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AUSTIN WEEKLY news ■
Vol. 32 No. 12
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March 21, 2018
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A saucy dispute ends in assault,
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West Side nonprofit buys Emmet The West Side Health Authority still fleshing out plans for the school By IGOR STUDENKOV Contributing Reporter
The former Emmet Elementary school building is now in the hands of a venerable West Side nonprofit, which so far hasn’t shared much about what it plans to do with the building. During his March 7 community meeting, Ald. Chris Taliaferro (29th) said that Westside Health Authority, the well-known social service organization, bought the building. The purchase comes 15 months after Chicago Public Schools moved to sell all of the shuttered buildings as quickly as possible and a little over a month after another shuttered Austin school, Francis Scott Key Elementary, was sold to a private school currently in Oak Park. Morris Reed, WHA’s CEO, said that the organization plans to use some of the building for operations and lease out the rest, but didn’t elaborate any further, stating only that WHA will get input from the community. He said the organization will also create a community benefits agreement for the project to ensure that the interests of Austin residents are satisfied. Robert Emmet Elementary School, which was located at 5500 W Madison Street, was one of the four Austin schools closed in the See EMMET SCHOOL on page 4
ALEXA ROGALS/Staff Photographer
PROTESTING POVERTY: Students wear duct tape with the names of loved ones killed by gun violence on Wednesday, March 14, 2018, during a walkout for students who have lost loved ones to gun violence outside of North Lawndale College Prep in Chicago.
On West Side, students protest against apathy The North Lawndale College Prep youths say they suffer in silence
By MICHAEL ROMAIN Editor
Although many of the walkouts among students across the country on March 14 centered on gun violence in schools, the demonstration staged by around 100 students at North Lawndale College Prep focused on whole communities wracked
by violence and poverty, but insufficiently equipped to deal with those problems. While leaders of the North Lawndale protest condemned the Feb. 14 mass shooting at Florida’s Marjory Stonemon Douglas High School, which prompted the nationwide walkouts, they also condemned what they said is the nationwide apa-
thy that accompanies gun-related murders in black and brown communities. Some students marched from a campus on 16th and Christiana to Douglas Park, where a short press conference was held, with red tape over their mouths that showed the names of murdered loved ones scrawled in black marker. At the park, the kids
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also planted 10 purple crosses in the grass, the photos of victims taped to the transverse sections. “We are gathered here today to insure direct investment in communities of color, investment in employment opportunities, wraparound services and trauma-informed schooling and See WALKOUTS on page 8