Frank Latin Communications Specialist/ Westside Media Project Founder
Kenn Cook Jr. Communications Specialist
Kamil Brady Circulation Manager/Sales
Kyler Winfrey
Digital Media Specialist/Good Neighbor Campaign liaison
Trey Arline Reporter
Asante Hayes
Photographer/Videographer
Jihoon Woo
Photographer/Videographer
Paul Goyette
Photographer
EDITORIAL BOARD
Morris Reed
Westside Health Authority/CEO
Karl Brinson
Westside Branch NAACP/President
Bernard Clay
Introspect Youth Services/Executive Director
Frank Latin
Westside Media Project/ Executive Director
Michael Romain
Village Free Press/Publisher
CONTACT US at stories@ourculture.us
The Making of an Argument
Photographer Kenn Cook’s #BLACKMENWELOVEYOU multimedia exhibition sees Black men through a different lens
By Michael Romain Editor
On Feb. 23, Loyce Wright, a 43-year-old security guard working at Family Dollar store, 5410 W. Chicago Ave., was fatally shot after reportedly arguing with a man.
Four days later, Chicago police announced that they had arrested and charged Rodgerick O’Neal, 36, of Maywood, with Wright’s murder.
About a week later, on Feb. 27, community members and police officers walked along Chicago Avenue to demonstrate concern and compassion for Wright’s family, the dollar store employees, and anyone who may have been traumatized by the shooting. The 15th District’s community policing office organized the walk.
Chicago Police Sgt. Edgard Brown and Ofc. Ed Whitaker attended the walk and stood alongside community members. The Culture’s
staff photographer and Austin resident, Kenn Cook Jr., was there to capture the moment.
Several months later, Cook printed that monochromatic photograph and about a dozen others showing Black men frozen in the mundane at a PrintLab Chicago and a local Walgreens..
He went to Michael’s, the arts and crafts store, and bought black picture frames (“I got a deal on the frames — buy one, get two free,” he said).
He recorded a small group of people, myself included, saying “Black men, we love you,” into his cell phone. He also recorded a video of people, including his wife, Rebecca Cook, in his living room, articulating their love for Black men while foregrounding the African-American flag.
Kenn Cook Jr.'s #BLACKMENWELOVEYOU, a multimedia exhibition that pays tribute to and positively affirms Black men, was on display inside the Columbus Park Fieldhouse in Austin on June 15. | PROVIDED
Cook holds his son in front of an African-American flag backdrop, an ironic gesture to the work of one of his influences, the famous Black photographer and filmmaker Gordon Parks. | MICHAEL ROMAIN
On June 15, Cook, with the support of the Westside Branch NAACP, arranged those photos, that flag backdrop, and a TV screen that played a continuous loop of that roughly 2-minute video and those audio affirmations (“Black men, we love you”) into an arresting solo exhibition — “#BLACKMENWELOVEYOU” — displayed during the Austin Juneteenth West Fest at Columbus Park.
Cook explained the photo of Sgt. Brown and Ofc. Whitaker at the Feb. 27 peace walk, which he captured while on assignment for The Culture.
“I shot that one because people are always thinking Black people are against the police,” he said. “They say we don’t come out when it’s Black-on-Black crime.”
Sgt. Brown walked into Cook’s exhibition, looked
around, and noticed his photograph. He said he felt seen. “It feels good to know that somebody else sees the work we’re doing, which is amazing,” Brown said.
“I like being in the background, but the camera sometimes finds you. We weren’t out there because a police officer shot anybody,” he said. “A Black man shot another Black man. That [demonstration] needs to happen more often, and we need to stop being numb to what we see on these streets.”
Dannie Daniels of Austin said one of the photos prompted her to think about the Black men in her life.
“I thought about my dad embracing my son and his son,” she said. “One of our family’s things is hugging. You don’t see much hugging going on. My dad makes it his business to chop it up with his kids and grandkids.”
GORDON PARKS IS AN INFLUENCE
Chicago Police Supt. Larry Snelling, the city’s top cop and a Black man in uniform, walked through Cook’s exhibition. So did Cook County Commissioner Tara Stamps, who lit up when she saw people she knows in Cook’s photos.
“Look at Marshawn [a yoga instructor in Austin whom Cook photographed while stretching in his Madison Avenue yoga studio]! That’s a great shot. I love black and whites,” Stamps said.
“At my first Democratic National Convention in Atlanta, when Jesse Jackson ran, I worked as an intern for the
See KENN COOK on page 4
Rev. Robbie Wilkerson, a Westside pastor and businessman, speaks during the Feb. 27 peace walk held after the murder of Loyce Wright.
Black Panther Party Cubs Chairman Fred Hampton Jr. (left) speaks in front of a blown-up photograph of his iconic father, Black Panther Party Chairman Fred Hampton, who was assassinated on the Westside in 1969.
A community member (above) barbecues on the Westside. Cook said he wanted to capture Black men in the mundane activities of neighborhood life.
Westside Health Authority CEO Morris Reed (left) peruses the pages of the first print edition of The Culture newspaper in March.
PHOTOS BY KENN COOK JR.
Continued from page 3
Associated Press,” Stamps recalled. “The photographers would take the pictures, and I’d run the film to get it printed. One of the photographers and I were out, and he was snapping pictures of old Black men — in the barbershop, sitting on the porch. It was so Gordon Parks-esque. Gordon’s the icon in terms of photographing Black life.”
Cook said Parks and the photographer LaToya Ruby Frazier, known for her powerful photos of people at the margins of society — from a Black female steel worker to a Black girl in Flint, Mich. opening her mouth to take in a measured amount of bottled water —are both heavy influences.
Frazier writes about how Parks, a pioneering photographer and filmmaker who famously used his camera as a weapon to document Black life in the 1950s and 1960s, influenced her work.
“I first encountered Gordon Parks’ work when I saw his ‘American Gothic’ portrait of Ella Watson from 1942,” Frazier writes. “That was the moment I realized photography is more than just taking pictures.”
In “American Gothic,” Parks has Watson, a government worker, stand in front of the American flag while holding a broom in one hand and a mop in another. It’s an ironic reference to the famous 1930 painting of the same name by Grant Wood that shows a
white farmer standing next to his daughter in front of a house. The reference suggests that Parks intended to place Ella Watson, a worker that American society had deliberately excluded, firmly within the American traditions of labor and democracy. The famous photo is both a protest and an affirmation.
“I learned that, through one dignified image, you could speak about your position as a black woman and how the value of your labour is viewed in society; you could show what inequality does to humanity while also capturing the strength shown in the face of it,” Frazier writes of ‘American Gothic.’
For instance, Cook’s inclusion of the African-American flag in #BLACKMENWELOVEYOU both gestures toward ‘American Gothic’ and employs the Gordon Parks-esque technique of inverting symbols of the dominant society to simultaneously protest anti-Black injustice and affirm Black identity..
The African-American flag “takes the stars and stripes design of the United States flag and replaces the red, white, and blue with green, red, and black, the colors of the Pan African flag,” the National Museum of African American History and Culture explains.
“Their work tries to change the narrative,” Cook said of Parks and Frazier. “These [photographic moments I captured] are mundane things. This is us. This is how we live on the Westside.”
However, Cook differs from Parks in how he argues for the dignity of Black life.
In 2017, the Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive (BAMPFA) at the University of California hosted “Gordon Parks: The Making of an Argument,” an exhibition that pulled together “more than eighty items from the Gordon Parks Foundation archives to offer a comprehensive investigation into the African American photographer’s first Life magazine photo-essay, ‘Harlem Gang Leader’ (1948),” BAMPFA’s website explains.
For the photo essay, Parks gained the trust of 17-year-old Harlem gang leader Leonard “Red” Jackson. The photos tell a complex and layered story of Jackson’s life. Shots of “boys fighting in the streets” stand in stark relief to “affectionate portraits of Jackson doing domestic work in his family’s apartment.”
Parks gave the editors at Life magazine hundreds of photos, but only 21 were published, and the editors’ choices “are telling,” BAMPFA says. “While the published piece is an impressive photojournalistic feat, bringing issues of poverty and blackness into mainstream media while depicting Harlem in an emotive and personal way, much of Parks’s perspective was lost in the editors’ selection.”
The omission “raised the questions: What
was the intended argument, and whose argument was it?”
There is no such mystery in #BLACKMENWELOVEYOU, because Cook didn’t just shoot the photos. He made the final decision about which photos he would include in the exhibition. He had the editorial control. Armed with a camera, a cell phone, and money for prints and frames, Cook was his own curator. And he let others in his community (his wife and friends) make his argument — Black men, we love you — without mediation for a main-
stream audience. In some ways, the project’s simplicity and directness are the point.
“I want people in my community to feel like they can do something like this, too,” Cook said.
More online
You can see more of the photos and the video from Kenn
at ourculture.us.
Cook's photos depict Black men in their everyday splendor. His photography also echoes that of Gordon Parks in the way he inverts symbols of the dominant society (i.e., the American flag) to protest anti-Black injustice and positively affirm Black identity.
"American Gothic," 1942. | PHOTO BY GORDON PARKS
KENN COOK
PHOTOS BY KENN COOK JR.
Cook Jr.'s #BLACKMENWELOVEYOU exhibition
Westside Arts Get a Boost With New Storefront
Keli Stewart’s Front Porch Arts Center opened a permanent space at 5851 W. Madison St. on June 15
By Michael Romain Editor
Keli Stewart, the founder of the Front Porch Arts Center, has been convening painters, photographers, poets, novelists, and other creatives in spaces across the Westside since she founded her organization in 2019.
Now, Stewart and her fellow creatives have a space they can call their own. On June 15, Stewart hosted a ribbon-cutting for Front Porch Arts Center’s new physical space at 5851 W. Madison St. in Austin.
“This is a dream come true for me, and it’s not even my business,” said Ald. Chris Taliaferro (29th). “I’m very passionate about art. I love art. I love Black art.”
Taliaferro is an artist—an early painting of his hangs inside the space. He said he’s gotten better since completing that work.
“This has been a long time coming,” Stewart said. “We were founded in 2019 with a mission to provide more arts and cultural events and programming to our neighborhood.”
Last year, Stewart provided cultural platforms for over 65 Westside artists to showcase their talents.
“We should not have to keep leaving our neighborhood to showcase our art or find ways to heal from the day-to-day trauma that we carry with us living on the Westside,” she said.
Stewart plans to offer regular programming in the new space, such as Westside Stories, an open mic storytelling night she hosts from 6 to 8 p.m. every fourth Tuesday of each month. The next Westside Stories is July 23.
Austin resident Alan Hines, a prolific author of poetry books and urban fiction, is one of the creatives Stewart helped platform.
“She invited me to an open mic event at a local library,” Hines said, adding that he’s written “something like 50 books of poetry”
and seven works of erotic fiction.
Caleb Russell, a 34-year-old poet, said he’s known Stewart for three years. She gave him his first paid gig.
“One thing about her is she’s about the community,” Russell said. “I told her I’d like to have a book party here one day.”
Stewart said Front Porch Arts Center is always seeking revenue. She turned a room in the back of the storefront into a vintage shop, which adds a touch of hominess to the space.
“I was born and raised here on Mason and Madison, so this feels like a homecoming,” Stewart said.
Learn more
For more information on Front Porch Arts Center, 5851 W. Madison St., visit frontporchartscenter.org or facebook.com/frontporchartscenter
Keli Stewart, middle, cuts the ribbon on the new storefront space for the Front Porch Arts Center at 5851
W. Madison St. in Austin on June 15.
| MICHAEL ROMAIN
Stewart poses for a photo with Ald. Chris Taliaferro. The alderman's painting is seen behind him. Right, a woman browses items in the vintage shop located in a room in the back of the space. | MICHAEL ROMAIN
PHOTOS BY SHANEL ROMAIN
Silence is the Message
Howard Sandifer’s and Joel Hall’s ‘Sweet Freedom Suite,” performed at the Museum of Contemporary Art, was the Juneteenth experience I didn’t know I needed
HBy Michael Romain Editor
oward Sandifer said he and his wife, Darlene, stayed up all night to watch Nelson Mandela walk with his thenwife, Winnie, out of Victor Verster Prison on the morning of Feb. 11, 1990.
“I’ll never forget how strong and tall he stood,” Sandifer said. “He had been in prison for so many years, but not a bit of bitterness or hate was in him. He was proud and standing tall. Winnie was right with him. And as they progressed through the crowd, they broke into a national dance.”
That moment three decades ago inspired Sandifer to compose “Sweet Freedom Suite,” his transfixing original dance suite choreographed by esteemed Chicago choreographer Joel Hall. The cast of professional dancers was from Hall’s company.
The suite captivated the audience inside the Edlis Neeson Theater at the Museum of Con-
temporary Art on Juneteenth. We were there to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the Chicago West Community Music Center (CWCMC), the popular Westside music school Howard and Darlene founded. Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson and his wife, First Lady Stacie Johnson, co-chaired the event and have children in CWCMC.
Hall said the dance suite debuted last year at the Garfield Park Conservatory, where the setting was much more intimate. Dancers Terri Woodall and Dorianne Thomas told me afterward they had to acclimate to the expansive theater’s more impersonal setting. They said Hall’s dance philosophy helped them overcome that darkened chasm between their bodies and the audience.
“I often tell my dancers, I don’t want you to dance with your body,” Hall told me after the performance. “Dance with your soul. We need to feel you. That’s very important in anything we do. Stories must be truthful, honest, and meaningful to everybody because everybody
Chicago West Community Music Center cellist Ishmael Brown performs the prelude from Cello Suite #6 by J.S. Bach.
Singers Deonte Baker and Charles Brown perform Stevie Wonder's "As" with the Chicago West Community Music Center Orchestra.
Howard and Darlene Sandifer receive the Uplifting Lives Through Music Award.
Choreographer Joel Hall said he teaches his dancers to perform with their souls.
in that audience should be moved, whether Black, White, Hispanic, Chinese, or Japanese. It doesn’t matter. Because basically, we’re all the same.”
After witnessing Mandela’s iconic freedom walk three decades ago, Sandifer said he wanted to write “music of freedom” as a tribute to “those who fought and died for it.” The eight-part piece includes tributes to Harriet Tubman, Frederick Douglass, Fannie Lou Hamer, Ruby Bridges, Mandela, and Martin Luther King Jr.
The musical suite presents a wide range of raw emotions that Hall deftly condensed into roughly 30 minutes, much shorter than the two-hour ballet he had intended to choreograph.
“Timing should never be a constraint on your project. It’s just that sometimes you have to compromise to be in sync and on the frequency as Howard because his music is so brilliant,” Hall said.
You can easily spot the famous Black choreographer Alvin Ailey’s influence in “Sweet Freedom Suite.” The piece blends aspects of different genres, including ballet, jazz, and modern dance, in a way reminiscent of Ailey’s.
For instance, I saw and heard echoes of “Revelations,” Ailey’s signature work, in Hall’s buoyant, forceful, and angular choreography (“the brother on the floor, rolling around in chains. It’s real! You’re supposed to feel that!” Hall told me) and in Sandifer’s mesmerizing melting pot of musical genres that span the African diaspora.
When I mentioned this to Hall, he pointed out that he danced at the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater for about two years in the 1970s when Ailey was still alive. Hall said the experience lingers.
“I was influenced by the way he told stories, and I also learned my technique from Ailey,” Hall said.
Distilling rapture, jubilation, pain, fear, dread, and sorrow into a 30-minute work risks overwhelming the senses. In the hands of Hall and Sandifer, though, this diverse range of emotions works to remarkable effect.
After the suite, which occurred between a musical tribute
to philanthropist Helen Zell and student performances, the audience was treated to complimentary access to the museum. I opted to spend most of my time in “Arthur Jafa: Works from the MCA Collection,” an exhibition that runs through March 2, 2025.
Jafa is a Mississippi-born video artist and cinematographer who, the MCA writes on its website, “collages images and ideas taken from history, fine art, and popular culture, bringing the viewer into a world of harmonious yet strange sequences and creating a lens configured for the cultural nuances of the Black experience.”
The spiritual experience of seeing “Sweet Freedom Suites” was similar to the transcendence I felt watching Jafa’s “Love is the Message, The Message is Death.” The roughly seven-minute video montage created in 2016 plays over Kanye West’s “Ultralight Beam.”
Jafa patches together seemingly unconnected videos and images — from viral YouTube clips like Charles Ramsey’s famous TV news interview after rescuing Amanda Berry in 2013 (“I knew something was wrong when a little, pretty white girl ran into a Black man’s arms,” Ramsey famously said) to cellphone footage of police brutalizing unarmed Black people to close-ups of the sun’s surface — into a cohesive high-definition digital quilt depicting the beautiful struggle
that is Black culture.
“Though the sequences of images seem to defy logic, the frames are cut and spliced rhythmically, producing a choreographed procession of anti-Black violence, mourning, celebration, and intimacy — all inhabiting the immensity and power of the sun,” the MCA explains.
Negative space is the binding force in Jafa’s media and Hall’s choreography.
“I’m not really manipulating the images, I’m manipulating the gap between the images,” Jafa says.
And Hall told me that the thread running through “Sweet Freedom Suite” is silence.
“Silence is so important because sometimes silence is movement and music,” Hall said. “You have to listen to your silence. All kinds of things come from that. Your brain evolves. It’s like a meditation.”
Learn more
For more information on the Chicago West Community Music Center, visit cwcmc.org. For more information on the Museum of Contemporary Art, visit mcachicago.org . Museum admission on Tuesdays is always free for Illinois residents. During the rest of the week, ask about MCA’s reduced admission for students and seniors.
Brothers Michael and Memphis Tinker perform on the trumpet and trombone. They lifted the audience with a rousing rendition of "When the Saints Go Marching In."
Joel Hall dancers perform "Sweet Freedom Suite" at the Museum of Contemporary Art on Juneteenth.
Commissioner Dennis Deer, ‘Healthcare Champion,’ Dies at 51
The 2nd District Cook County commissioner had complications from a double lung transplant he received in 2023
By Michael Romain Editor
Cook County Commissioner Dr. Dennis Deer (2nd), a longtime advocate for healthcare equity, particularly in the area of mental health, died on June 23. He was 51 years old.
Deer’s close friend, 3rd District Cook County Commissioner Bill Lowry, told WBEZ that Deer had complications from a rare double lung transplant he received last year. Born and raised on the Westside, Dr. Deer lived in North Lawndale. He was a therapist and counselor with a PhD. in Christian Psychology before assuming a seat on the Cook County Board of Commissioners in 2017 after then-Commissioner Robert Steele died.
Deer chaired the county board’s health and hospitals committee as a commissioner. He was also a member of the Cook County Health board.
“He also helped lead the push to make Juneteenth a paid Cook County holiday and advocated for healthier food options in a campaign called ‘Food is Medicine,’” WBEZ reported.
In a June 23 statement, Deer’s family said his “passionate lifelong dedication made him a tireless servant to the community in areas of healthcare, education, economic development, employment and training, and re-entry and affordable housing.”
In a statement on its website, the North Lawndale Employment Network (NLEN), a nonprofit that provides a range of services to help people overcome barriers to getting jobs, called Deer “a dedicated champion” of the nonprofit’s programs and a “fixture at
NLEN events.” Deer was a member of NLEN’s board of directors for a decade.
“He especially loved supporting NLEN’s annual Thanksgiving Meal Giveaway, where he’d join other volunteers in passing out hundreds of turkeys and Thanksgiving meals for those in need,” the statement reads.
“Dennis was a good friend and beloved community advocate.”
Commissioner Deer married his high school sweetheart, Barbara Deer, in 1996. They have three children.
Services for Commissioner Deer
Public Viewing: Monday, July 8, noon to 5:45 p.m., at Calahan Funeral Home, 7030 S. Halsted in Chicago. | Omega Psi Phi, Inc., Presentation: 6:15 to 7:15 p.m. | Viewing and remarks: 7:15 to 8 pm Celebration of Life: Tuesday, July 9, Living Word Christian Center, 7600 W. Roosevelt Rd., Forest Park | Visitation: 10 to 10:30 a.m. | Celebration of Life: 10:30 a.m. to noon | Internment: 1:30 to 2 p.m.
Flowers can be sent to: Calahan Funeral Home, 7030 S. Halsted in Chicago, or instead of flowers, send donations to juneteenth-illinois-nfp.square.site.
PHOTOS BY MICHAEL ROMAIN
Cook County Commissioner Tara Stamps, seated, poses with Good Neighbor team during the Austin Juneteenth West Fest on June 15.
Omega Psi Phi Fraternity Brothers Dr. Derron Strickland and Charles Robinson with Westside Health Authority HR Director Aiesha Stewart at the SSA AV 72's Juneteenth celebration.
Poet Azariah Baker, 18, performs a spoken word piece during SSA AV 72's Juneteenth celebration at the PopCourts, 5257 W. Chicago Ave. in Austin, on June 19.
Cook County Commissioner Dennis Deer died on June 23. He was 51. | KEN COOK JR.
Austin Credit Union Expands Access to Capital
The Leaders Network hosted a ribbon-cutting for its new Great Lakes Credit Union branch on June 26
By Michael Romain Editor
On June 26, the Leaders Network, an interfaith social justice organization based on the Westside, hosted a ribbon-cutting for the Leaders Network Financial branch of Great Lakes Credit Union (GLCU) at 5600 W. Madison Ave. in Austin.
The Leaders Network worked with the Illinois Credit Union League (ICUL) to “identify the most sustainable way to bring a financial institution to Austin,” the organization explained in a statement.
The ICUL introduced the organization to GLCU, founded in 1938 and headquartered in Northern Illinois. According to GLCU’s website, the nonprofit financial cooperative has over $1 billion in assets and serves over 80,000 members in Chicagoland and surrounding areas.
In 2022, the Leaders Network and GLCU entered a formal partnership to bring a credit union to Austin.
Rev. Ira Acree, the pastor of Greater St. John Bible Church, 1256 N. Waller, and a co-founder of the Leaders Network, called the new branch a “beacon of hope for our community” that will provide economic opportunities for all Austin residents, “regardless of background.”
Reggie Little, a business development specialist with GLCU, said the Austin branch has been open since April. Little explained that credit unions, unlike conventional banks, are nonprofits that must invest their bottom line back into their communities, products, and services.
Some of the credit union’s services include a second chance account for people who may have trouble getting banking accounts. With just $1, you can open a checking account and access online banking, Zell, and a debit card. You’d have to wait six months to get access to checks.
The credit union also has a $1,000 credit-builder loan to help you build your credit.
“We place $1,000 of our money into that member’s savings account, put a hold on those funds, and then make a loan to that person for that $1,000,” Little said. “As they make payments, we report that positive history to credit reporting agencies. After 12
months, we release the hold on that $1,000. So, they get 12 months of positive payment history. And we charge zero percent interest and no application fee.”
The credit union also lets people with accounts for at least three months borrow between $300 and $2,000 without a credit check. The loan is based on your account activity. The branch doesn’t charge for official checks and has an ATM and a free coin machine on site.
Beatriz Hernandez, the branch manager,
said the credit union is particularly committed to volunteering and community service.
“We are very involved in the community,” she said. “We give a lot of financial literacy courses at high schools and colleges to teach the importance of banking. Every summer, we dedicate a park to clean and offer five to seven $2,500 scholarships to students with accounts who are enrolled in college or plan to attend college. It just takes $1 to have all those benefits.”
Apply for a loan
Open an account
Apply for a credit card
ATM during branch hours
Make deposits and withdrawals ■ Make account transfers ■ Access coin machine ■ Order checks
Make payments
Official Checks
Notary
Leaders Network Co-Chair Rev. Cy Fields, Leaders Network President David Cherry, Leaders Network Secretary Deborah Williams, Great Lakes Credit Union President/CEO Steve Bugg, and Leaders Network Co-Chairs Rev. Marshall Hatch Sr. and Rev. Ira Acree at the branch's grand opening on June 26. | COURTESY GREAT LAKES CREDIT UNION
Officials cut the ribbon for the Leaders Network Financial branch of Great Lakes Credit Union on June 26. | COURTESY GREAT LAKES CREDIT UNION
Business Development Specialist Reggie Little, Branch Manager Beatriz Hernandez and Asst. Branch Manager Cedric Collins Jr. inside the new branch on June 28. | PHOTO BY MICHAEL ROMAIN
Property Taxes Jump in West Garfield Park, but a Reparations Plan Could Abolish Them for Some
Median residential bill in W. Garfield Park up 9% as activists circulate petition to ban taxes for descendants of enslaved
By Michael Romain Editor
Residential and commercial property taxes for most Westsiders increased moderately from 2022 to 2023, but the increases were still higher than the increase citywide — especially for homeowners in West Garfield Park.
On June 27, Cook County Treasurer Maria Pappas released her office’s Tax Year 2023 Bill Analysis, which examined nearly 2 million bills that will be mailed to property owners on July 2 and due on Aug. 2.
The treasurer’s report shows the 2023 median commercial property bill increased by 3.5%, 1.98% and 4.63% for Austin, North Lawndale and West Garfield Park property owners, respectively.
The 2023 median residential property bill increased by 3.29%, 4.4% for Austin and North Lawndale homeowners, respectively. But in West Garfield Park, the bill increased by 9%, going from $1,358 in 2022 to $1,481 in 2023 — a $123 difference.
Pappas’ office said citywide, taxes increased by 2.6%, “largely because of an increase in the Chicago Public Schools tax levy and bill increases in many tax increment finance districts.”
NO PROPERTY TAXES FOR DESCENDANTS OF ENSLAVED PEOPLE
Meanwhile, one organization is pushing to get a referendum on the Nov. 5 ballot that would let voters decide if homeowners descended from enslaved people should pay property taxes at all.
According to its website, the Reconstruction Era Reparation Act Now or ReRAN was created in 2023 by Black Chicagoans who were “fed up” with Blacks losing their homes due to the increase in county and city property taxes.
“Our solution is a demand that Cook County Descendants of Enslaved (DOS) pay NO Property Taxes as a part of Reparations,” the organization explained.
Howard Ray Sr. and his son, Howard Ray Jr., were out in Chicago and the suburbs on Juneteenth trying to get signatures. To put the measure on the ballot, they need 100,000 signatures from registered voters in Chicago and the Cook County suburbs.
“If we get the amount of signatures we need, then somebody is going to be forced to act,” Ray Sr. said. “If we get enough signatures, they can’t say we’re studying. If you want to study, fine. But we’re moving forward with ours.”
In 2022, the Illinois Answers Project, a nonprofit investigative journalism organization, looked into the county’s tax deed eviction process.
“In 2020, the Cook County Sheriff’s Department enforced tax deed evictions at 25 residential properties just before the pandemic-era eviction moratorium took effect,” the nonprofit reported. “Using eviction enforcement data from Housing Action Illinois and county property and tax records, the Illinois Answers Project found that most of those evictions occurred in Black majority neighborhoods.
The nonprofit found that one homeowner in Austin owed $1,642 in tax debt at the time of the tax sale. A new owner, likely a private financial company, resold the home for $63,000. Another homeowner in North Lawndale owed $6,849 in tax debt
at the time of the tax sale. An investor purchased the debt and resold the house for $260,000.
In 2021, Housing Action Illinois, a housing equity advocacy group, studied 1,400 tax sale evictions that the county sheriff enforced over the last decade.
“More than 90% of evictions took place in neighborhoods where Black or Brown people make up the majority of residents,” the Illinois Answers Project reported. “More than 70% of those evicted every year as a result of the tax sale process are Black.”
MAYOR JOHNSON FORMS REPARATIONS TASK FORCE
On June 17, Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson introduced the city’s new chief equity officer and signed an executive order establishing a reparations task force.
Johnson’s pick for top equity official is Carla Kupe, “previously the first-ever director of diversity, equity, inclusion, and compliance for the city’s inspector general,” the Chicago Sun-Times reported. “She’s the co-founder of a law firm owned and operated by Black women. She’s also the founder and CEO of a ‘consulting enterprise focused on diversity, equity inclusion and anti-racism colonialism.’”
Mayor Johnson announced his plan to form a reparations task force last year. The group’s work was to start on Jan. 1, but the mayor’s executive order marks the infusion of a $500,000 appropriation for the task force that was part of his nearly $17 billion 2024 budget, the Sun-Times reported.
Learn more
To learn more about ReRAN, visit their website at reranforblacks.com. To sign the petition, call or text (224) 3701242 to get pick-up and drop-off locations.
These Westside Investors Want to Give Their Finance Knowledge to Youths
Sisters Investing in Legacy will start financial literacy courses for
8- to 14-year-olds in August
By Michael Romain Editor
As a teenager, Westsider Bertha Zagore was constantly on the phone, which gave her mother an idea. For Zagore’s 16th birthday, her mother bought her stocks in AT&T.
“That was my birthday present,” Zagore recalled. “That was the philosophy of a Black woman they didn’t allow to attend nursing school in Memphis. She moved with her cousins to Chicago and became a licensed practical nurse. Throughout her life, she believed in investing.”
Zagore said after her mother died in 1999, she started talking with some of her friends about starting an investment club for Black women. Those conversations resulted in her founding Sisters Investing in Success.
Zagore, a retired Upward Bound director, said the investment club has yielded significant dividends, some of which the women have used for international travel to places like Ghana, where the club plans to help enterprising Ghanaian women invest in U.S. stocks.
“I believe in ancestry and legacy,” Zagore said. “My family has land in Tennessee that we’ve owned since 1872. We are not selling it. We own about 15 acres in Memphis. That’s a legacy that I have been taught.”
Zagore said her family traces its roots to a tribe in Ghana. She values that knowledge of her past, which informs her approach to investing and philanthropy.
The investment club recently launched a nonprofit, Sisters Investing in Legacy, to share their wisdom with the next generation. Starting in August, the club will administer financial literacy courses to 20 people ages 8 to 14.
The program includes a one-time fee of $20 and a monthly $10 investment fee. Whatever amount the students invest, Sisters Investing in Legacy will match.
“If they have $200 to invest, we’ll match $200 and invest it in stocks,” Zagore said. “They’ll do it online with financial activities.”
Zagore said the group will also visit places like the Chicago Mercantile Exchange and Wall Street. She’s already contacted Black and Brown bankers interested in speaking with the students about financial careers. Zagore said she wants to extend the lessons her mother gave her to young people. The students will meet regularly at a Westside church or library. She said she’s already secured space at Legler Library, 115 S. Pulaski Rd. in West Garfield Park.
“I know finances were talked about in my house, but I believe my mother was an exception rather than the rule,” she said.
“Our kids need to understand they’re in a different position than I was. They must compete in a global market, which means understanding business.”
Learn more
Young people interested in enrolling in the courses should email sisyouthlegacy@gmail.com. For more information on Sisters Investing in Success or Sisters Investing in Legacy, visit sisinvestlegacy.org. You can also call (773) 826-6060.
PERSPECTIVES
Homeowners shocked by tax hikes should read bills to find out where their money goes
Record-high increases in property tax bills have shocked and angered many Cook County property owners, especially in the south suburbs.
Second Installment 2023 bills are online at cookcountytreasurer.com and arriving in mailboxes in early July. Bills are due Aug. 1.
My office recently released an analysis of the nearly 1.8 million tax bills. The analysis showed that in the south suburbs, the median tax bill jumped 19.9%. In 15 south suburbs, tax bills soared above 30% to as high as 76%.
A typical example showed property taxes on Park Forest home increasing $3,834 this year to $8,892. The tax bill for the property a year ago was $5,058.
These astonishing increases are too much to bear for homeowners who are already dealing with higher prices at the grocery store, gas pump and everywhere. Many believe they can no longer afford to live where taxes are so high. They wonder what they can do about it.
There is one thing that every property owner can do about high taxes: Read their tax bills.
In Cook County, I have redesigned the tax bills. The bills have a new feature, “Where Your Money Goes,” that more clearly shows which taxing bodies are getting your dollars. Bills show the amount of taxes owed for 2023 and how much the bill changed compared to 2022. A typical bill displays about a dozen different taxing districts and shows how much you pay to each taxing body.
I did this so you can call the people who raised your taxes to tell them how you feel. This makes it easier than ever to compare tax bills from one year to the next. Your tax bill tells you which units of government are getting your money and how much each receives.
That’s why it’s more important than ever to read your tax bill. For years, I have listened to people complain about their tax bills. Everywhere I go throughout Cook County people al-
ways ask me the same question.
“Why did my tax bill go up?”
My office sends out bills and collects taxes. I have nothing to do with determining the amount of money you owe. That’s decided by other government agencies, primarily by the taxing bodies listed under “Where Your Money Goes.”
When you receive your tax bill, think about how every taxing district listed holds regular public meetings. As a taxpayer, you have the right to provide public comment, especially about the taxing district’s budget and how your tax dollars are being spent.
I hope that by reading your tax bill you take a greater interest in local government. If you’re angry about high property taxes, you should vote in local elections. If more people questioned their elected officials about property tax dollars, government agencies might work harder to curb spending.
— Maria Pappas, Cook County Treasurer
Westside Health Authority Recognizes Juneteenth and Pride Month
The Westside Health Authority recognizes the significance of diversity as integral to the political, social, and economic advancement of Black Americans in the United States, Illinois, and Chicago.
In June, WHA celebrated Juneteenth and recognized the contributions of every Black person to the liberties and freedoms that have come by collective protest, politics, and economic development.
WHA’s commitment to our community is predicated on the truth that “none of us can be free until everybody is free.” It is in the spirit of that idea — “…until everyone is free” — that WHA recognized the importance of Pride Month and the contributions of Black LGBTQ+ community to our services, our neighborhoods, our arts, cultures, sciences, and freedoms.
— Justin Hill, Westside Health Authority research and policy analyst
Sisters Investing in Success President Kathy Parsley and Bertha Zagore, the club's founder, want to prepare the next generation of investors through their new nonprofit, Sisters Investing in Legacy. | PHOTO BY SHANEL ROMAIN
