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AUSTIN WEEKLY news ■
50 years later, a chronology of the 1968 riots on the West Side,
Vol. 32 No. 14
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April 4, 2018
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austinweeklynews.com
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Also serving Garfield Park
@AustinWeeklyChi
@AustinWeeklyNews
PAGE 9
A death d th that th t rocked kd the West Side, page 3
Activists, alderman clash over academy A proposed police/fire training academy for W. Garfield Park rankles residents By BONNI McKEOWN Contributing Reporter
Earlier this month, the group #NoCopAcademy spotlighted the growing opposition to a proposed $95 million police/fire training academy at 4301 W. Chicago Ave. in West Garfield Park with a contentious visit to Ald. Emma Mitts’ office and a die-in demonstration at City Hall. The group wants the city to redirect that $95 million to other uses, such as neighborhood-level job creation, school funding and increased provision of medical care, including mental health resources and substance abuse treatments. A contract to build the academy was not on the Chicago City Council’s agenda March 28, but Black Lives Matter organizer Maria Hernandez, who lives eight blocks away from the site of the proposed academy, says the group wants to raise public awareness before a vote comes up. That same day, Erin Glasco and Debbie Southorn, both with the #NoCopAcademy campaign, filed an open records lawsuit against Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s office for allegedly “refusing to disclose crucial emails and records regarding the early See TRAINING ACADEMY on page 4
ALEXA ROGALS/Staff Photographer
LESSON IN RESILIENCE: Edwin Muldrow stands outside of Del-Kar Pharmacy, 3726 W. 16th St. Del-Kar was one of the few stores that survived the riots following King’s assassination on April 4, 1968.
After the ’68 riots, still here
Del-Kar Pharmacy in North Lawndale, once patronized by King, survived the riots that followed his murder By MICHAEL ROMAIN Editor
Edwin Muldrow, the owner of Del-Kar Pharmacy, 3726 W. 16th St., can tell you what the neighborhood was like more than 50 years ago, when black-owned retailers, restaurants, barbershops, beauty salons, night clubs and laundromats contributed to a living, relatively self-sustaining local ecosystem. Del-Kar was started by Muldrow’s father, Edward, in 1960, making the North Lawn-
dale drugstore possibly the oldest blackowned pharmacy in the city. The store was here before Martin Luther King Jr. had reached the apotheosis of his ministry with the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Del-Kar was here when a radicalized King re-focused his concentration on northern injustices, moving into a run-down apartment at 1550 S. Hamlin Ave., a block away from the pharmacy, during his 1966 Chicago Campaign against housing segregation.
“King would come into the store every day when he was living on Hamlin,” Edwin recalled. “He would pick up a newspaper and go to Mr. Woods Pool Hall and shoot pool. He’d eat barbecue [at a store nearby]. He was very active in the neighborhood when was here.” Del-Kar was here for King’s murder on April 4, 1968, and the few hellish days and nights of rioting that followed.
Austin Chamber of Commerce on the move... 773.854.5848 • www.austinchicagochamber.com
See DEL-KAR on page 8