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Vol. 34 No. 21
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West Side young people grow their own hot sauce,
May 20, 2020
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austinweeklynews.com
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Also serving Garfield Park
@AustinWeeklyChi
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A An area glass l studio goes virtual, PAGE 3
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COVID-19 and the ‘race tax’
The plunder of black wealth has a lot to do with why blacks are dying disproportionately By MICHAEL ROMAIN Editor
The first time in her life that Liz Abunaw visited a predominantly black neighborhood in Chicago was in September 2016 — a few months before the election of Donald Trump. She had taken the 66 bus into Austin for an errand, but the address seemed so far west that Abunaw, a native of upstate New York, thought she This is the debut of a was going to O’Hare. weekly column contain“I get off the bus at ing my musings on race, the corner of Chicago and Laramie and equity and COVID-19 I’m like, ‘What is this?’ This does not look like the neighborhood near O’Hare,” Abunaw said an interview I conducted with her in February for an oral testimony project the newspaper is developing in coordination with AustinTalks and Austin Coming Together. It was a few months before COVID-19 became the leading cause of death in the United States, hitting African Americans particularly hard. “I get off the bus and I realize I need cash,” Abunaw said. “I’m a cheap person. I really hate corner store ATMs and check cashing places, because they take all your money.” But there was no Chase bank branch anywhere within walking distance. Nor was there a grocery store, where she might have been able to get cash back while purchasing an item. She had no choice but to spend the $4 fee at a nearby ATM. “I think it was at that moment I realized that living in that neighborhood, it costs you not See BLACK WEALTH on page 8
SHANEL ROMAIN
OPTIMISTIC: Angel Humphrey inside of her North Avenue day spa in February. Humphrey says she’s hoping business kicks back up in a few months.
Black-owned businesses struggle with virus, banks
Angel Humphrey is hopeful her North Avenue spa can recover By MICHAEL ROMAIN Editor
When Glamour Entertainment Spa and Celebrations, 6717 W. North Ave., opened on Feb. 19, Angel Humphrey
was anticipating a few months of steady business. Her day spa venue — which hosts princess parties for little girls as young as 2, as well as Quinceañeras and Sweet 16’s, along with full spa services like massages for older adults — had secured 14 prom sendoffs. But the COVID-19 pandemic gripped the country in March and business rapidly evaporated. Her spa, deemed nonessential in Gov. J.B. Pritzker’s stay-at-
home order, was forced to temporarily shut its doors. “I had bookings coming in for April and May,” said Humphrey. “May was huge for prom. Then four cancellations turned into seven and seven turned into all of them. This really hit us in the gut.” A story on Humphrey’s new business, scheduled to run in Austin Weekly News the week Oak Park’s stay-at-home order went into effect, was buried in the
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See ANGEL HUMPHREY on page 7
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