided for any of these points. John Topps’ campaign Facebook page describes his more than six years of service with the Chicago Park District, CTA, and Streets and Sanitation.

The Illinois Statehouse dome.

23rd District: Gonzalez vs. Mercado Edgar Gonzalez, Jr. has represented the 23rd District since 2020, when he was appointed to replace Celina Villanueva and make history by becoming the youngest Illinois state Representative at twentythree years old. The Harvard-educated Chicago native represents North and South Lawndale, Brighton Park, and the suburb of Cicero. Gonzales sits on multiple committees including Cybersecurity, Data Analytics, and IT Committee; Ethics & Elections; and Housing. The Tribune endorsed Gonzalez.

Joseph Mercado is challenging Gonzalez and, at twenty-two, seeks to also take his title as the youngest Illinois state Representative. Though young, this is not Mercado’s first rodeo having run for 12th Ward Alderperson before being removed from the ballot for filing the wrong forms as a candidate. In conversations with both the Sun-Times and Tribune, Mercado cited violence prevention as his number-one focus. A blank page dedicated to issues on his campaign website provides no specifics to his “Born to Lead. Ready to Serve!” platform.

24th District: Mah vs. Ng Theresa Mah has served the 24th District since last year’s redistricting created it. The 24th District represents Chinatown, Pilsen and McKinley Park.

Previously she represented the 2nd District since 2017, succeeding Edward Acevedo.

Photo by Andrew Adams via Unsplash

The first Asian-American elected to the Illinois General Assembly, Mah co-chairs the House’s Progressive Caucus.

Lai Ching Ng is a Cook County Board of Review analyst challenging Mah. A resident of the area since 1989, she spoke with the Sun-Times about her dedication to the community, which she said she has shown by organizing job fairs and promoting Chinese businesses and development in Chinatown. Ng seeks to focus on addressing “skyrocketing” property taxes, public safety and “common-sense solutions” in response to newly arrived migrants in the city. The Tribune criticized Ng’s push to repeal the SAFE-T Act which ended cash bail, and endorsed Mah.

27th District: Slaughter vs. Robinson Justin Slaughter’s South Side district includes Auburn Gresham, Morgan Park, and Roseland, as well as many south suburbs. In office since 2017, he has led criminal justice reform through introducing legislation that gives inmates job skills, being a lead sponsor of the SAFE-T Act, and this legislative session introduced a bill to minimize minor offenses officers can stop motorists for, such as expired plates and tinted windows. Slaughter leads many committees, chiefly as chair of the Illinois Legislative Black Caucus, and also chairing the Criminal Administration and Enforcement Subcommittee, Juvenile Justice and System-Involved Youth Subcommittee and Sentencing, and Penalties and Criminal Procedure

Subcommittee.

Tawana Robinson is challenging Slaughter in the primary. A CPS special education teacher, Robinson leans on her outsider perspective. “I’m the better candidate because I have no connection to the corrupt business as usual attitude that earmarks the reign of the former Speaker Madigan, that current elected officials in Springfield still ascribe to,” Robinson told the Sun-Times. Beyond teaching, Robinson is the CEO of non-profit “It Takes a Village” dedicated to alternative education access and employment opportunities in the 27th District. Her website includes gun violence prevention, ensuring TIF funds are invested in the area, and providing resources to seniors including property tax freezes and homeowner exemptions. The Tribune described her platform as “skimpy,” and endorsed Slaughter.

28th District: Rita vs. Walker Thomas Robert “Bob” Rita has represented the 28th District since 2003, succeeding Tom Dart in serving the area that includes Chicago’s 9th and 34th Wards.

A member of several House committees, Rita chairs the Executive Committee and the Sales, Amusements, and Other Taxes Subcommittee. Development within the district, education and healthcare have been some of Rita’s top priorities. Rita’s lengthy tenure has not been without controversy.

He served as a witness during the highlypublicized trials of Michael Madigan and his aide Tim Mapes. Last fall, Rita was indicted on felony intimidation charges following accusations of assaulting Orland Township Supervisor Paul O’Grady.

Paris Walker-Thomas is challenging Rita as a write-in candidate. Per her Ballotpedia profile, which she shared on her social media, the Blue Island resident has experience as a paralegal, sales marketing manager, and internet manager. There is no visible platform for her campaign.

29th District: Jones vs. Gloria White Thaddeus Jones is both state Representative for Illinois’ 29th District and mayor of Calumet City. Representing an area that includes parts of Chicago, Dolton, Glenwood, Crete, and Calumet MARCH 14, 2024 ¬ SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY 5

POLITICS

City, Jones has served since 2011 and became mayor of Calumet City in 2021 following a controversial election.

As a representative, Jones chairs the Insurance Committee and the Special Issues Subcommittee. In 2022, the Tribune reported federal investigators were looking into tax violations involving Jones’ campaign funds.

Gloria White is a financial advisor and retired FedEx payroll specialist. She is involved in Calumet City as a trustee for Thornton Fractional Schools and secretary at the Southland Northeast Chamber of Commerce. She has spoken out on residents in the district fearing Jones, with the Tribune reporting that White said, “We have to come together to say enough of this foolishness.”

White’s campaign website describes a platform that includes defending women’s rights, combating gun violence and prioritizing youth and education. The Tribune endorsed White to unseat Jones, writing, “It’s past time for a change for this district.”

31st District: Flowers vs. Crawford Mary E. Flowers is the longestserving Black legislator in Illinois, representing parts of Chicago Ridge, Evergreen Park, and Oak Lawn since 1985. The Mississippi native is currently in her 19th term in the General Assembly, and served as House Deputy Majority Leader last year. She was removed from this position in May 2023 for allegedly using a slur to describe a colleague.

Currently, Flowers has no committee assignments, but she has served on a multitude of committees in the past, including chairing the Health Care Availability and Accessibility Committee.

Healthcare and child welfare have been a primary legislative focus for Flowers throughout her career.

Michael Crawford is challenging Flowers to offer “a fresh perspective” to the seat. Campus dean at The Chicago School with a PhD in higher education, Crawford’s campaign website promotes a platform founded upon education, healthcare access, public safety, and small business development. House Speaker Emanuel Welch has backed Crawford substantially, using private-sector unions 6 SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY ¬ MARCH 14, 2024

to contribute to his campaign. The Tribune refrained from endorsing anyone in this race.

32nd District: Nichols vs. Davis Cyril Nichols has represented the 32nd District since 2021, serving an area including New Auburn, Burbank, and Hickory Hills. He serves as a member of the Elementary and Secondary Education: Administration, Licensing & Charter Schools Committee. According to the State Board of Elections, Nichols withdrew from the race on February 20. The Illinoize, a state politics digital news outlet and podcast, reported on February 18 that Nichols withdrew after House Speaker Welch placed substantial campaign support behind challenger Lisa Davis. Nichols could not be reached for comment.

Lisa Davis is a former Cook County Public Defender. In addition to Welch, she has has been endorsed by Former Illinois Secretary of State Jesse White and Alderperson Derrick Curtis (18th Ward).

35th District: Gill vs. Dewar Mary Gill has served the 35th District for almost a year, after being appointed on March 28, 2023 to replace Frances Ann Hurley. Prior to this, she was the executive director of the Mount Greenwood Community and Business Association. She has introduced legislation regarding healthcare, technology, and firearm ownership.

The Tribune describes Gil as having “represented law enforcement’s interests in Springfield” by acts such as introducing legislation for school councils to place officers in local schools. The Tribune endorsed Gill.

David Dewar is a financial advisor challenging Gill. Notably, he has called to file legislation to end Illinois’ status as a sanctuary state and restore cash bail, thereby reversing the SAFE-T Act. Michael Liptrot is a staff writer for South Side Weekly and the Hyde Park Herald.

ShotSpotter Sues Former Employees The company alleges the former employees posted secret company data on Twitter in November.

BY MAX BLAISDELL

I

n a contentious hearing last month at the Old Solano County Courthouse in Fairfield, California, Judge Christine Carringer heard arguments from ShotSpotter and two former employees who the company is suing for allegedly taking confidential documents and posting them on Twitter.

In court filings, the former employees, Chris Edwards and Ginsi Robinson, argued the lawsuit is meant to shut them up for raising issues about alleged fraudulent business practices and what they claim was a harmful workplace culture. At issue in the February hearing was whether the lawsuit should be dismissed. Edwards and Robinson, who are representing themselves, declined to comment for this article. A ShotSpotter spokesperson did not respond to the Weekly’s requests for comment.

“Sound Thinking formerly known as ShotSpotter is attempting to silence exposure of their toxic workplace environment, rampant sexual and mental harassment, as well as poor business processes which include fraudulent practices of manipulating their data to earn contract agreements with government and local agencies,” wrote Robinson in a motion asking the judge to dismiss the company’s lawsuit. Robinson’s motion argued the case should be thrown out under a California law that allows early dismissal for lawsuits that are filed to stifle speech. ShotSpotter claimed the company is not suing the pair to silence them but to stop them from sharing the information they allegedly took.

Judge Carringer denied the motion to dismiss the case; she had denied a similar one filed by Edwards in January.

ShotSpotter initiated the lawsuit against Edwards and Robinson for allegedly stealing trade secrets.

According to ShotSpotter’s complaint against Edwards and Robinson, they “misappropriated confidential information” from the company and posted it to Twitter (or X) to “retaliate against SoundThinking’s termination of Edwards’ employment.”

Hired in 2021, Edwards was the field service technician manager at ShotSpotter.

Robinson was a former field services lead who Edwards supervised. They claim the company terminated them without cause in 2023.

ShotSpotter claims that on November 6, 2023, about five hours after Edwards was fired, he downloaded sensitive company data on the locations and operational conditions of the company’s thousands of sensors. According to the company, the data constitutes a trade secret because if it is widely disseminated, ShotSpotter would lose an advantage over competitors seeking how to best deploy and position their own gunshot-detection sensors.

Last month, WIRED published maps of every ShotSpotter sensor location in the world based on a document they said was provided to them by a confidential source.

The company claims that shortly after Edwards downloaded that information, ProfessionalFSM@SoundThinkingFM, a Twitter account that had previously voiced support for the company, posted a flurry of tweets criticizing ShotSpotter. The account also posted screenshots containing data and maps showing the placement of sensors. That account also threatened to reveal the contents of sensitive “top-level” executive emails.

According to the complaint, when ShotSpotter contacted Edwards to tell him to stop posting data, Edwards denied having access to it and suggested that other former employees could be behind the tweets.

POLICE “I have no idea what you are talking about. I do not have access to Sound Thinking information as all of my access was turned off this morning,” the company’s complaint alleges Edwards wrote in an email.

ShotSpotter further alleges that on November 7, after discovering that Robinson’s company laptop was nearby Edwards’s based on the IP address locations, ShotSpotter contacted her, asking for her help.

“Please know the FBI is involved as a crime has been committed,” wrote Anne Mueller, ShotSpotter’s head of human resources. Minutes later, according to ShotSpotter’s complaint, the ProfessionalFSM@SoundThinkingFM account was deleted, along with the critical tweets.

The same day it filed its complaint, ShotSpotter filed a motion seeking a temporary restraining order barring Edwards and Robinson from disseminating or sharing any materials they downloaded after being fired, and to return their company devices. Four days after ShotSpotter filed their complaint, Judge Carringer entered the order, ordering defendants to “return all property in their possession belonging to Plaintiff.”

Edwards was a ShotSpotter employee for more than two years before he was fired.

When he started out with the company in 2021, he was tasked with running ShotSpotter’s 3G project and upgrading the system’s sensors from older to newer sensors.

According to a motion he filed seeking to dismiss the lawsuit, Edwards argued that he “was forced by his commitment to our communities to come forward with this information” about ShotSpotter’s alleged fraudulent business practices.

In his motion, Edwards claimed to have witnessed that much of the ShotSpotter system “was broken, decayed and not maintained,” and that code violations were prevalent. Suspecting that a compromised system might not be “relaying the correct data” to customers, Edwards claimed he raised these concerns with his bosses.

According to Edwards’s legal filing, his bosses wrote those issues off. In his motion, Edwards claimed that John Fountain, ShotSpotter’s former director of field and network operations, told him to “falsify numbers on the deteriorated

system to avoid” having to pay back money to cities and agencies for not meeting their contractual obligations. He also claimed, in an affidavit attached to his motion, that Fountain told him to “keep these things inhouse” and to “stay out of business that has nothing to do with you.”

ShotSpotter did not directly address any of these allegations in its opposition to Edwards’s motion but claimed that they were “distractions from the claims against him.”

Edwards brought his motion to dismiss the complaint pursuant to California’s antiSLAPP (Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation) law. Currently, thirty-three states have anti-SLAPP laws, including Illinois. Those statutes are intended to protect people and media outlets exercising their First Amendment rights from facing expensive and frivolous lawsuits.

In an opposition brief responding to Edwards’s anti-SLAPP motion, ShotSpotter called the motion “just the latest in a long series of games and stalling tactics” and “yet another delay tactic” by a “disgruntled former employee” attempting to “recast himself as a public interest activist.”

“SoundThinking is not suing Edwards for saying bad things about SoundThinking,” read an opposition brief filed by ShotSpotter on December 27. “Rather, SoundThinking is suing Edwards because he stole confidential and proprietary data from SoundThinking, in violation of multiple laws.”

The brief went on to argue that “because neither Edwards’ accessing computers (SoundThinking’s database and laptop) without authorization nor his knowing failure to turn over his work laptop has any logical relation to ‘the constitutional rights of freedom of speech and petition for the redress of grievances,’ such activities clearly fall outside the scope of the anti-SLAPP statute’s protections.”

At a January 10 hearing, Judge Carringer agreed with ShotSpotter and dismissed Edwards’s anti-SLAPP motion, allowing the case to proceed against him.

Two days later, Robinson filed a separate motion to dismiss ShotSpotter’s complaint against her under California’s anti-SLAPP law that included additional allegations not made by Edwards. She claimed that ShotSpotter was seeking to suppress her speech for exposing a “toxic

workplace environment, rampant sexual and mental harassment as well as poor business processes.”

According to her motion, Robinson, a Black woman, initially had a white man as a direct supervisor at ShotSpotter who she claimed “made unwanted sexual advances” and “repeatedly asked her to meet for drinks and made inappropriate comments about her race and appearance.”

Having raised complaints of sexual harassment with several top employees at ShotSpotter—including Fountain, Mueller, and Nasim Golzadeh, who is the company’s executive vice president of investigative solutions—Robinson claimed their only response was telling her to accept it.

Robinson claimed in the motion that, like Edwards, she raised concerns with the company’s leadership about deteriorating sensors that were similarly ignored. She also alleged that ShotSpotter was allowing sensors in Chicago and New York, the company’s two largest customers, to break down with age.

“The root cause stems from…inventory being promised to new customers, which takes away from the existing customers,” she claimed. ShotSpotter did not directly address these claims in its own court filings, and a spokesperson did not respond to the Weekly’s questions about the allegations.

Although ShotSpotter’s complaint does not allege that Robinson herself downloaded or posted ShotSpotter’s documents to Twitter, it claims she breached her duty to the company by not alerting the company about what they allege Edwards was doing.

At last month’s hearing, Judge Carringer dealt another blow to the defendants’ legal arguments. She dismissed Robinson’s anti-SLAPP motion, while also holding Edwards in contempt of court and issuing another temporary restraining order barring both defendants from disseminating the sensor data.

“I don’t understand why I’m a part of this case,” Robinson, who appeared via Zoom, said during the February 14 hearing.

“I’ve never done anything but my job for SoundThinking.…I voiced my concerns to OSHA about sexual harassment. This is just a way for the company to loop in and get rid of me.”

Although Robinson told the court she wished to make an oral argument in support of her anti-SLAPP motion,

Judge Carringer denied her on procedural grounds, citing a court rule that required her to notify ShotSpotter’s attorneys of her intent to provide oral argument by 4:30pm the day prior.

“If you’re going to represent yourself, you need to follow the rules,” said Judge Carringer, admonishing Robinson for failing to notify ShotSpotter. “I’d call an attorney if I were you, Ms. Robinson.”

Judge Carringer also held Edwards in contempt of court for failing to appear in person—he appeared via Zoom—and for failing to comply with a court order to turn over a personal laptop for inspection.

Edwards turned over his company computer soon after the lawsuit was filed, as well as a hard drive to which the company alleged he transferred sensitive company data.

But, according to a ShotSpotter court filing, “The hard drive contained only one file upon surrender—a sexually explicit, graphic image purporting to depict Taylor Swift and Oscar the Grouch engaged in a sex act and entitled ‘Top Secret Do Not Share.pdf ’ that he loaded after reformatting the device and deleting critical evidence.”

ShotSpotter alleges that before deleting the sensitive company data from the hard drive Edwards transferred the files to a personal laptop. Edwards has since claimed that this personal laptop was stolen and that he filed a police report to prove it.

However, as Bernstein pointed out at the hearing, “The alleged theft occurred long after he was in contempt.”

When asked to respond to whether he should be held in contempt, Edwards accused the judge of bias against him.

“I don’t concede, but you don’t believe me,” Edwards said. He quoted the judge’s words back to her, recounting her saying at the previous hearing on January 31, “The Court doesn’t believe your laptop was stolen.”

Judge Carringer held Edwards in contempt, fined him $1,000, and ordered him to pay ShotSpotter’s attorneys’ fees and costs.

The next date in the case against Edwards and Robinson is on April 2 for a case management conference. Max Blaisdell is a fellow with the Invisible Institute and a staff writer for the Hyde Park Herald.

MARCH 14, 2024 ¬ SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY 7

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SPORTS

Stadium Shenanigans

The White Sox are asking for a billion-dollar ballpark. But is it a good deal for the South Side?

BY MALACHI HAYES

E

van Beverly doesn’t identify as a serious baseball fan. But as a lifelong South Sider and longtime bartender in Woodlawn bars where the game is always on, the thirty-six-yearold has an affinity for the White Sox. They’re part of his identity and that of his community, as a resident of the South Shore neighborhood. Positive memories of the team’s 2005 World Series victory, during which Beverly lived just a short walk to the ballpark away in nearby Bronzeville, reverberate to this day. That positivity, however, is lately becoming a distant memory.

“It’s disheartening to hear,” Beverly said about rumblings that the team could be on the move after the 2028 season.

Emotionally, keeping the White Sox where they are should be a no-brainer.

But with the team now asking for over a billion dollars in exchange for staying in Chicago, things aren’t quite so simple, especially with Beverly being wellattuned to the city’s perpetually dicey financial state. “If there are 300 people with the White Sox who utilize that stadium and 30,000 people on the streets right outside that stadium, who should you give that money to?”

Like many Sox fans, Beverly is disappointed in the state of the team beyond the recent news. Not even three years after winning their first division title since 2008, oddsmakers currently have them projected as the third-worst out of thirty MLB teams this season. In 2023, longtime chief executives Ken Williams and Rick Hahn were fired amid a 61-win, 101-loss season, the team’s third-worst in its 123 years of existence. Hope and good vibes, right now, are at a premium.

Wins and losses aside, that centurylong history explains the deep connection between the team and the South Side.

Founded in 1901, the franchise played

their first ten seasons at South Side Park, located at the corner of 39th and Princeton and demolished in 1940. They moved to Comiskey Park in 1910—six years before the Cubs first occupied Wrigley Field— and have since played nearly 9,000 MLB games at 35th and Shields in the Armour Square neighborhood.

Now, in addition to the White Sox’ lackluster on-field showing, the future of that relationship is also in doubt.

The team’s lease on the publicly owned Guaranteed Rate Field expires after the 2028 season, and the team has made it clear they have no intention of renewing.

Last month, the team revealed a proposal to the city and state for a multi-billion

dollar stadium complex at the heart of The 78, the controversial near-South Side site long seen as perhaps the city’s most economically potent piece of undeveloped land.

The scope of the proposal, created in conjunction with real estate developer Related Midwest, is impressive. White Sox owner Jerry Reinsdorf pitched a redevelopment plan for The 78 that includes a new stadium as the development’s “anchor,” with apartments, hotels and other projects. The project’s price tag is also noteworthy. In an interview with Crain’s Chicago Business shortly after its release, Jerry Reinsdorf revealed that the plan includes more than

a billion dollars in various forms of public funding.

Included in these demands was the all-too-familiar threat of relocation, should the money not be found.

According to Crain’s, “The team almost certainly will be sold after [Reinsdorf ’s] death, and ‘the big money’ is in the hands of outsiders who want to move the team to Nashville or another location.” A spokesperson for the White Sox declined to comment for this story.

Continuing to occupy the current stadium is a non-starter for Reinsdorf, who told Crain’s “a new space in a livelier downtown area with shops, bars and other entertainment venues within walking MARCH 14, 2024 ¬ SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY 9

SPORTS

distance” would be required to generate the revenue necessary for a good team. It’s not a new complaint. Noted architecture critic Blair Kamin observed in 1991 that “the park swims alone in a sea of parking lots, like the shopping malls of suburbia,” echoing the generally negative sentiment surrounding the feel of the new park.

Homes and businesses between 35th and 39th street were demolished to make way for New Comiskey and the sea of parking lots, lending a bitter irony to Reinsdorf ’s complaint.

Given the owner’s critical role in those failed design choices, many Sox fans have taken his latest comments with a healthy dose of cynicism. This is not the first time the team has flirted with taking its clubhouse elsewhere, or even the second. In the 1970s, they were nearly sold to a group planning on relocating the team to Seattle, a scenario that also would have had the Oakland Athletics taking their place in Chicago. Under Reinsdorf ’s ownership a decade later, the Sox’s move to St. Petersburg, Florida was all but done before the Illinois legislature stopped the clocks to wave a funding deal for the current ballpark home in 1988.

That deal was panned by many from the get-go, with the state paying for more or less the entire stadium. That flow of money didn’t stop after construction was completed, either. Lost in the shuffle of Reinsdorf ’s request for ten figures in new money is the fact that Chicago and Illinois taxpayers are still on the hook for money owed on the current ballpark, to the tune of tens of millions of dollars— with hundreds of millions of additional dollars having already been spent.

Funding terms weren’t the only thing about the new Comiskey Park observers took issue with. It was considered a flatout ugly stadium, with Kamin describing the structure itself as “big and brawny, like many of the highly paid players who play in it. Will this building ever be beloved?” he asked. “Don’t bet on it.”

In subsequent years, the opening of well-received new stadiums in Baltimore, Cleveland, and Denver made New Comiskey look like a whiff in comparison, and it lasted fewer than fifteen years before an extensive, multi-year facelift turned it into the generally pleasant 10 SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY ¬ MARCH 14, 2024

venue it is today. It might be on its third name and approaching forty years in its foundations, but functionally, the venue we see today is two decades old.

That facelift, which included a total reconstruction of much of the upper deck and outfield concourse, were entirely paid for by the Illinois Sports Facilities Authority (ISFA), the State agency responsible for administration and financial management of Guaranteed Rate Field. The ISFA is nearly entirely publicly funded, filling its coffers with proceeds from the hotel occupancy tax instituted to pay for the park’s construction, as well as millions in subsidies from the City and State. Virtually all money spent by the ISFA is taxpayer money.

Undertaken in several phases beginning in 2003, the cost of the renovations was reported to the public as $41 million, but further additions and hidden costs have driven the final bill considerably higher. High interest payments and a heavily backloaded payment schedule on the bonds taken out by the ISFA to finance the projects have left the total amount spent on the overhaul at more than $80 million, more than double the cost presented at the outset.

Thanks to the ISFA’s repeated refinancing of those bond payments, necessitated by their management of the disastrous 2001 Soldier Field renovations, it still hasn’t been fully paid off. Between the structural renovations and the Bar & Restaurant and multi-story gift shop built for the team shortly thereafter, nearly $50 million in debt relating to Guaranteed Rate Field is still scheduled to be paid off between now and 2032.

The ISFA has asserted that all debt for Sox Park will be repaid by the conclusion of the team’s lease, though it’s not clear how that will be the case, as the stadium’s debt has been merged with Soldier Field bond debt not scheduled to be fulfilled for several years after the White Sox’ intended departure. The ISFA did not comment for this story.

What may also be of concern to South Siders amid these new stadium requests is that tens of millions in tax revenue have been pouring into the current ballpark each year as far back as information is

available. Since 2010, the ISFA’s Capital Improvements Fund for the park has reported more than $115 million in projects and maintenance spending on behalf of the White Sox. This included millions in baseball-related items for the team, with the agency picking up the tab for clubhouse renovations, batting cages and batting practice equipment, dugout furniture, training and physical therapy equipment, field netting, and video surveillance equipment.

Virtually none of the millions coming out of Chicagoans’ pockets makes its way back to the public side. The team’s annual rent to the ISFA averaged $1.9 million annually since 2010, and just barely eclipsed $2 million in 2022 and 2023.

Despite receiving considerably more than they contribute, the Sox organization keeps almost all of the revenue generated by the ballpark, including money received from parking, merchandise, concessions, and all other sales within the park. Ticket sales are only taxed if the team’s annual attendance eclipses two million, a rarity in recent years.

Team revenue sheets are tightly guarded secrets, but total proceeds for the White Sox likely push well into the hundreds of millions of dollars annually.

The Atlanta Braves, who are owned by a publicly traded company and required to release financial reports, reported $272 million in revenue in the third quarter of 2023 alone. Atlanta has been one of MLB’s best teams in recent years with a larger market share, and one would expect their margins to be higher that the South Siders’.

The Sox likely make enough money to raise an eyebrow at the degree to which their stadium is subsidized.

With all expenses and debts included, Guaranteed Rate Field’s drain on government checkbooks is staggering: a combined $200 million since 2010, spent as Chicago’s public services fell into disrepair and Reinsdorf ’s net worth has more than doubled to a cool $2.1 billion.

In that time, ISFA has reported just $26.7 million in payments from the White Sox, barely 10 percent of what’s been spent on their behalf.

With a board of directors appointed in equal proportion by the governor and

by Reinsdorf himself, the ISFA has been criticized as being under the thumb of the longtime figurehead, who also owns the NBA’s Chicago Bulls. In a 2013 wrongful-termination lawsuit against the agency, former chief executive Perry Irmer described it to the Reader’s Ben Joravsky as a “cash cow puppet” for the billionaire, alleging that she was sacked for attempting to increase payments made by the team.

Sean Dinces, the author of Bulls Markets: Chicago’s Basketball Business and the New Inequality, is intimately familiar with Reinsdorf ’s way of doing business. Dinces was equally pointed in his characterization of the ISFA. “It’s a perfect example of a pseudo-governmental agency overseeing the massive transfer of public resources to a private entity,” he said. Reinsdorf “really started to break the mold in that he figured out ways to say, ‘Okay, I’m still gonna have the public be involved, but I’m also gonna find ways to not have to share anything.’”

Even by the standards of professional sports owners—and taking debt service out of the equation—the disparity between what the White Sox give and what they take is enormous, in terms of paying for maintenance and upgrades.

Many teams play in publicly owned and leased stadiums across the country, with most of them utilizing a government agency like the ISFA as a facilitator. But few have spent as much money on upkeep as the ISFA. Comparisons with five other local agencies for publicly funded ballparks from whom the Weekly was able to obtain financial data show that Chicago’s public spending utterly dwarfs that of most other localities, with the White Sox paying for less than a quarter of their numerous requested improvements between 2010 and 2021, which were the years for with the Weekly was able to obtain data from all sources. All these ballparks opened within ten years of Guaranteed Rate Field.

The public is in the dark about most of these expenses, but even so, fan reception to the team’s ask has still been almost universally negative. The team’s near-move to Florida wasn’t that long ago, and many of those who remember

SPORTS

it aren’t buying what Reinsdorf is selling this time around.

One longtime fan, a forty-year season ticket holder who requested anonymity due to their involvement with one of the team’s major sponsors, isn’t putting much stock in the chatter over The 78. Like many others, they believe the owner’s repeated threats have done a disservice to the community.

“Team owners may get to own a team, but I think they ought to be responsive to the city they’re in, and recognize that even though the people of the city don’t own the team, they do with their hearts.

That’s what a loyal fan base is built on.

That being the case, I really didn’t like [Reinsdorf ’s threats] then, and I don’t believe them now.”

Sam Bartlett isn’t old enough to remember the near-move to St. Petersburg, but that doesn’t make him any less skeptical of the team’s claims.

A lifelong South Sider and Hyde Park resident, Bartlett has the Sox logo tattooed on his arm, and feels this is just the latest development in a pattern of disrespect from the team towards its fans. “It makes me feel more lied to than I already am,” he said, citing the “meddling and brazen cost-cutting” that Reinsdorf has already imposed upon fans. “What team deserves a new ballpark but can’t give us a $1 hot dog night?”

The White Sox have pointed to the purported economic benefits of their vision for The 78, should it come to fruition. The proposal places the new stadium at the heart of a neighborhood development touted as a “$9 billion total investment,” and will create 22,000 permanent jobs on top of 10,000 construction jobs.

Geoffrey Propheter, a professor of public policy at the University of Colorado-Denver specializing in sports facility economics, spoke with the Weekly about the White Sox and publicly funded stadium subsidies prior to the release of Related Midwest’s proposal, presciently commenting on the promises often made during subsidy campaigns.

“It’s like clockwork. Every time there’s a subsidy debate, people are going to talk about jobs,” Propheter said. “They [often] express these jobs, particularly

permanent jobs, in terms of job years….

Numbers will be thrown around like ‘30,000 jobs,’ but that number isn’t really 30,000 jobs. It might mean 1,000 jobs lasting thirty years [each], or thirty jobs lasting a thousand years.”

When asked for clarification, the White Sox and Related Midwest reiterated that the proposal represents 22,000 permanent jobs. They did not provide any information as to how they arrived at that number.

Beyond the specifics, Propheter thinks the benefits touted by proposals like Reinsdorf ’s, which also promises an economic impact of over $4 billion annually, don’t pan out. “You can basically say the tangible benefits are zero,” he said.

“And we’ve got decades and decades of economic research saying that it’s zero or super super close to zero.”

In spite of its broadly negative reception, the new stadium concepts were still exciting for many fans starving for something to look forward to. But

despite Reinsdorf ’s hope that preliminary construction will begin later this year, there’s little evidence that anything concrete is on the horizon.

A key difference between now and 1987, when then-Governor Jim Thompson facilitated the creation of the ISFA alongside Reinsdorf, is that current Governor J.B. Pritzker has not been subtle in his opposition to public stadium subsidies, calling himself “really reluctant” to even discuss signing off on the team’s request. Given how much the White Sox and Related Midwest’s plan relies on ISFA funding, a new deal without state involvement is highly unlikely.

“Some politicians realize that most of this is bluff work,” Dinces said. “More often than not, teams don’t have any actual concrete plans to move when they start this stuff. It’s more like, ‘we’re gonna probably do this anyway, let’s see if we can get them to pay for it.’”

This time, if Reinsdorf moves to make good on his relocation threats, there will

be no midnight legislative sessions to stop him. And it’s not just politicians who are more inclined to call the bluff. With the team itself being nigh-unwatchable for nearly a decade-and-a-half, the number of fans inclined to give ownership what they want is scant.

The forty-year season ticket holder canceled their plan over the winter, and for the first time since the stadium opened, will be buying tickets on a gameby-game basis this season.

As a less-invested South Sider, Beverly, the bartender, is more blunt. If the Sox leave, “I wouldn’t like it. It would suck,” he deadpanned. “But I would not be personally affected at all.” After a pause, the bar erupted with laughter as he added, “And I would act like somebody was taking my lick! It’s still our team.” Malachi Hayes is a Bridgeport-based freelance writer and managing editor at the sports blog South Side Sox. MARCH 14, 2024 ¬ SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY 11

ARTS

Life on the South Side Immortalized in Home Movies Many families who donate their reels cite the importance of establishing a family legacy and wanting the memories to be passed down.

BY DIERDRE ROBINSON

A

mong forgotten knickknacks and mementos of yesteryears there may be hidden gems waiting to be discovered on closet shelves or boxed away—in the form of home movies.

Reels of film, once thought lost to time, often hold within their frames a wealth of cultural and societal information that can provide the viewer with invaluable insights into the lived experiences of those featured in the films from a pre-digital era.

The South Side Home Movie Project (SSHMP) houses over 600 film reels (in 8mm, Super 8, and 16mm formats) from thirty-three South Side families within its vault, and aims to build an alternative, accessible visual record, filling gaps in existing written and visual histories and ensuring that the diverse experiences and perspectives of South Siders will be available to larger audiences and future generations.

The project was founded in 2005 by University of Chicago professor of Cinema and Media Studies Dr. Jacqueline Stewart.

In 2019, it joined Arts + Public Life, an initiative of UChicago Arts, as part of the university’s commitment to cultural preservation.

The SSHMP’s activities include free community workshops, screenings, exhibitions, virtual events, and symposiums.

One such symposium was the BMRC or Black Metropolis Community Symposium which was held on March 13. The free, virtual event included BMRC members and affiliates, and its purpose was to discuss the latest ways in which to document Black experiences in Chicago.

In my home, my father was the

12 SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY ¬ MARCH 14, 2024

Photos provided by the South Side Home Movie Project

designated filmmaker. He still is. He took pictures of virtually everything happening in our life in Avalon Park, like family dinners, road trips, school recitals, weddings, and birthdays. My mother, sister, and I were frequent subjects of my father’s home movies, and even our pets made

cameos down through the years.

Back then, I didn’t always appreciate participating in the moviemaking process, but now I am deeply grateful, especially since those moments no longer include my mother, who passed on a few years ago.

Thanks to my father’s Super 8 films of our

family, I can still see my mother in motion, as I remember her: smiling, laughing, talking, and full of life. That is only one of the benefits of preserving one’s home movies.

In addition to serving as a platform for sharing and reliving precious moments, home movies reveal what life used to be like, and within their frames, we catch glimpses of domestic routines, social norms, common leisure activities, and the urban landscape as a whole.

But just like memories, home movies shot on film don’t last forever. They must be preserved and properly stored to ensure that the unique stories they contain can last as long as possible. Yet the process of preserving family films and their content is not without its challenges, according to Justin “Saroop” Williams, lead archivist and assistant director for the SSHMP. Williams, who started with SSHMP in 2020, works with residents of the South Side to collect and preserve their home movies through digitization.

“This is a field that is fairly new, maybe the last thirty to forty years,” Williams said.

“And, so it’s a constant learning activity of figuring out how to care for things that maybe when they were produced for commercial use, there wasn’t necessarily the intention of…this might be around for fifty, sixty, or 100 years.”

And that’s a primary focus of the SSHMP—longevity.

Donors work directly with an SSHMP archivist who will gather details about each donated film (such as the year and locations) and determine if it meets eligibility for inclusion in the archive.

MUSIC

“In the early 2000s, archivists across the country, and also the world, were starting to get a little concerned about all this local history that was ending up in the trash. But people weren't calling it local history. They thought, ‘oh, I got all these films in my house, and we don't have a projector that works anymore’. You know, someone might have died, ‘do you want this? Nope. Okay, it’s going into the trash or going into a garage sale’. Same thing was happening for local media outlets like public television and things like that,” said Williams.

Collections from South Side families include hours upon hours of footage covering a wide range of topics such as a family’s trip to the Brookfield Zoo in 1963 (Philip Maxwell Sr. Collection), visits to various Chicago parks, such as Washington Park, and road trips to places like Silver Springs, Florida (Frederick Atkins Collection).

So, why would a donor family decide to share their private collections with the SSHMP for the general public to view?

According to Williams, most donors cite the importance of establishing a family legacy and wanting the memories to be passed down.

“A lot of them would be what [you’d] consider your family historian or your family Grio,” said Williams. “So, in many ways, they are caretakers of their family stories and they happen to just have this box of films, too.”

One such donor, who happens to be the caretaker of the family story and possesses a box of movies to match, is Lora

Branch. A pioneer on the Chicago House Music scene as one of the first women DJs and promoters, Branch, also known as DJ Lori, has contributed five films shot between the 1930s and 1985. “If you look at these films from Englewood, it seems ideal like suburban-looking streets, you know, just got lots of neighbors, we had white neighbors, we had Black neighbors, it was a time of transition. And this was in the 50s and 60s,” she said.

The Lora Branch collection contains footage shot by her uncle, Charles Branch, and includes clips of the family living in Morgan Park with added scenes of their annual Roberts Family Picnic in the Dan Ryan Woods and family trips to Tennessee.

“As part of this process, you start asking questions and you find people who have stuff,” said Branch, whose cousin Elizabeth told her about the project. She said she’ll continue donating family films, adding that she’s asked her siblings for permission and “they’re cool about it.”

Finding people who have stuff and preserving the very films that represent their lives on the South Side of Chicago is what the South Side Home Movie Project is all about. Anyone interested in finding out more about SSHMP can visit their website at sshmp.uchicago.edu. Dierdre Robinson is a writer and accounting manager in Chicago. She has a BA in Journalism from Michigan State University.

She last wrote about space sharing between artists and places of worship.

From Fourth Grade Rhymes to Neighborhood Anthems Burgeoning Auburn Gresham artist Kayo teases yearly projects following his debut album success.

BY RYAN ROSENBERGER

S

outh Side hip-hop artist Kayo was never much of a student, so it may come as a surprise that the Auburn Gresham-based MC, who dropped out during his junior year of high school, got his musical start by writing a rap for a school project when he was in the fourth grade.

“The choices were to write an essay, do a documentary, or to write a rap about the subject,” Kayo said. “It seemed like the easiest [option] would be to write some rhymes. I did it, I got an A on the assignment, and my teacher was like, ‘dude, you are really, really good at this.’”

Kayo’s music career was off and running soon after that. He bought his first mic and started recording in the 8th grade, eventually recording his Southside Blue Hearts project at Classick Studios in 2016. After releasing a myriad of projects under a few different stage names, he finally rebranded as Kayo in 2019.

But his real coming out party wasn’t until 2023 where he released not one, but two projects, including his highly acclaimed album It Was Fun While It Lasted, which cemented his status as one of the torchbearers of Chicago’s newest generation of hip-hop artists.

Kayo, now twenty-five years old, has moved upwards of twenty times during his life, bouncing between neighborhoods

such as Washington Heights, Hyde Park, and Chicago Heights, in the southwest suburbs.

Despite all of the moving around, it is the Auburn Gresham neighborhood that has Kayo’s heart.

“I’m learning the best versions of myself here,” he said. “It’s where my heart is, it’s where most of my charity efforts will more than likely be in that time when I’m coming back to give back and shit, Auburn Gresham is definitely top of the list.”

Auburn Gresham is where Kayo currently lives and works and where he serves as a program director at St. Sabina Catholic Church, under the tutelage of its pastor, Rev. Father Michael Pfleger.

Kayo regards Plfeger as one of his biggest mentors.

“He literally has helped in every aspect of my life,” Kayo said. “I was engaged—I’m not anymore—he was instrumental in [working through] that.

My work, my music, my religion, he’s been instrumental in every aspect.”

While Father Pfleger and the church have had a deep influence on his personal, working and spiritual life—even though Kayo is Muslim—the music of the church has had a profound impact on his sound as well.

Gospel is woven neatly into the MARCH 14, 2024 ¬ SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY 13

MUSIC

fabric of It Was Fun While It Lasted.

Grand, swirling horn sections lay the instrumental groundwork for the album’s intro, “It Ends In Disaster,” while a soulful vocal loop and a tearful, euphonious piano outro make “Grandma’s Boy” sound like a deep cut straight off of Common’s 2005 classic album Be. “Gospel, I’m not classically trained [in] so I don’t know the technical terms of it, but it’s very rich in sound,” Kayo said. “It’s drums, it’s organ, it’s guitar, it’s bass…. It’s like an orchestra, but without the orchestra.”

Over the course of twelve tracks, Kayo pairs soulful vocal loops and extensive live instrumentation with urgent flows, self-aware lyricism, and a nonstop embrace of the good, the bad, and the ugly. “It Ends In Disaster” lays the conceptual framework for the tracks that follow, highlighting the duality of good experiences versus bad experiences, and accepting that all things eventually come to an end.

“You ain’t seen the type of days where you can only pray it through, and you believe in God so you feel like you should escape it too/Instead you get the brunt of all the trauma that he saved for you,” he spits nearly halfway through the song.

It Was Fun While It Lasted deals with a number of positive and negative experiences throughout but “HURT” is about personal trauma and its various causes, while in “Still” Kayo sees life’s

said.

South Side hip-hop artist Kayo.

beauty despite its flaws. It is a highly cohesive listen due to its consistent introspection.

Kayo said the album title is directly tied to the ups and downs he has experienced during the last few years.

“That title, to me, the album was talking about these great stories that you hear on ‘Wait On Me,’ and then these terrible stories that you hear on ‘HURT,’” Kayo said. “[Then] these great stories that you hear are on “Still” and these terrible stories that you hear on ’It Ends In Disaster.’ It was that back and forth of [a]

On Saturday, October 15, 2022, around 4:15 P.M. this couple was driving westbound on Archer Avenue. There was a driver going eastbound at a reckless speed, well above the speed limit, in a Jeep Cherokee that T-boned this couple’s Nissan Murano at the intersection of Poplar Street & Archer Avenue. The wife was in the passenger seat and died instantly at impact. The husband died in the ambulance en route to the hospital. It took the fire department over 45 minutes to pull the wife’s body out of their vehicle. They were married 65 years. Their family and friends are seeking justice through the court system with the help of a witness or video.

If you witnessed the crash on that day please call this number:

708-522-7332

If you know of anyone who witnessed the crash, please encourage them to call the number above.

14 SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY ¬ MARCH 14, 2024

Photo by Jordan Esparza (@heavybutlite)

great moment, then a bad moment, then a bad one, and a great one.”

While Kayo balances these good and bad experiences masterfully over the first eleven tracks, perhaps no song does a better job of tying together all of the album’s calling cards better than the outro, “WHEN I GROW UP.” The instrumental lets the light piano passages breathe before being accompanied by a tambourine and some handclap percussion. Over this loop, Kayo pens one final letter to self, a final reminder to embrace everything that life throws his way.

“Ain’t nobody famous for dying too young, nobody cares about the odds you face/You better start searchin’ and get you a purpose, ain’t nobody willin’ to find you one/you’re better off looking inside you huh,” he raps on the album’s closing verse.

On an album that features a number of heavy-hitting guest features—femdot., Ausar, Morgan Gold—Kayo saves his best for last on the outro track, tapping the St. Sabina Youth Choir to provide a soaring, electrifying set of background vocals to close out the album.

Kayo said he used his “one favor” he gets from Father Pfleger every year in order to get the church choir on the project.

“He gave me that thing that I really needed to get [the project] done,” Kayo

As if one project wasn’t enough for Kayo in 2023, he capped off his big year by dropping Until His Burial on December 6. Unlike its heady, more conceptual predecessor, Until His Burial sports tracks with shorter run times and a less lyrical focus overall. In other words, he just wanted to rap.

Kayo said it was one of his main producers, THRD, who convinced him to put out the second project after listening to some unreleased songs in Kayo’s Dropbox folder.

“He is listening to the Dropbox one day and he texts me like, ‘Yo, we’re dropping a mixtape,’” Kayo said. “His next text was something to the effect of, ‘Don’t worry about that, though. I’ll figure that out when it’s time; just keep finishing the Dropbox.’”

While Until His Burial is more direct and to the point, it features a similar sound to its predecessor, and brings just as much in lyrical chops. Highlights include “Dreamer Interlude,” The Burial,” and “The Thing is,” all which feature Kayo getting busy over chipmunk soul instrumentals reminiscent of polo shirt-era Kanye.

Despite the looser vibe of the mixtape, Kayo still feels he has something to prove.

“Last album should’ve took some weight off, but there’s just more pressure I’m under/The breadwinner must always have the next to make it last,” he raps in the song’s opening verse.

After Kayo’s prolific 2023, one might assume he’s ready to take some time off.

However, whoever makes that assumption simply doesn’t know Kayo; he insists he will be coming with at least one project per year going forward.

“There is no year in the foreseeable future that is going to come without Kayo dropping a project,” he said. “I have the greatest project I have ever done on the way…it sounds incredible.” Ryan Rosenberger is a Chicago-based music journalist who has been covering the scene since 2018. His work can be found in The Columbia Chronicle, These Days Mag, The Weekly, and more.

COMMUNITY ORGANIZING

Twenty-four Hour Vigil for Gaza Ends in Direct Action, Arrests After reading 10,000 names, protesters blocked an intersection for nearly an hour in solidarity with Palestinians.

BY JIM DALEY

R

ayan Abdullah Zakaria al-Astal.

Zein al-Din Suleiman Moin alNajjar. Lujain Moataz Obaid Yassin. Amer Saber Younis Radwan.

Heba Ismail Hussein al-Zaanen.

On Thursday morning, a coalition of organizers began reading the names of Palestinians who have been killed in Israel’s siege of Gaza. Over the next twenty-four hours, they would read more than ten thousand names, or barely a third of the casualties reported by the Gaza Health Ministry since the war began in October. The true count of victims is likely much higher. Hundreds have not yet been identified. Thousands are children.

The coalition that organized the vigil includes the U.S. Palestinian Community Network; the Chicago chapters of Jewish Voice for Peace, IfNotNow, and American Muslims for Palestine; Dissenters; Chicago Educators for Palestine; the Chicago Teachers Union’s Caucus of Rank and-file Educators (CORE); the Chicago Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression, Tzedek Chicago; and Jewish Fast for Gaza.

“Being anti-genocide is not antisemitic, it’s pro-humanity. We stand in solidarity with everyone around the world calling for a permanent ceasefire,” said Dave Stieber, a member of CORE, in a statement the coalition released.

“As a caucus of rank-and-file educators, we know humanity is connected and we speak out for life here in Chicago and Palestine.”

As President Joe Biden delivered the State of the Union address to a joint session of Congress in Washington, D.C. Thursday night, In These Times

executive editor Ari Bloomekatz and U of C sociologist Eman Abdelhadi gave speeches of their own outside the Federal Building, calling the gathering the “state of the genocide.”

“Our fellow Americans, our comrades, our people—our message is simple: We have work to do,” Bloomekatz said in his speech. “Our elected officials have abdicated their responsibilities. They do not care that we want peace, that we want justice, that we abhor murder [and] will not stand for genocide.”

Bloomekatz wondered aloud if Biden could hear the voices of voters who have cast “uncommitted” ballots in Michigan and elsewhere to protest Biden’s support of the Israeli siege. “You still have to earn our vote,” he said. ers reading names of victims through the night. They also wrote the names on red, white, and green ribbons that they hung in a colorful but somber display, and lit an electric candle for every 100 victims.

Shortly before dawn broke under an overcast sky on the second day, the vigil-keepers acknowledged the ten thousandth victim. Like many, their name was unknown.

About an hour later, some forty protesters marched into the intersection of Jackson and Dearborn and linked arms, lining two crosswalks and blocking traffic.

Nitaawe Banks, a member of the Native American and Indigenous Students Association at DePaul University who took part in the action, said he was there in solidarity with Palestine.

“It’s hard sometimes to conceptualize and understand, emotionally, many atrocities happening all at once,” Banks

said. “But when you connect all of it into one single vigil…and you hear names for twenty-four hours, you hear almost an hour of ‘unknown child,’ it is so incredibly hard to fathom any of it. And I feel like that’s part of the trick of oppression is that the rate at which institutions that enable and participate in genocide carry out their actions outstrips your ability as a human being to understand it.”

Banks added that he “didn’t see what the point” would be of a temporary naval port Biden proposed during his State of the Union address as a means to deliver aid to Gaza. “You cannot be funding the Israeli military…and then do air drops or build a port,” he said. “It does not absolve you of the moral and political failing. It’s a way to sanitize or divert anger from constituents.”

Police eventually routed cars around the intersection, but not before the demonstration had snarled eastbound traffic on Jackson. Some drivers leaned on their horns; others got out to admonish the demonstrators. As one man drove through the intersection, he shouted “October 7, motherfuckers,” evoking the date Hamas militants attacked Israeli kibbutzim, killing some 1,200 people and taking more than 200 hostage.

Brian Orr, of Edgewater, had a more tranquil response to the direct action.

He left his car in traffic on Jackson Blvd. and strolled to a Dunkin’ Donuts on the corner for some breakfast. On his way back to the car, carrying a box of donuts and in good spirits, he said the great thing about America is that everyone has a right to protest.

“I think if people feel strongly about something, they should do something

about it,” Orr said. “And you know, yeah, it’s inconvenient for me, and it’s going to be inconvenient for others, but it is going to bring attention, and I think we have to take things in the most positive spin that we can just because we do live in a country like this.”

The intersection was soon empty except for the protesters and the occasional cyclist who slipped through their lines in the bike lane. Loop office workers still gaped at the demonstration as they hustled past. Some, curious, stopped to watch or take pictures. Others were dismissive.

“Every single [protester] should be arrested,” said a passerby who declined to give his name. “These are Jew-haters.

They’ll kill all the Jews if they get the opportunity.”

Many of the protesters blocking the intersection were themselves Jewish.

Around 8am, police began making arrests. Over the next hour, thirty-three people were arrested. According to a CPD spokesperson, they were issued citations for obstructing traffic.

Jessica Duhig, a resident of Berwyn who paused to watch, was supportive.

The protesters were “a lot of people that care about other people,” she said. “I think they’re trying to have their voices heard. For months, we’ve seen nothing but devastation” in Gaza. “Shutting down the street to hold a protest for others that aren’t able to do that for themselves—I think it’s very powerful.” Jim Daley is the Weekly’s investigations editor.

MARCH 14, 2024 ¬ SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY 15

RELIGION

Jailhouse Religion

Some faith-based rehabilitation programs offer a rare, non-punitive space for those incarcerated— but do they blur the separation of church and state?

BY DYLAN COMERFORD

I

t is no mystery to Mark McCombs that the presence of God is strong behind prison walls. The monotony of day to day life is enforced even in the color scheme. “Everybody’s wearing blue and all the walls are gray or all the walls are beige,” said McCombs. Yet it is the bleak environment that allowed McCombs to grow his spiritual connection with a higher being. “All of those distractions that keep us from hearing God all the time are gone,” he said. “It’s much easier, much more meaningful. It makes it louder in a place where you really need a friend who’s just gonna sit and listen.”

McCombs is the executive director of Kolbe House Jail Ministry, a faithbased organization located less than a mile away from Cook County Jail, and whose proximity and reputation for helping in the re-entry process has made it a first stop for those recently released from the jail. Mark’s own experience being incarcerated has guided his career in the rehabilitation and re-entry world, where he says his relationship with God saved and transformed him.

In a country grappling with challenges in its criminal justice system, faith-based groups are playing a profound role in the lives of the incarcerated and those re-entering society after release from correctional facilities.

The Weekly spoke with leaders of local faith-based groups, formerly incarcerated people, and those who have the authority to influence rehabilitation policy to better understand the impact and implications of religion within the American criminal justice system.

F

aith-based groups have addressed the needs of the incarcerated since the 1800s when the modern

16 SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY ¬ MARCH 14, 2024

Father David Kelly sits in front of a Restorative Justice Peace Circle at Precious Blood Ministry of Reconciliation, where he is the founder and Executive Director, located in Back of the Yards.

Photo by Jordan Esparza

American prison was conceived as a more humane and “Christian” mode of punishment than the brutal methods used in England. In this new vision, isolation, silence, work, and soul consultation with a prison chaplain were meant to rehabilitate and edify what was perceived by many as a growing corruption in American values.

While the prisons of today have some important distinctions from the early models, such as the privatization of some corrections facilities, a key vestige of the past remains: the influential role of religion in all aspects of prison life.

Today, incarcerated people have the right to practice their faith, and every corrections facility has a chapel. Since the George W. Bush administration, however, the US government has displayed an openness toward extending government

contracts to faith-based groups and programs. The Bush administration established the White House Office of Faith-Based Initiative, aimed at addressing bias against new religious groups hoping to gain government contracts for social services.

Prison religion is sometimes reduced to ‘Jailhouse Religion’, where incarcerated people are seen as disingenuous, “using religion while incarcerated as a means of getting by and then leaving your Bible at the door,” explains Willette Benford, who was incarcerated for twenty-four years and is an advocate for survivors of the criminal justice system.

The institutionalization of faithbased reform, and its acceptance as an alternative to other secular programs like education, however, seems to legitimize

religion behind bars as a cost effective way for the state to facilitate holistic, inner change. The presence of faithbased groups within the prison, especially those with state funding, have proved to be controversial from a legal and ethical point of view.

Christian groups, which make up the majority of faith-based groups working in prisons, often point to the Bible’s references to Jesus’ time in prison as a basis to serve the needs of those who are imprisoned. For example, Kolbe House Jail Ministry responds to the gospel message of “I was in Prison and you visited me (Matthew 25:36).”

Biblical verses that refer to divine forgiveness also call some Christians to action. Pastor Corey Brooks, who is also known as the Rooftop Pastor, created project H.O.O.D to provide resources to the community surrounding the Parkway Garden Homes. The gang violence in the area, colloquially known as O-Block, has amassed international attention, as it has been sensationalized by local rappers such as Chief Keef, Lil Durk, and Fredo Santana.

In his work, Pastor Brooks draws inspiration from Isaiah 43:18-19, which states “forget the former things; do not dwell on the past”, and which he feels “speaks volumes, especially to re-entry...

You are a product of your past, but you’re not a prisoner of your past. I think trying to get people to understand that is vital.”

James Lee Williams was incarcerated in federal prison from 2000 to 2015. Throughout his sentence, he was transferred between different facilities across the country and participated in a wide range of programming, both secular and religious. He recalls that while not every prison had extensive religious

RELIGION

programming like Bible studies from outside groups, every prison had a chapel that was often used as an interfaith space.

Though he is a Christian, Williams describes how he would attend Islamic services with his friends, finding value in the different ways people worship God. “I just liked the word. I liked the way they spoke…I never learned the words and all that stuff, but I just liked how they prayed,” he said. “They used to have guests coming in too. Muslim guests.

They used to give us oil to smell good, stuff like that.”

People participate in religious services in prison for many different reasons, according to Williams. “Some people see [religion in prison as] a protection. Like go to them, go to the Christians, they’re gonna protect you, go to the Muslims, they gonna protect you,” he said. “But sometimes it’s not like that and sometimes it is like that.”

Mark McCombs said that Kolbe House’s religious programming within the prison tends to attract new members both from word of mouth, along with the fact that “people are looking for something to do. I think we catch a lot of people because they fall into the category of anything you can do to kill an hour is one hour closer to going home, and then they get in they find out that they like it.”

Not every prison has an extensive amount of religious programming offered. The facility staff ’s personal views on programming rehabilitation strategy will ultimately dictate which groups are allowed in.

As the Cook County Sheriff, Tom Dart is responsible for the oversight of the Cook County Jail and is an advocate of including faith-based groups within the prison’s programming efforts. Dart said that some jail administrators do not see value in investing in rehabilitative programs due to the transient population, as people typically serve longer sentences in prisons than in jails.

But he “would argue that, practically speaking, people are staying longer [than anticipated] and even if you only have someone for a short time, you should come up with shorter programs. If you’ve been brought into the criminal justice system, this person has some issues, so

James Lee Williams stands outside the National Museum of Public Housing office at 625 N Kingsbury St, where he is an educational docent for the current exhibit, Evicted.

Photo by Jordan Esparza

while you have them, I think it’s reckless not to work on these issues.”

While Dart believes the programs that faith-based groups offer in the jail, including worship services, spiritual guidance, and religious education, are beneficial in reducing fights between inmates, “the bigger [benefit] is to get into individuals positive messaging.” “[Religious programming] gets people to be reflective…it’s the transformative effect of religious services,” he said.

Willette Benford recalls “how prison is a very hopeless place. And so, those that are coming in to bring the Word of God and minister to individuals that are inside, bring hope.”

Faith-based organizations also meet practical needs, especially for incarcerated parents, making sure their children have gifts for Christmas and new clothes.

“Faith-based organizations played a huge role in my life, in my child's life, and a lot of the lives of the other ladies that were incarcerated,” said Benford.

Much of loved ones’ life events and milestones are missed while serving time in prison. According to a 2021 study by the Sentencing Project, one of the consequences of the “tough on crime policies” of the 70’s is that approximately 200,000 people are serving life sentences in America. Before the policy shifts, the

total prison population of the country was under 200,000 people.

When the rest of one’s life will be spent in prison, the state’s focus shifts away from prioritizing rehabilitation as a means to combat recidivism. Some scholars, such as Tanya Ezren, who wrote God in Captivity: The Rise of Faithbased Prison Ministries in the Age of Mass Incarceration found that religion in prison has been functional and important for many ‘lifers’, offering an opportunity to find community and growth in a largely hopeless situation.

To Mark McCombs, to achieve a sense of peace and freedom in prison, where “you got nothing left to lose,” one must submit to their situation and to God. “If I had to pick one thing to tell [incarcerated] people: surrender. Give yourself up to God, whatever your concept of God is, and trust it because you’re in a place where you have next to no control.

When you do that, it is freeing.”

E

very year, approximately 20,000 people return home from prison in Illinois. The outside world is harsh on those with a criminal record. Newly returning citizens are immediately met with a myriad of practical and emotional challenges including a precarious search for housing, navigating arduous government processes, and rebuilding

broken family relationships.

James Lee Williams said that while he was determined to make an honest living after prison, nearly every open role he applied to had barriers to entry for those with a record. “I did the application, I passed the test. I did all that. Then I did the background check.... I did my time already. So why y’all saying I can't work here?” he said.

Willette Benford was appointed as the Director of Re-entry in Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s office from 2022-2023 and still works in the re-entry field. “I am always going to be in the re-entry field because of the amount of time that I spent incarcerated and the things that I encountered coming home. I want to make sure that individuals that are returning back from incarceration are set up for success.”

Faith-based groups often go beyond work within the prison and support newly returning citizens. Father David Kelly founded Precious Blood Ministry of Reconciliation (PBMR) in 2004 after a long career working with those impacted by violence and incarceration. His career began in the 70’s as a volunteer social worker in a Cincinnati Jail, where his encounters with the “most marginalized and isolated people'' forever touched his life. He’s worked in the re-entry and rehabilitation world ever since.

A study by the Prison Policy Initiative found that formerly incarcerated Americans are nearly ten times more likely to be homeless than those without a record, and those in the re-entry advocacy world tend to identify housing as one of the most difficult challenges to address.

According to Father Kelly, “some people can’t get parole if they have no housing, and if you did thirty years in prison, oftentimes your family connections are weakened.” The stigma of a record also complicates this process.

“A lot of times an individual is denied housing based off of a thirty-year-old conviction,” he said.

PBMR has twelve apartments available to newly re-entering people, as well as a workforce development program that helps individuals build and develop their careers as they re-enter society.

MARCH 14, 2024 ¬ SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY 17

RELIGION

A

study done by the Vera Institute of Justice found that for 2021, Cook County spends $81,734 annually per prisoner, a stark rise of almost 150% in the past decade. With ever rising incarceration rates and thus costs to the state, whose responsibility is it to reduce recidivism and foster sustainable re-entry?

For Mark McCombs, though religious groups can aid in this process, the responsibility of addressing these problems falls on the state, which he believes “absolutely has the capacity to change people’s mindsets. No cash bail and the Pre-Trial Fairness Act changed people’s mindsets to a large extent.

I think the fact that we [faith-based organizations] have to step in to do it is because the state doesn’t. I would love to have the State of Illinois put me out of business.”

For others such as Pastor Corey Brooks, religious institutions need to play a strong role in the rehabilitation and reentry space, as “the state can only regulate laws and things like that, but they can’t help people have a change of heart.”

Another debate exists surrounding trust in institutions and whether the same criminal justice system that is perceived as cold and punitive can be the same institution that fosters unconditional love and care that many turn to religious programming for.

Father David Kelly believes that the state has the power to positively impact the criminal justice system, but that its role is to trust and support the community in achieving its own form of community sustainability. “I had a case where I did a [restorative justice] circle with a young man who killed a teenage daughter,” Father Kelly said. “The mother wanted to know why and all these kinds of things… Eventually, we came together, where that mom was able to be in a safe space with the person who killed her daughter. Healing is possible in those kinds of spaces when it’s done right and when it is given the time and when people are ready for it, but the state had to allow for it. They didn’t do it. They probably didn’t even understand it, but they had to allow for it because that young person is still incarcerated.”

18 SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY ¬ MARCH 14, 2024

It is difficult to identify what is explicitly religious from a legal standpoint.

The First Amendment does not explicitly stipulate “the separation of church and state”; however, its establishment clause prohibits the state’s ‘establishment’ of any one religion. The definition of establishment is interpreted in different ways, however, many (but not all) legal scholars interpret this clause as a measure to enforce that separation.

Some believe that outsourcing rehabilitative efforts to religious groups within state-funded facilities blurs the line between church and state, especially groups that arguably attempt to convert participants with state funding. Others, such as Dart, “understand where people are coming from when they say that, but because of the voluntary nature of it and the truly soft sell of it,” do not see an issue.

Faith-based programs vary on their ideological views regarding the role of religion in facilitating rehabilitation and re-entry. While some see religion as a tool that can be offered but is not necessarily essential to one’s personal growth, others see the spiritual “transformation” of participants as the sole route to reform.

Prison Fellowship is a well-known faith-based prison ministry that adopts a more aggressively religious framework.

The implementation of their controversial programming was banned in Iowa for violating separation of church and state principles.

Prison Fellowship’s InnerChange Freedom Initiative (IFI) offered an immersive rehabilitation program within a separated wing of an Iowa prison that attempted to reframe participants’ thinking under the biblical transformation model, a religious approach that teaches ‘all problems in life arise from a condition of sin.’ Participants were required to attend religious teachings in order to reap the benefits of the program, including improved living conditions away from the general population while in prison, a higher likelihood of parole, and a job mentorship program.

Though participation in this faithbased rehabilitation program was voluntary, concerns about its coercive nature and constitutionality were raised in Americans United for the Separation

of Church and State v. Prison Fellowship Ministries (AU v. PFM), in which the court ruled the state’s contract with PFM’s InnerChange Freedom Initiative in the Iowa prison unconstitutional.

According to the case testimony, prisoners outside of the Christian faith who were initially attracted to its benefits ultimately felt discomfort toward IFI. A Native American participant in the IFI program described how while he was still allowed to join after disclosing he is not a Christian, during a monthly check in with an IFI advisor, he asked if he was saved, if he believed in Jesus, and was told that going out to a sweat lodge ceremony is worshiping false idols.

Similar experiences of discomfort and disappointment with the program’s alleged failure to be interfaith were reflected in the testimony of a Muslim prisoner, who ultimately decided not to join IFI, despite the program’s benefits and claim to welcome Muslims. He testified, “From the information that was given to me about the IFI program, and its strict Christian-based curriculum, there was no possibility for me, a Sunni Muslim, to partake in that program without desecrating my faith. We believe in one God… For me to embrace any type of curriculum contrary to that, I would be desecrating my faith.”

Although InnerChange Freedom Initiative stopped operating in 2016, Prison Fellowship remains one of the most well-known (and well-funded) prison ministries nationally.

Some faith-based groups, however, feel that they embody a more inclusive ethos. Such is the case for Father David Kelly, who explained that PBMR does not aim to impose a ‘religious value set’ onto its various programs’ participants, but rather prioritizes offering the spiritual idea of being in communion with one another, regardless of one’s past. PBMR’s composition of participants spans a range of religious backgrounds including those who are agnostic or atheist.

Father Kelly recognizes that religion isn’t always a positive association for many, so instead PBMR implements a “restorative justice philosophy without language that is perhaps religious. It's how we navigate this space by being very

inclusive, rather than exclusive.”

Opinions on the morality of faithbased reform are divided and many groups have focused their efforts on justifying the presence of faith-based programs within the criminal justice system on the basis that they objectively work. Proving this, however, is complicated. A variety of factors make it difficult to reliably attest to the success of faith-based reform.

For one, there is no standard approach, program participant, or definition of success. While it could be possible with sufficient resources to track recidivism, it is also arguably impossible to measure the “soul transformation” that many religious groups pride themselves on delivering.

Despite the controversy surrounding the legality and ethics of faith-based reform, as well as the difficulties that arise with proving its effectiveness, there are those whose lives have been touched positively by it and call for more understanding of this approach to reform.

Father Kelly said, “I just got a letter from a kid who did retreats with us [at PBMR]. We have what we call drumming circles, which is this restorative justice practice we've done for years, and he's been out of there probably ten or fifteen years or more … For a moment in that space, somebody treated him as a human being, cared about him deeply, and allowed him the space and time to interact with other young people in a more in a more real way, and just as people rather than, you know, whatever conflicts might be happening in those spaces.” Dylan Comerford is a freelance journalist from Chicago who is interested in urban inequality and criminal justice reform. She enjoys cartooning, collecting trinkets, and interviewing pastors in her free time.

HOUSING

A Tale of Three Bronzevilles: How Residents’ Lives are Shaped by Affordable Housing As homelessness reaches record levels in Chicago and across the U.S., a dire need for housing has a drastic impact on the lives of three Bronzeville residents.

BY AHMAD SAYLES, TROY GASTON, CITY BUREAU

I

t’s been fourteen years since the last Bronzeville high-rise for public housing came down, but the loss still reverberates through the South Side neighborhood.

For Terrence “K.D.” Jordan, now forty, the multi-year demolition of Robert Taylor Homes, Stateway Gardens and others along the State Street Corridor didn’t sink in until about two buildings remained.

“Once they started tearing the buildings down, that changed the whole atmosphere,” he said.

As a teenager, Jordan bounced from his grandmother’s crowded apartment in Stateway Gardens to stints with different family members and friends.

His tenuous living situation falls under what experts now consider a widened definition of homelessness or housing insecurity. Restricting the concept to those who live totally unsheltered doesn’t account for a lack of community, resources or reliable housing, they say.

“Homelessness is not a one-size-fitsall experience,” said Samuel Paler-Ponce,

interim associate director of policy for the Chicago Coalition for the Homeless.

“Someone may sleep in the shelter, on the street, at a train station [or] double up with family and friends.”

It’s an increasingly common situation, not only for Chicagoans, but across the United States, where an annual count of homeless residents reached its highest point in 2023 since the Department of Housing and Urban Development began tracking in 2007.

Last year, Chicago hit its highest number of homeless residents since 2015 after years of steady decline in the amount of people living in emergency shelters or places not meant for habitation. Of the 6,139 people included in the January 2023 count, one-third were recently arrived asylum-seekers, as Texas packed them into buses and planes. (Chicago’s 2024 count took place in late January, but its data will not be released until later this year.)

And the real number is drastically higher, according to the Chicago Coalition for the Homeless. It recorded nearly 70,000 residents experiencing MARCH 14, 2024 ¬ SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY 19

HOUSING homelessness in 2023. Unlike the city, the coalition’s definition of homelessness includes residents who stay with friends or family, but have no permanent housing of their own.

Advocacy organizations are trying to meet the heightened need. There has been an uptick in people seeking help from Matthew House Chicago, a Bronzeville nonprofit offering daytime services for those with insecure housing, said Tia Singleton, director of case management services.

Outside of people who are chronically homeless—the primary demographic Matthew House has resources for—most of the recent visitors are facing eviction.

“That’s probably 90% of the need for assistance,” Singleton said.

In 2023, sheriff-enforced evictions in Cook County reached pre-pandemic levels, with around 6,600 people affected, according to the Chicago Tribune. The report cited rising rents and a lack of affordable housing as reasons behind the increase—and advocates agree.

“I think the resources needed right now are increasing the stock of housing options in the city of Chicago,” PalerPonce said. “If solutions aren’t responsive to community needs, none of the resources that we’re fighting for would make sense.”

In its infancy, Bronzeville was one of the few Chicago neighborhoods where Black people could reside, due to segregation laws and redlining restrictions. Over time, as businesses and entertainment spaces emerged, it was coined the Black Metropolis.

But in recent decades, more expensive housing and the massive displacement of longtime public housing residents have shifted the makeup of the neighborhood.

As Bronzeville grapples with the changes, residents are calling for more sustainable housing and demand change from the Chicago Housing Authority.

And the need is clear—those with housing assistance or other resources are less likely to experience housing insecurity.

While the following stories of Bronzeville residents don’t represent every neighbor’s needs, they point to a larger question of the meaning of housing and community in Chicago.

20 SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY ¬ MARCH 14, 2024

Terrence Jordan.

Photo by Max Herman

The Demolition's Legacy: Terrence "K.D." Jordan

I

n the heart of Bronzeville, Terrence “K.D.” Jordan has carved out a path from Stateway Gardens public housing and incarceration to being the proud owner of a flourishing business.

The journey is marked by a history Jordan doesn't shy away from.

“The struggle I went through really shaped and molded me to be the person I am,” he said.

While there was an ugly side to growing up in Chicago Housing Authority complexes, including Stateway Gardens and the Robert Taylor Homes, the communities built within them are what Jordan remembers most, he said.

When Jordan was a teen, a family friend who was like an uncle to him would hire him for small jobs like cleaning a space. His entrepreneurial spirit soon had him selling incense or finding other ways to make money. Older men in the community would encourage him to place value on necessities over fancy and expensive items.

With so many people and families with similar circumstances living in the spaces, making connections was natural.

“We all know we’re in the same predicament,” Jordan said. “We’re all there for each other.”

City fieldhouses, which offered free programs for children, were a great resource, he said. Adults were invested in providing things for neighborhood children to do. Thinking about his own children’s upbringing in Bronzeville, free activities and accessible spaces for youth

no longer exist in the same way, he said.

“Everything you do now, you’ve got to pay to play,” he said, from sports leagues to summer camps.

Around the time Jordan was ten, his mother was incarcerated. He moved in with his grandmother, along with his three siblings, and his aunt and uncle.

As an adult, he had his own experience with incarceration. Over the years, he hopped from place to place, staying with different family members and friends until ultimately, the towers were demolished.

Some of the displaced CHA residents were given Housing Choice Vouchers and moved to other public housing before the Bronzeville buildings were demolished.

But if anyone listed on their lease had a criminal record, they lost out on a voucher.

Some moved out of state, and some people are still looking for stable housing, just trying to live day by day, Jordan said.

“Some might even be homeless right now,” he added.

As Bronzeville has undergone transformation, many of its longtime residents have faced the difficult decision to leave one of the only places they’ve called home. Against this backdrop, Jordan stands as a testament to the enduring spirit of those determined to preserve their connection to the community.

For the past eight years, Jordan has owned Insane Cutz, a barbershop at 221 E. 47th St. He takes pride in his work, but the financial strain is stark.

Jordan knows how hard it can be for business owners; he had to close his previous event space after spending a

Insane Cutz.

significant amount of money on repairs.

“The roof caved in and I took it out of my pocket,” he said.

Investing in his community is important, he said, but at some point, the cost can become too high to sustain.

The city needs to invest in Bronzeville just as its residents do, Jordan said. When he looks around and sees people living on the streets, he doesn’t understand why there aren’t more shelter spaces. He sees people battling mental health issues and wants their government to help them.

“It don’t even take a lot of money to do certain things,” he said. “It just takes a lot of hands to put effort to it, that’s all.”

In other words, it takes a whole community.

The Waiting Game: Ezette Banks

A

t the start of 2024, Ezette Banks was living in a music room she rented in Bronzeville.

She paid $450 each month to sleep on a loveseat. There was no other furniture; she had to call the landlord and ask for access to an upstairs bathroom; and she wasn’t not allowed to have visitors. She found it through what she thought was a legitimate real estate company, but she didn’t have a lease or official paperwork.

Then her “landlord” wanted $550. She threatened to evict Banks if she didn't pay.

Banks, fifty, is a certified nursing assistant. She has raised four children. She has also suffered some tough breaks in life.

She has grappled with abusive relationships. Her family lost her

Photo by Max Herman

HOUSING childhood home in Auburn Gresham after her grandmother died. Seven years ago, her apartment burned down. The Red Cross put her in a motel for a while. But when that temporary relief lapsed, Banks found it increasingly hard to find a place to live.

She tried staying with friends, but “as soon as your money goes, they’re calling to put you out,” she said. One time, a friend asked for extra money after she’d paid them $500, and called the police to kick Banks out when she didn’t give it to them.

Without better options, she started going to shelters. When that didn’t work, she’d sleep on the Red Line.

Without a stable home, holding down a job felt impossible, Banks said.

“How can you work [when] you don't know where you’re gonna lay your head, change your clothes?” she said. “You can’t go to a workplace like that.”

She has been kicked out of shelters for staying past their three-month limit. One removed her two days before Thanksgiving.

Another asked Banks to leave for entering the facility too late. Shelter staff woke her up after 9 p.m. and said she’d arrived too late and would have to go.

“So there I’m at, back on the Red Line,” she said.

Banks has never felt secure seeking legal support for her troubles, because she fears it would lead to her getting arrested.

She also doesn’t want to go to the suburbs for support—she doesn’t have a car, and she’s not familiar with the area.

In January, Banks’ mother, seventyone-year-old Sharon Birdette, suggested her daughter get in touch with Matthew House Chicago. Birdette frequents the Bronzeville space at 3728 S. Indiana Ave., where the nonprofit provides food, showers, job training and housing services to people without housing or those at risk of losing it.

Matthew House has helped Banks with offering meals, seasonal clothes and connecting with resources and maintaining documentation with a case manager.

Meanwhile, Banks has no idea how long she’ll be on the CHA waitlist. She hasn’t received any calls or updates from the city.

She is still too young to qualify for senior housing.

To put it simply, “there is not enough housing,” said Tia Singleton, whose case work at Matthew House makes it clear

how dire the need is for more affordable housing and homeless resources in Chicago. “They have nowhere to go.”

Matthew House doesn’t offer overnight services, but it does provide emergency daytime shelter and acts as a warming or cooling center as respite from extreme temperatures.

Banks said she is shocked there aren’t more resources in the city for people like her.

“How are you gonna tell me you don't have any funding to help me, and I'm a woman out here on the streets?” she said.

Yet despite a decades-long fight with homelessness and displacement, Banks remains optimistic.

“I know God [is] with me,” she said.

“I’ve been standing strong and firm. My God will figure out a way.”

Keshia Larry

Photo by Max Herman

The Bright Future: Keshia Larry

I

f you ever stop by Insane Cutz, you might encounter Keshia Larry.

She’s working as a hair stylist as she waits on results from taking her cosmetology teaching license exam. It's one of the final steps Larry said she needs to take before she feels comfortable leaving CHA-supported housing. She might even buy her own home; she’s looking into some CHA programs that could make it possible.

“I'm gonna do the right thing with my voucher,” the fifty-one-year-old Black woman said.

Larry considers herself blessed when it comes to housing. She has lived in

Bronzeville for 8 years with the help of a Housing Choice Voucher. She moved to the South Side neighborhood after frequenting a church near 49th Street and Michigan Avenue.

“I looked backwards and I was like, ‘God I'm gonna live over there,’” she said.

Larry is extremely resilient, and a woman of deep faith. Her belief has carried her through unimaginable tragedy.

In 2010, her brother shot and killed their fifty-seven-year-old mother, Larry’s threeyear-old daughter, her sixteen-year-old daughter who was also pregnant, his own wife and their baby. Larry’s son, thirteen at the time, was shot in the face but survived, although he was later killed in 2018.

Thinking back to the loss, Larry said she remembers almost immediately trying to find a sense of normalcy and routine.

“Two weeks later, I said if I don't come to work, the Titanic’s gonna sink,” she said.

That's partly why she believes she can push through and survive almost anything, housing voucher or not. But for now, she's grateful to be where she is and in a position to help people when she can.

She has been in her two-bedroom apartment near Michigan Avenue for four years. She lives with her son and would like to upgrade to a larger permanent space.

But when searching online for nearby homes, she saw how expensive Bronzeville has become.

“A lot of people can't afford to rent around here,” she said. “The rent is sky high.”

Over the years, she has seen new businesses, apartments and condos emerge.

The Rosenwald Courts redevelopment, completed in 2016, was one example of change that stood out to her. But with that economic development, she said, can come financial hardship for residents who can no longer afford to live in the neighborhood.

Larry is able to make due with the help of her CHA voucher, which covers a portion of her rent, she said. She was first able to get one of the federal housing vouchers after she moved to Madison, Wisconsin, more than thirty years ago.

When she moved back to Chicago a decade later, she was able to transfer the voucher with her.

Because of it, she was able to go to school full-time, first to study cosmetology, and soon, to get her teaching license.

“It seems like the whole time I've been on it, I've been in school,” she said.

She understands how high the stakes are when it comes to housing. She said she’s fortunate to have one of the about 50,000 Housing Choice Vouchers the CHA administers, out of about 2.3 million nationwide. Chicago’s total number of vouchers has stayed mostly the same over the years, and vouchers only free up when current participants stop using them.

Currently, there are more than 200,000 families on CHA waitlists for vouchers and housing. The voucher waitlist itself hasn’t been open since 2014, and the years people spend waiting can stretch into decades. (In 2022, Ald. Jeanette Taylor went viral when she shared a CHA letter inviting her to apply for a voucher— twenty-nine years after she initially signed up.)

Larry knows she’s blessed, she said.

Getting a voucher can feel like “a miracle,” and not having one can mean constant struggle in holding down a secure, reliable place to live, she said.

The voucher is making it possible for her to advance in her career, and potentially even own a home. Larry hopes to join the Choose to Own Homeownership Program when she makes more money.

The program allows for CHA residents to use their housing subsidy to purchase a home and get financial support with a portion of their mortgage payment.

But, Larry said, life is a struggle, and people should take the help they can get.

It shouldn’t come down to a move thirty years ago for Chicagoans to have access to stable housing. She remembers being a little girl and seeing people without homes, sleeping at the bus stop.

“That's somebody's mama,” she said.

Where, she wonders now, is the help they need? City Bureau engagement reporter Jerrel Floyd contributed to this report.

This story was produced by City Bureau.

City Bureau is a civic journalism lab based in Chicago. Learn more and get involved at citybureau.org.

MARCH 14, 2024 ¬ SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY 21

HOUSING

Bronzeville’s Future as a Real Estate ‘Gem’ Threatens its Legacy as Chicago’s Black Metropolis

Longtime residents and advocates look to affordable housing plans and intentional investment to keep the celebrated Black neighborhood Black.

BY NICOLE JEANINE JOHNSON, REEMA SALEH, CITY BUREAU

I

t wasn’t until Michelle Kennedy left Bronzeville for city planning graduate school in the 1990s that she learned her Chicago neighborhood’s name.

After observing a classmate’s presentation on the “real estate gem,” she asked him to show it to her on a map.

Kennedy was shocked to find the heralded Bronzeville included the Prairie Court Apartments where she grew up.

“When I was a little girl, [Bronzeville] was a poor area,” said Kennedy, whose memories of the 1980s reflect a time when 51% of the population lived under the poverty line across the four city Community Areas that contain Bronzeville: Douglas, Grand Boulevard, Kenwood, and Oakland.

The ensuing decades brought waves of change cascading through the neighborhood, from the 1990s shift of middle- and upper-income Black professionals moving to Bronzeville, to the teardown of public housing high-rise apartments that, at their peak, were home to around 9,000 low-income families.

Development has brought newconstruction homes with price tags far exceeding what the average resident can afford, along with amenities such as a Mariano’s grocery store, a $16.9 million tennis center, the higher-end Bronzeville Winery restaurant, and a forthcoming private social justice school.

“If you are not wealthy and you’re a Black person, you cannot buy in Bronzeville,” Kennedy said. “And if you inherit property in Bronzeville and you’re not wealthy, it’s going to be difficult for you to pay the taxes and to maintain it.”

And while advocates say such resources are needed in a thriving community, many say they worry the people who need them can no longer afford to live in the historic 22 SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY ¬ MARCH 14, 2024

Bernard Lloyd.

Black neighborhood they’ve long called home.

“If the number of wealthy white people who want to live in Bronzeville exceeds the number of wealthy Black people who want to live there, it will no longer be a Black neighborhood,” Kennedy said. “Plain and simple.”

Waves of change Pinpointing when exactly gentrification began in Bronzeville—or even what gentrifying itself means—can be difficult.

“The start of gentrification is always disinvestment,” said Roderick Wilson, executive director of the Lugenia Burns Hope Center, a Bronzeville-based community organization advocating for rent control and affordable housing protections. “It may take a while before someone starts to move on it, but you can't have gentrification in a community unless it's been disinvested in, because that's what makes it profitable.”

The prohibition of racial

Photo by Trent Sprague

discrimination in housing sales and rentals in the 1960s made it possible for Black Chicagoans from Bronzeville to move to other neighborhoods and the suburbs.

Meanwhile, the Dan Ryan Expressway’s path along racial boundaries physically and economically isolated the Black Belt.

The exodus kicked off decades of economic downfall; Bronzeville would lose over 75% of its population by 2010.

The 1990s saw a wave of middle- and upper-income Black professionals moving to Bronzeville, drawn by its past golden age. Soon after, the Chicago Housing Authority’s Plan for Transformation and the unveiling of the city’s new police headquarters at 3510 S. Michigan Ave. signaled a shift in municipal mindset.

“In order to signal for developers to come in, there typically is a large public works project that's built in that community,” Wilson said. “When they moved the police headquarters to Bronzeville, that was the indicator that, ‘We're about to change this community.’”

For Lionel Kimble Jr., an associate

professor of history and Africana studies at Chicago State University and Chicago Urban League’s executive director of research and policy, the changing demographics of his neighborhood became noticeable around the 2008 housing market crash and ensuing Great Recession.

“I remember driving down Lake Shore Drive in the mornings, and I would see all of these white people walking and running through Bronzeville, just jogging,” Kimble said. “I knew at that moment that something was changing.”

While gentrification is a loaded term, its core definition is an influx of wealthy residents moving to a lowerincome urban area, attracting development and increasingly expensive housing that ultimately pushes out less affluent, longtime residents.

In Bronzeville, construction costs have soared, property tax bills are more than doubling, and median single-family home prices jumped nearly $200,000 between 2018 and 2022, according to a March 2023 Tribune report.

The changes come as a flood of new homes hits the market. And that means, for certain homebuyers, Bronzeville is one of the few neighborhoods that meet their needs, said real estate agent Mallori Lockett.

“Bronzeville, along with Woodlawn, is really the only place on the South Side where there's been a concerted effort for new construction,” Lockett said. “That, in part, is driving people to Bronzeville, because they're able to buy brand-new.”

As affluent white households— who make more than twice that of Black families—relocate to communities pegged as the next real estate gold rush, the prices for new-construction homes are far beyond what the majority of Bronzeville residents

HOUSING can afford.

“Developments down the street from my home are going for half a million dollars,” Kimble said. “There are houses on King Drive [selling for] three quarters of a million. Who is buying those homes?

They're not necessarily being built for us.”

The outlook isn’t much rosier for renters. The four community areas containing Bronzeville have a household median income of $40,692, or approximately $3,400 a month before taxes, according to data from the Chicago Metropolitan Agency for Planning.

Considering Bronzeville's average monthly rent is $1,720, that leaves many spending at least half their income on housing—well beyond what experts deem affordable.

The stock of affordable or public housing has yet to recover from the demolition of Chicago Housing Authority high-rises in the neighborhood. There are approximately 5,500 city-backed affordable apartments in Bronzeville, priced to meet the area median income, with city funds making up the market rate gap for landlords. But that falls short of the loss of public housing that came with the late 1990s and early 2000s demolition of CHA high-rises, six of which were in Bronzeville.

Ald. Pat Dowell, whose 3rd Ward includes Bronzeville and portions of the Near South Side, Fuller Park and Washington Park, thinks the community has “its fair share of subsidized housing.”

“My goal has been to keep some affordability … for people who wanted to live in the Bronzeville community,” Dowell said. “But at the same time, try to bring in new investment, new higher-income people, because you need that to be able to balance the economy,” Dowell said.

Kennedy agrees. “Dowell has the final say on what gets built,” she said. “And she’s done a great job at keeping mixed-income housing in Bronzeville, to the extent to which she can.”

Intentional investment Communities like Bronzeville need economic investment, but it must be done intentionally, said Bernard Loyd, president of Urban Juncture, a Bronzeville community investment initiative focused on revitalizing retail along Bronzeville’s main corridors.

“We don’t have a choice; we need investment,” Loyd said. “If we don’t invest, it will perpetuate the things that we see throughout Black Chicago, which is that these communities become so difficult to live in that we leave.”

Loyd, who moved to the neighborhood thirty years ago, said Bronzeville’s decline mirrors what happened to Black communities across the city—and in major cities nationwide.

In 1980, Black Chicagoans made up 40% of the city’s population. “And in the forty years since, we’ve lost 1% of that population, every year, like clockwork” he said. “Chicago has suffered tremendously because of this collapse in the Black population.”

Dowell has been a champion for new investment projects since she took office in 2007. Among them: XS Tennis, Home Run Inn Pizza, 43 Green, a 4th Ward Mariano’s, and revitalizing the historic Rosenwald Court Apartments, where legends like Quincy Jones and Gwendolyn Brooks once lived.

The alder cites the Rosenwald Courts development as an example of merging economic diversity and affordability.

Rosenwald Courts offers space for local Black businesses including Shawn Michelle’s Old Fashion Ice Cream and the coffee shop Sip & Savor, plus office space for Black professionals. Rent for nonsenior residents range from $950 to $1,115 for one- and two-bedroom apartments.

The development offers a blueprint for further development with an eye on affordability, Dowell said. The city could work with investors to build new affordable homes on hundreds of parcels of cityowned land that could then be sold as affordable housing for around $300,000$400,000, Dowell said.

In late February, Mayor Brandon Johnson proposed a borrowing plan that would devote up to $390 million to affordable rental homes; and up to $240 million for constructing and preserving affordable single-family homes.

The CHA also recently announced a plan to renovate forty single-family homes it owns and sell them at affordable prices to income-eligible buyers, complementing its Down Payment Assistance program.

But the results of such programs aren’t necessarily permanent. Federal lowincome tax credits that incentivize private

Mallori Lockett.

Photo by Trent Sprague

developers to build affordable housing require owners to maintain affordable rates for fifteen years, after which the housing can return to market-rate prices, according to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.

When Kimble first moved to Bronzeville in 1999, he set out to make it a multigenerational home for his family.

Now, as rents and housing prices go up, he fears for the future of Black Chicago.

“I fear for the legacy of Black people who were forced to leave and wanted to live in Bronzeville—and what that means for the legacy of those folks who came before me and my children,” Kimble said. “If I sell my house, I'll never get back over here.

That's robbing my children of their legacy.”

Bronzeville as a ‘hotspot’ Through real estate promotion and other interests, the boundaries of Bronzeville—and other neighborhoods like it—have blurred, often folding in smaller communities on the cusp to bring them into the profitable notion of a Black urban renaissance.

In that sense, Bronzeville is not a strict geographic location, but a marketing tool, said Northwestern University sociologist Mary Pattillo.

“Bronzeville pulls on Black folk's desire for a connection to a golden age of Black communities,” Pattillo said. “Calling it all Bronzeville creates that sense of familiarity, which creates value, since the real estate interest is all about higher prices.”

And, in some ways, that growing value does benefit Bronzeville’s longtime residents, said Lockett, whose work as a real estate agent spans much of the South Side

and nearby suburbs.

“There are so many residents who are finally seeing the fruits of their homeownership labor,” Lockett said.

“They're finally getting the equity that is a given on the North Side, or even Hyde Park, which is right next door. Should they be denied [that equity]? It's complicated.”

Despite its massive changes, the vision of Chicago's Black Metropolis still draws people in, said Pattillo, who specializes in urban sociology, race, and ethnicity.

“Bronzeville is the idea of a place where Black urban renaissance happens,” Pattillo said. “It doesn't negate all of the unemployment, crime, drug use, or bad health. But when you call on Bronzeville, you're trying to lean into the flourishing, to the creativity, to the community building, to the institutions that are working for Black progress.”

For Loyd, the promise of Bronzeville now is the same as it was a century ago—a place within the city “that can help move Black Chicago forward.”

“It's a place where, because of that rich history, because of that rich talent, because of its location, because of the critical mass of all those things coming together, [we] can change the trajectory of our city,” he said.

And he sees his work at Urban Juncture as an opportunity to reinvigorate Black Chicago.

“The promise of Bronzeville is a key opportunity to turn [disinvestment] around and reestablish Black Chicago as a vibrant and vital part of Chicago and in the Midwest,” he said. “And in doing so, to rejuvenate Chicago.”

But the question of who can afford to live in Bronzeville—and what role the city should play in its makeup—remains a complicated one.

And there are clear implications for Black people who wish to stay in Chicago.

If current economic trends continue, Kennedy wonders: "What will happen if Chicago doesn't have Black neighborhoods anymore?" City Bureau engagement reporter Jerrel Floyd contributed to this report.

This story was produced by City Bureau.

City Bureau is a civic journalism lab based in Chicago. Learn more and get involved at citybureau.org.

MARCH 14, 2024 ¬ SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY 23

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.

Jess taught me my body is trying its best by chima “naira” ikoro

and now i’m in the bathroom answering for my crimes, visualizing the Lactaid pill that’s in the small pocket of a purse i didn’t bring. if anything, my bowels have taught me that everything will eventually pass if you’ve ever had to eat lunch alone, at least you don’t have to worry about anyone smelling your farts. “i am not intolerant. i am tolerating just fine!” i say in front of a camera. i wonder if my boyfriend is embarrassed that i’ve just told 214,000 people his girl be *gassy* i pray my daughter is born as shameless as i was forced to be. if nobody likes you, it teaches you not to live to impress people cause it’s never gonna be good enough anyway, if i can’t be your friend i might as well settle for being <i>myself.</i> at least being by myself gave me plenty of time to dance in the mirror, to arch my back and shake. maybe doing the worm is outdated, but here in your room while your parents are working overtime, no one can stop you from getting on the floor and flopping around.

here in the bathroom i’ve realized i am not going to recall this moment the next time i eat mac and cheese and drink a redbull before an open mic. i enjoyed my food and i’m not going to sleep tonight and i regret nothing and now i’m in the bathroom, answering for my crimes. flushing in between sentences so no one knows i was ever here. there’s a poem in there. i will not let the fear of enzymes my body decided not to make a lot of stop me from feeding myself. i won’t let shame rule me, the throne is already occupied. some times i make bad decisions, but bad is subjective. and so are hairstyles, and clothes, and desirable skin tones. so are all the things a kid could get picked on for. when you spend time by yourself everyone’s thoughts are just suggestions except for Gods—even still, bubble guts are suggestive suggest you remember that being yourself means certain meals have to be eaten alone.

Chima Ikoro is the Weekly’s Community Builder.

THIS WEEK'S PROMPT: “WRITE A POEM ABOUT HOW FREEDOM OR SENSE OF SELF MANIFESTS THROUGH YOUR EXISTENCE/EVERYDAY LIFE.” 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

24 SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY ¬ MARCH 14, 2024