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An electric bike company thrives in Austin
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FREE Vol. 36 No. 3
January 19, 2022
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Also serving Garfield Park
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Welch reflects on first year as speaker, page 4
‘The past is not passed,’ clergy say on MLK’s birthday Rev. Jesse Jackson, West Side ministers reflected on King’s legacy, lamented current struggles at Jan. 15 event in North Lawndale By MICHAEL ROMAIN Editor
On Jan. 15, Rev. Jesse Jackson stood inside of the Dr. King Legacy Apartments at 1550 S. Hamlin Ave. in North Lawndale and reflected on the legacy of his mentor, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., who would have been 93 on that day. The civil rights icon, slowed considerably by Parkinson’s and a recent bout with COVID-19, also lamented that the very forces that he and King fought against years ago seem as powerful as ever. Homelessness is still pervasive. Voting rights are still threatened. Chicago’s West and South sides are still segregated, a key factor driving the pervasive gun violence in those areas. The “violence of our culture,” Jackson said, is still with us. Jackson said he was working on the West Side with the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) around the time King and other activists organized the Chicago Freedom Movement. The movement began in late 1965, King’s See MLK on page 2
ALEX ROGALS/Staff Photographer
Co-executive director Lynette Kelly-Bell (above) was one of parents who founded A House in Austin in 2016 to provide enriching programs and support for parents and children on Chicago’s West Side.
Not just any old house
The nonprofit A House in Austin offers families a place for support By LACEY SIKORA Contributing Reporter
When Erica Hilgart moved to Oak Park as a mother of three young children, the former public school teacher enrolled in a Musikgarten class with her children. “It helped me not feel so lonely in Oak Park,” Hilgart said. “I wondered if there
was a place like this in Austin.” Around the same time, young mothers and friends Lynette Kelly-Bell and Becky Martin, who lived on the West Side of Chicago, were looking for activities they could do with their young children. “We couldn’t find anything on the West Side,” Kelly-Bell said. “Every parent and child class was in the South Loop or Edge-
S W E N LASH! F
water.” Seeing the void of opportunities, Hilgart reached out to the By the Hand Club, which offered up a room for her to host a music class. “I created what I needed as a mom,” Hilgart said. See HOUSE IN AUSTIN on page 5
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