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Vol. 34 No. 31
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Residents call for economic justice on Mandela Day,
July 29, 2020
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austinweeklynews.com
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Also serving Garfield Park
@AustinWeeklyChi
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John Lewis Lewis, Democracy’s sacrifice, PAGE 3
‘We have heard you’
Park District Board unanimously votes to rename Douglas Park after years of lobbying by students By PASCAL SABINO Block Club Chicago
Citing Stephen Douglas’ racist past, the Park District has moved to rename Douglas Park for Black abolitionist Frederick Douglass. In a special meeting on July 22, the Chicago Park District Board voted unanimously to move forward with the process to rename the West Side park for Frederick Douglass, opening up a 45-day comment period for Chicagoans to weigh in. The long-awaited renaming could signal a tide of change as officials assess other statues, parks and street names honoring racists and controversial figures in the city. In 2017, West Side youth began asking the city to rename their neighborhood park to honor abolitionist Frederick Douglass instead of slavery advocate Stephen Douglas. A park in a neighborhood that’s about 90 percent Black shouldn’t memorialize a white supremacist, they reasoned. For three years, the city largely ignored their efforts. But just days after protesters tried to pull down the Christopher Columbus statue in Grant Park, the Park District called an emergency meeting to consider renaming Douglas Park. Park District Board President Avis LaVelle said the park’s name will be renamed for Frederick Douglass after the 45-day window thanks to the work of the youth and the support from residents. “This community has made their voice loud and clear,” LaVelle said. “And they have put in the work to have that done.” Mayor Lori Lightfoot said the park’s renaming is part of a “larger initiative” her office will be announcing soon “to address our racial history See DOUGLASS PARK on page 8
ALEX ROGALS/Staff Photographer
TAKING TO THE STREETS: On July 25 in Austin, activists, elected officials and the relatives of gun violence victims gathered during what they billed as a Love March. Read more on page 6.
George Floyd’s brother in Austin to launch $5M initiative Austin Peoples Action Center held anti-violence rally July 24, where Preckwinkle announced county’s $5M violence prevention effort By MICHAEL ROMAIN Editor
Cynthia Williams, the founder and CEO of the Austin Peoples Action Center, 5125 W. Chicago Ave., is sick and tired of hosting
repasts for babies at her well-known community center. In the past month, she said during a Let Our Kids Live rally held at her facility on Friday, APAC has hosted repasts for five families who have had to bury loved ones, many of them children like 3-year-old Mekhi James. “I wish this event didn’t have to take place,” said Williams while standing on a makeshift stage setup in the parking lot of her facility. She was surrounded by powerful Black elected officials, including Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle, who joined her in the sweltering humidity to plea with their communities to stop the shooting. At the rally, Preckwinkle also See CYNTHIA WILLIAMS on page 9
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Austin Weekly News, July 29, 2020
Activists return to ‘Freedom Square,’ want police defunded
For 41 days in 2016, activists transformed a vacant West Side lot into one abundant with resource By PASCAL SABINO Block Club Chicago
For 41 days in 2016, artists and activists camped out on the West Side near Homan Square, one of the city most notorious — and secretive — police sites. The #LetUsBreathe Collective transformed the vacant lot into their vision for a world where police were obsolete. At Freedom Square, safety was created by food, mental health resources, housing, education, physical wellness and restorative justice practices, all offered for free to the community that formed there. On July 24, the collective returned to the lot with other Black-led groups to honor the abolitionist vision of Freedom Square and to call for city officials to defund the Chicago Police Department. The demonstration at Freedom Square
again offered free food, clothing, feminine hygiene products, drug addiction resources, family planning, art and mental health resources. When communities have their basic needs met, the social conditions that give birth to violence disappear, organizers said. Across the street from the vacant lot where the group convened is Homan Square, a secret police “black site.” A 2015 report by The Guardian found that at least 7,000 people were disappeared to the off-the-books interrogation compound, and many were physically and mentally tortured into giving false confessions. The Guardian investigation also found that those detained at Homan Square were hidden from CPD booking databases, shackled for extended periods of time and weren’t able to contact their families or attorneys. #LetUsBreathe co-founder Damon Williams said nearly everyone in Lawndale knows a neighbor, friend, or family member who has been hidden away at Homan Square. “Any system that has a building like this is inherently violent,” Williams said. Mark Clements said he was just 16 when he was taken to Homan Square. Clements said police tortured him by squeezing and strik-
ing his genitals until he confessed to a quadruple murder he didn’t commit. He was sentenced to life in prison and served 28 years until his conviction was overturned. But even after winning his freedom, he still suffers from PTSD. Clements said the legacy of police violence still lives on in the Homan black site and in the fabric of the Chicago Police. “What have we seen different from 1981 to 2020? We haven’t seen much difference,” Clements said. “… I’m a torture survivor, but leaving out of prison, I had to beg for a goddamn job.” Williams said when you create a society “where every person has a place to live” and has the resources they need, violence stops. Organizer Trina Reynolds-Tyler said police don’t prevent violent crime from happening, pointing to Chicago’s low murder clearance rate. According to a 2019 WBEZ analysis, less than 22 percent of murders of Black victims are solved, compared to 47 percent for white victims. Reynolds said demonstrations like Freedom Square are needed to envision new strategies for safety that don’t rely on violence, incarceration and punitive justice. “People have to push to create a space where we imagine a world without police,” Reynolds said. “So we don’t have police — what mechanism, what kinds of structures exist so that we can keep people safe without thinking that we need to put them in a cage.” Pascal Sabino is a Report for America corps member covering Austin, North Lawndale and Garfield Park for Block Club Chicago. CONTACT: pascal@blockclubchi.org
RETURNING TO FREEDOM: Demonstrators gathered at Freedom Square, across from the Homan Square police site in the background. Middle to bottom left: Damon Williams of the #LetUsBreathe Collective speaks at Freedom Square. Trina Reynolds-Tyler speaks at Freedom Square. Mark Clements speaks about surviving torture at the Homan Square black site. PASCAL SABINO/Block Club Chicago
Austin Weekly News, July 29, 2020
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wo days after John Lewis died on July 17 at age 80, I called Congressman Danny K. Davis, who knew Lewis personally for two decades and recently sat with him on the powerful House Ways and Means Committee. “I think John had the seniority to be chairman of Ways and Means, but he didn’t want to be chairman,” Davis said. “He was the secondranking guy on the committee and he was chairman of the subcommittee, but he was the same way in committee business and hearings and discussions — just John Lewis. You couldn’t help but love him and he will go down in history as one of the most revered members of the Congress who ever lived.” Davis said that Lewis was “unpretentious, easy to get along with, easy to deal with,” and never “got too carried away with himself and who he was. He was a very common, decent guy. Just the essence of decency. The essence of honesty. The essence of integrity. The essence of virtue.” About a week before his death, I watched Good Trouble, a new documentary about Lewis’ more than 60 years of social activism. In the film, the Harvard scholar Henry Louis Gates described an episode of “Finding Your Roots,” where he showed Lewis the 1867 voter card of his great-greatgrandfather — the last member of Lewis’ family to vote before the passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965. “The vote is the most powerful instrument, the most powerful non-violent tool in a democratic society,” Lewis told Gates on “Finding Your Roots”. “And knowing that a member of my family registered and voted in Alabama, 100 years before I did, before my mother, my father, my grandparents — it’s amazing. So maybe, just maybe, it is part of my DNA, my bloodline, whatever you want to call it.” If Lewis’ great-great-grandfather knew
that his descendant would put his teenage body on the line — would offer his face and skull to lynch mobs and Alabama State Troopers as a living sacrifice on the burnt altar of American democracy — what would he think? On Monday, I took the first book in Taylor Branch’s seminal trilogy Parting the Waters off the shelf and opened it for the first time in a long time, in order to imagine the human dimensions of that historic, century-long democratic void. Perhaps Lewis’ ancestor would feel the kind of dread felt by James Farmer Sr., whose son, James Farmer Jr., was among what Branch described as a “motley collection” of people, ages 21 to 60, who decided in the summer of 1961 to embark on a Greyhound bus trip through the segregated South. The riders wanted to push federal and state governments to enforce a series of Supreme Court decisions that rendered segregated public buses unconstitutional. Lewis had prepared for that summer a year earlier, while attending college in Nashville. He was among a group of students who attempted to desegregate the city’s businesses by sitting-in at lunch counters. “White men kicked them,” a reporter for the Tennessean wrote in an article published in February to mark the 60th anniversary of the sit-ins. “They spat and blew cigar smoke in their faces. They extinguished lit cigarettes on their backs.” And after all that, John Lewis went to jail. “When a policeman said, ‘You’re under arrest’ to John Lewis, a lifetime of absorbed tattoos against any kind of trouble with the law quickened into terror” and dread, which gave way “to an exhilaration unlike any he had ever known,” Branch writes. By the time he got off of the bus in Rock Hill, South Carolina on May 9, 1961, Lewis had shaken his fears and was well-versed and trained in non-violent resistance.
MICHAEL ROMAIN
In fact, Lewis was so confident in his convictions that he volunteered to be the first person among the motley collection to test the white mob that greeted them at the entrance of the whitesonly waiting room inside of the Rock Hill Greyhound terminal. “I have a right to go in here on grounds of the Supreme Court decision in the Boynton case,” Lewis started before a pause, “followed by a reply of ‘Shit on that’ and a shoving of Lewis back and forth in the doorway,” Branch writes. “One of the attackers threw a punch that caught Lewis in the mouth, making the first loud pop of fist against flesh on the Freedom Ride.” On May 13, the Freedom Riders dined with Martin Luther King Jr. in Atlanta to celebrate “a successful journey through nearly seven hundred miles of upper Dixie.” But amid the revelry, King sensed trouble ahead for the riders at their next destination — Alabama, the state where Lewis was born and from which King had just returned. “You will never make it through Alabama,” King “whispered emotionally” to Simeon Booker, a Black reporter for Jet magazine, one of “only three reporters,” all of them Black, who took an interest in the Freedom Ride. Booker, who had embedded himself with the riders on their long journey through the South, responded to King in jest. “He’s the only one I can outrun,” Booker quipped about the “hulking” Farmer. Booker joked with King that the group of riders “planned to leave Farmer behind to occupy any white hoodlums who might chase them.” Later that night, Farmer was woken from his sleep with a phone call from his mother. His father — the first Black man to earn a Ph.D. in Texas and a notable theologian — had died.
Joan Baez
John Lewis sacrificed for democracy
Farmer Sr. “had asked to see ‘Junior’s itinerary’ that night in his Washington hospital bed and, noting that Junior would cross into Alabama the next day, had promptly fallen into a coma and died. Mrs. Farmer would always insist that the old man had willed his own death in order to save his son’s life by forcing him to come home for the funeral.” There was no such escape latch for John Lewis, whose life of bodily sacrifice culminated in Alabama, on Selma’s Edmund Pettus Bridge — a structure named after a former Confederate general and Ku Klux Klan leader. On March 7, 1965, during a march for voting rights, Lewis’ skull was fractured by the club of an Alabama State Trooper. Since Lewis’ death 55 years later, Democrats in the House have rekindled the fight to restore the Voting Rights Act, which was effectively neutered with Shelby County vs. Holder, the 2013 Supreme Court decision that stripped the federal government of the power to prevent voter suppression, immediately plunging the country back into the void of the 1960s — when John Lewis risked death to force the government to give him his right to vote, and to stop segregation on public buses and in restaurants. You’d be hard pressed to find more than a handful of Republicans in the House and Senate willing to restore the act; they will, however, tweet tributes. This is what democracy looks like. CONTACT: michael@austinweeklynews.com
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Austin Weekly News, July 29, 2020
At Mandela Day, West Siders call for economic justice
July 17 event at West Side Health Authority stressed economic empowerment By ZACH CUNNING AustinTalks
Dozens gathered at the Westside Health Authority on July 17 for a march to celebrate Nelson Mandela day and call for the development of Chicago Avenue as the Soul City Corridor. They marched down Chicago Avenue, from Leclaire to Cicero avenues, and held a rally outside the Austin Health Center before returning to the Westside Health Authority. The section of Cicero between Roosevelt Road and Grand Avenue was renamed Mandela Road in 2014. At the rally, Rep. La Shawn K. Ford said along Chicago Avenue there should be “no vacant buildings, no vacant lots. We’re going to build on our vacant lots. We’re going to open up our vacant buildings. And we’re going to have jobs for these children and their mothers, their fathers, their brothers.” Officers from the Cook County Sheriff’s Department and Chicago Police Department’s 15th District, including new 15th
AustinTalks
ECONOMIC JUSTICE: Community members used Mandela Day on July 17 to rally around a call for the redevelopment of Chicago Avenue as the Soul City Corridor. District Commander Patrina Wines, blocked traffic and marched alongside residents. The police department announced last week that district’s previous commander,
Yolanda Talley, was being promoted to deputy chief of Area 1, with Commander Wines replacing her in the 15th District. Wines is a 27-year veteran of the depart-
ment, having served mostly on the South Side. July 17 was her second day working in Austin. She previously served as a captain in the 3rd (Grand Crossing) District; as a watch operations lieutenant and community policing sergeant in the 5th (Calumet) District; and as a training coordination sergeant in the Narcotics Division. The Rev. Ira Acree of Greater St. John Bible Church said he had to be at Friday’s event to champion the cause of economic empowerment for African Americans in Austin and on the West Side. He said there has been massive divestment from the West Side; businesses began leaving in the 70s and 80s, and mental health offices and schools that served the West Side have closed. Acree said apartheid was the tie in with Nelson Mandela, South Africa’s first Black and first democratically elected president who played a crucial role in ending apartheid. He died in 2013. “We feel that we have been victimized by a system that has done apartheid here in Chicago, specifically on the West Side,” Acree said. Mandela Day commemorates the Nobel Peace Prize winner’s birthday: July 18, 1918. He would have been 102 on Saturday. CONTACT: austintalks.org@gmail.com
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Austin Weekly News, July 29, 2020
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NEED TO REACH US?
Call Editor Michael Romain at 773-626-6332 michael@austinweeklynews.com
By ARLENE JONES
COVID-19 caused me to slow down
Contributor
I stopped working March 17. It was something about that day that made COVID-19 extra real. A couple of months prior, I had applied for my social security, but even though I knew that money had started, I continued to work. Retirement was a concept that I didn’t embrace. But the fear of COVID-19 was real. So I decided to stop working. I could just live off that Social Security check. And for two months I did. I didn’t learn a lot of new things about myself during that time. I’m still the kind of person who doesn’t watch a lot of TV. I know I also got a lot of rest. I hadn’t napped so much in my lifetime. But it was the reality of how tired I was from pushing myself to keep going every day. Getting that much needed rest is showing in my face. The dark circles around my eyes have begun to fade.
One of my best friends who is still working was eligible to work from home. She’s been saving about $200 a week by not having to take Metra and CTA. Plus, those Starbucks in the morning and take out breakfasts, along with buying lunch has ceased. I never indulged in such luxuries, so I didn’t see any immediate financial savings except in terms of gasoline. I filled up my car tank and a month later it was still filled. I didn’t do as much work around the house as I thought I could have. I know there are a lot of people just like me. Getting used to not working and being able to plan for weeks in advance what you want to do without the worry of work being an interference. I did get my garden planted. It went in about two weeks late, because I had to build a raised area in which I planted everything. But in a lot of ways that has been good. The tomatoes are going and starting to blossom. I put in a ton of cucumbers and they’re
coming through. I even have a watermelon plant growing, although the hundred twenty days until it would be ready puts me into the end of September to the beginning of October. I am grateful that COVID-19 hasn’t hit my friends. The few people I know that have died of it has been just that. A few. I don’t mind putting on a mask in public and I’m grateful when others wear a mask to keep their germs to themselves. I even took a break from the news. There is just so much stuff happening in the world that a breather away from hearing about it was an absolute necessity. I took the time to review my homeowner and car insurance and switch companies. Complacency had kept me with the same people for over 25 years. But the premiums
were continuing to grow up, and another major homeowner insurance company offered a better rate. So I went with it. I am now back to work, but not at the level of where I was prior to taking the break. The world has slowed down for me with things that are not important being just that. I’m starting to notice things that I didn’t pay attention to in the past. Like which colors of my flowers bloom the first. And noticing the different patterns of the cloud in the sky. Or not paying attention to the weather because it’s no longer a big deal. Everyone should take this COVID-19 pandemic opportunity to slow down and appreciate the world in which we live. CONTACT: michael@austinweeklynews.com
ARLENE JONES
We need a viable witness protection program
Let me say for starters, that a mass shooting at a funeral home is beyond ridiculous and disgraceful. At least 15 innocent people were shot on July 21 while mourning the loss of a loved one, and this is unacceptable. It seems like no place is safe on the West and South sides of Chicago. I eulogized Amaria Jones a few weeks ago, a 13-year-old girl who was gunned down while dancing for her mom in their living room. Nothing is sacred any more, and no one is off limits for this generation of shooters. They have become so emboldened because they have concluded there will be no consequences for their action. That’s why I’m calling on Cook County State’s Attorney Kim Foxx to begin the task of establishing a viable witness protection program immediately. The county has a victim witness assistance program, but it is simply not effective. The one thing that would radically reduce the violence right now is improving the city’s abysmal homicide clearance rate. When murderers know they can commit a crime and the percentage of them getting caught are slim to none, it emboldens them. A witness protection program is worth the expense – if it helps rescue us from this current state of lawlessness in Chicago.
If there is no consequence for one who murders, the pattern will continue and the violence will continue to escalate as it has. In our current context, people are afraid to report the perpetrators of crimes because of the fear of retaliation. I’m in the neighborhood, and many decent people often say they want to report the shooters but they don’t believe the city, county or federal government will protect them. Our real challenge in solving crimes is not breaking the code of silence, but it’s actually breaking the culture of fear. Once again the way this could be immediately addressed is by putting the needed resources into a witness protection program that people can trust and believe in. People need to know beyond a shadow of a doubt that when they turn in a cold blooded murderer they will not be left alone but will have protection and resources to safeguard them, and access to financial resources if relocation is necessary. State’s Attorney Foxx can make a difference by championing this initiative. The biggest deterrent for any one committing a crime is the fear of being apprehended and punished. This fear is nonexistent in Chicago. I along with other ministers in my network who have eulogized many of these victims and counseled families are
also urging Cook County President Toni Preckwinkle and the Cook County Board of Commissioners to provide the needed resources to make this happen. We will pay either on the front end or the back end. On the backend, you pay with
lives lost and lawsuits; the front end is better, and it’s imperative that we make the investment now. Rev. Ira Acree is pastor of Greater St. John Bible Church in Austin. CONTACT: michael@austinweeklynews.com
REV. IRA ACREE
Ashlee Rezin Garcia/Sun-Times
BEARING WITNESS: Pallbearers carry the casket to the hearse for 13-year-old Amaria Jones after her funeral at Greater St. John Bible Church, 1256 N. Waller Ave.
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Austin Weekly News, July 29, 2020
During ‘Love March’ activists call for police defunding
But some relatives of gun violence victims pushed back against defunding demand during July 25 demonstration from Austin to West Garfield Park By IGOR STUDENKOV Contributing Reporter
On July 25 in Austin, activists, elected officials and the relatives of gun violence victims gathered during what they billed as a Love March. But the event also provided a space for people to vocalize competing visions of what they believe are the best responses to the violence in their communities. The demonstration was organized by Oak Park activist and former congressional candidate Anthony Clark, along with young activists with Revolutionary Oak Park Youth League (ROYAL), Root2Fruit Youth Foundation and GoodKids MadCity. Some people called for the city to shift 2 percent of the police budget toward addressing the root causes of the violence. Others, particularly mothers of gun violence victims, insisted that, while the police were hardly blameless, there was a place for them and argued that the marchers weren’t doing enough to speak out against gun violence. The march began outside of the shuttered Corcoran Grocery, 5601 W. Corcoran Place, with demonstrators following the Green Line all the way to the western edge of Garfield Park. Nita Tannyson, of GoodKids MadCity, said that she was tired of burying friends and family members. “We need to let everybody know that love everybody, because everybody in Chicago are family, and we got to love each other,” she said. Kenyata Williams, the mother of 15-yearold Michael Ike, who was killed on July 20 in Austin, became emotional as she called for peace. “There’s no reason why I should be burying my 15-year-old son, because your son killed him,” she told those in the crowd. Bennie Lee, a Northeaster University of Illinois professor and cofounder of the National Alliance for the Empowerment of the Formerly Incarcerated, said that his family was one of the first Black families to move to Austin. Miracle Boyd, an activist with GoodKids MadCity who was punched in the face by a police officer during a July 17 protest in front of the Christopher Columbus statue in downtown Chicago that has since been removed, decried the police department’s approach to handling demonstrations. “We come to protests and we show up with banners and songs and dance and prayers,
and police show up with batons and tear gas and mace,” she said. “That ain’t right.” As they marched toward Garfield Park, the youth activists walked in front of the crowd, frequently chanting, “Defund the police!” and “F— 12.” Jay Cobe was one of the several activists who called for more funding in the neighborhoods instead of in the police department’s budget, saying that at least 75 percent of the city budget needs to be invested in the community. “I want to see performing art centers, I want to see sports centers that are up to date,” he said.
ALEX ROGALS/Staff Photographer
CALLS FOR CHANGE: Participants in the July 25 demonstration included Oak Park activist Anthony Clark, middle right, and state Rep. La Shawn K. Ford (pictured center in the middle left photo). Many of the marchers demanded that the city defund the police and redistribute the money toward communities. “It’s just a good day to be Black,” said Ray Longstreet, one of ROYAL’s youth leaders. “I like the diversity here; that we can come together and make it beautiful, even with the fucking police following us.” Keanna Lee Tywone, whose son was killed four years ago, said that although she appreciated the diverse crowd that came out to march, she took issue with some of the chants, which she feared would paint all officers with the same broad brush. “I’m not saying they’re all bad, because it’s like saying that all black people are criminals,” she said, adding that she would like to see more rallies after shootings between community members.
“How we’re standing right now, that’s how it should have been when 15 people got shot,” she said, referencing the mass shooting outside of a South Side funeral home on July 21. At the end of the march, Tywone’s sister, Tywane Watts, of Austin, who said she also lost her son to gun violence, insisted that any solution requires the community to take
responsibility. “We got to stop putting all the blame on 12,” she said. “Killings are happening in our basements, in our living rooms. Now, y’all quiet. Now, everybody looking at me like I’m crazy. If we want those cycles to break, we gotta tell our kids, ‘You shot that innocent kid, turn yourself in.’” CONTACT: igorst3@hotmail.com
Austin Weekly News, July 29, 2020
AustinTalks
SAY HIS NAME: Demonstrators marched on the West Side on July 18, in order to honor Elijah McClain and protest against police brutality.
Room 206 1965
Youth group leads march against police brutality July 18 demonstration also held to remember Elijah McClain By ZACH CUNNING AustinTalks
A few hundred people gathered at Columbus Park on July 18 for a march in remembrance of Elijah McClain – a 23-yearold African-American Colorado massage therapist who was killed after an encounter with police while walking home – and to protest police brutality. The march was organized and led by Oak Park activist Danielle Kovack, along with members of the Revolutionary Oak Park Youth League, or ROYAL, a group of middle and high school students from Oak Park that formed in early 2019. Taylor Montes-Williams, a member of ROYAL, said their goal is to fight for equity in their community. Montes-Williams said Saturday’s march was focused on the Colorado man because they “wanted to shine light on the fact that even somebody as sweet as Elijah McClain still has to face the wrath of police.” McClain died in August 2019 after police placed him in a carotid control hold, which restricts blood flow to the brain, and paramedics gave him too much medicine when treating him. He suffered a heart attack on the way to the hospital and placed on life support. About a week later, McClain was removed from life support after being declared brain dead. Montes-Williams said police see any African American as a threat, “it doesn’t matter how like nice or sweet or kind hearted you are.” That’s what ROYAL is fighting to change, she said. On last Saturday, the marchers left Columbus Park and started east down Jackson Boulevard. As the demonstrators walked, bracketed by cars carrying water and snacks at the front and back and cyclists on their flanks,
Austin residents shouted support from their front lawns and windows. A marching band near the back of the group played songs such as “When the Saints Go Marching In,” while people with megaphones at the front led chants such as: “From the West Side, to the South, CPD we want you out.” “No KKK, no CPD, no racist USA.” “Backup, backup, we want freedom, freedom. All these racist ass cops we don’t need’m, need’m.” By the time the march reached Garfield Park, police had begun lining the street and blocking off intersections to traffic to allow the demonstrators to safely pass. After a brief rally at Garfield Park, which included speeches by members of ROYAL and music from the marching band, roughly two-thirds of the demonstrators started west down Madison Street, while the others left. As they started down Madison, Chicago Police Department Deputy Chief Ernest Cato, a former commander of the 15th District, began walking at the head of the march, despite jeers and insults from some of the demonstrators. The protest was scheduled to continue directly to the Black Lives Matter mural on Scoville Avenue in Oak Park, but made a detour to the CPD’s 15th District headquarters. Members of ROYAL distributed sidewalk chalk to demonstrators, who then wrote the names of people killed by police on the sidewalk and cement pillars in front of 15th District building. They held another rally there. Chloe Leach, one of the leaders of ROYAL, spoke about how Black women are targeted in the same way as Black men but cases of police violence against Black women have failed to garner the same public attention. “Black women are often on the back burner when it comes to the Black Lives Matter movement,” she said. From the police department, the marchers continued to their final destination, the mural near Oak Park River Forest High School – where the final rally was held. CONTACT: austintalks.org@gmail.com
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Austin Weekly News, July 29, 2020
City revises fire hydrant policy that drained urban gardens Advocates for Urban Agriculture also launched a grant to help gardens pay for tapping into hydrants under the new policy
gardeners, though. Some new rules include a new temporary hydrant use legal agreement signed by the owner of the garden’s land. The city also now requires gardens have insurance for their operations. “It kind of implies that you have to take time with a lawyer or some kind of legal representative to help craft the document, which is an administrative barrier,” Ruane said. A spokesperson for the water department said the administrative revisions were made to protect the city’s water quality, but they were working with growers to make improvements. “The city has been meeting with urban gardening representatives to address their concerns,” the spokesperson said in a statement.
By PASCAL SABINO Block Club Chicago
Community gardens and urban farms might have an easier time getting the water they need after the city changed its fire hydrant policy. The mid-summer changes reduce some of the barriers that have prevented many urban growers from using city water for much of the season. The previous rules, introduced in the winter, made it so community gardens were required to pay hundreds of dollars for the equipment and installation necessary to apply for a permit to tap into the hydrants. They came with headaches for gardeners: Even after a community garden in Humboldt Park did all that, they heard nothing from the city for weeks and relied on a neighbor’s water to care for their plots. The city rolled back some of the cumbersome and expensive new rules, and nonprofit Advocates for Urban Agriculture has stepped up to offer grants to cover the steep costs of tapping hydrants. “I think this is a really positive step in the right direction of creating a policy that makes it more affordable to access water,” said Sean Ruane, executive director of Advocates for Urban Agriculture, which worked with the city to push for some of the improvements.
New Hydrant Rules Community gardens no longer have to create a nonprofit. The water department relaxed rules that had allowed the community garden hydrant permit to be available only to gardens that were also nonprofits. That rule was a daunting administrative burden for smaller volunteer-run gardens since they would have to go through a legal process to form a nonprofit. The formation of a nonprofit is no longer required.
DOUGLASS PARK Renamed from page 1 and past, to take account and inventory of what exists in the city and sister agencies to memorialize our past but also account for what’s missing.” “I’ll reveal more in the coming days, but I
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CHANGES AHEAD: The city has yet to issue the permits needed to draw water from the fire hydrants even after the garden paid $1,700 to install the necessary equipment. Bans on sale of produce are lifted. Selling produce grown with water from the hydrants was previously banned, but the city is now allowing community gardens using the hydrants to make incidental sales. Urban farms can apply for less-costly permits. For the first time, urban farms can get a permit that will allow them to use fire hydrants for water at a flat rate. Until now, urban farms could only use hydrants if they used a permit typically designated for street festivals. That permit costs $83 per day, too high a cost for most urban farms to break even. “Really, the only farms doing that were ones with enough funding and institutional support to be able to cover that cost, which is not the majority of farms and gardens in the city,” Ruane said. The revised rules make it so urban farms can qualify for the same permit as community gardens, which allows the hydrants to be used for the entire growing season instead of a daily rate. That permit now costs about $117 for a farm up to 3,000 square feet. Each additional 3,000 square feet tacks on another $50.
do think this is an important step,” she said, praising the students who fought for this change. The vote is historic, LaVelle said, because no park in the city named for a historical figure has ever had its current name stripped by the board. The district’s current process was instead designed for communities to name an unnamed park. The board will move to rename Douglas Park in a two-step process that will first
Inspections for valves reduced to once annually. To qualify for the permit, farms and gardens must still use a backflow prevention device designed to protect the city’s water supply from contamination through the hydrant. Previously, growers were allowed to use a $5 piece of hardware, but this year the water department began requiring a heftier device, a reduced pressure zone valve. The price of the valve plus installation by a licensed union plumber as required by the city brings the total cost to at least $1,500. Water department rules initially released in the winter required gardens to have the valves tapping the hydrants to be recertified twice a year, which could cost up to $200 each time. But in response to outcry from gardeners, the city has lowered the requirement so the hydrants need to be inspected only once annually, which Ruane describes as a major victory for gardeners. “We’re still not sure about how effective this updated policy will actually be for farms and gardens because of some of the other changes that make it challenging to actually utilize it,” Ruane said. Not all of the policy updates will help the
establish a precedent for stripping the name of a historical figure from a park based on community input. Simultaneously, the district will initiate a second 45-day process to evaluate the new proposed name. “It will be done and we have heard you. But what we want to do today is create a thoughtful, deliberative process for future considerations because we don’t feel like this will be the last request to come before this body,” LaVelle said.
Financial Support for Gardeners Advocates submitted a proposal asking for the city to include financial support to gardens struggling to come up with the $1,700 needed for the equipment and installation needed to begin tapping the hydrants. They also have an ongoing petition calling on the city to help defray the costs of their new permit requirements. Despite their lobbying, mid-season revisions to the hydrant policy didn’t include any funding to help offset for hydrant fittings, backflow prevention valves or installation costs. “Because of that, we’ve just decided that we’re going to try to take it into our own hands, recognizing that this is an immediate issue that needs to be solved,” Ruane said. Advocates for Urban Agriculture secured funding from donors to offer up to 45 grants to urban farms and gardens to help cover hydrant costs. The grant would pay for the valve, installation and for certification of the equipment required for the permit. Grants will be reviewed on a first come, first served basis. The organization also put together a Chicago Growers Guide that includes information on navigating the newly revised hydrant policy. Gardeners in need of financial support can apply online. Pascal Sabino is a Report for America corps member covering Austin, North Lawndale and Garfield Park for Block Club Chicago.
The park’s is current namesake Stephen A. Douglas was a Civil War-era Illinois senator and one of the country’s most notorious slavery advocates. Douglas’ wife was known to have owned at least 100 slaves according to historians. In 1858, Douglas famously debated Abraham Lincoln in support of allowing expanded slavery across U.S. territories. In stark contrast, Frederick Douglass was Continued on next page
Austin Weekly News, July 29, 2020
CYNTHIA WILLIAMS Tired of violence from page 1
Chicago Park District; Wikimedia Commons
RENAMING: The Park District Board voted unanimously to start a process to rename Douglas Park for Frederick Douglass.
DOUGLASS PARK Abolitionist honored from page 8 a thought leader, an orator and statesman who born into slavery. He escaped bondage with the help of abolitionist Anna Murray Douglass, who became his wife. The pair operated a station on the Underground Railroad from their home in Rochester, N.Y. Students of Village Leadership Academy in North Lawndale first addressed the board in June 2017, where they asked the city to get on the right side of history by renaming the park. But the board offered no response to the proposal at the meeting. Students also hand-delivered a copy of the formal proposal to the board in December 2019, but the park district board did not acknowledge it and didn’t open the public comment period — until now. It isn’t clear what moved the wheels of bureaucracy now after the student’s pleas fell on deaf ears again and again. But Jennifer Pagan, a teacher helping the students in their campaign, said she is concerned the sudden shift is a politically convenient one. No one informed her about the planned vote, she said. “I’m honestly very wary of them using us as a ‘victory’ or a ‘win’ after a weekend where people were brutalized for trying to take down the Columbus statue. I really want to leverage this moment to call attention to the fact that these fights are connected and one in the same,” Pagan said. The fight to change the name of Douglas Park is directly linked to the fight to tear down the Columbus statue in Grant Park, Pagan said. “All of these are really just a call and demand to end white supremacy,” she said. “I think the reason they continue to ignore us is if we change the name of this park, then that calls to helm all the rest of them.” Earlier this year, an anonymous artist grew tired of waiting on the city to right the historical wrong and painted an extra “S” on all signs on the park. But the name officially remains Douglas Park. Just days before Wednesday’s meeting, students held a teach-in at the park to relaunch their campaign to change the park’s name. Students at the teach-in spoke to community members about the city’s process for requesting a name change, and how they’d followed it to the letter: In 2017 they began canvassing the neighborhood to raise awareness and got letters of support from county commissioners and local aldermen. Their petition demanding the park be renamed has collected nearly 10,000 signatures. “We’ve also done a lot of train takeovers through North Lawndale. We’ve been giving people flyers and cards, telling them to contact us and come to Douglas park to learn more about their history,” student Aryn Peterson said at the teach-in. The teach-in also gave young people an opportunity to educate the community on the histories of Stephen Douglas, Frederick Douglass and Anna Murray Douglass. Lightfoot said this week the city will complete a “comprehensive review of our public icons.” She previously has resisted the idea of dismantling the Columbus monuments. Lightfoot also said destroying statues wasn’t the answer. CONTACT: pascal@blockclubchi.org
announced that the county was giving $5 million to fund an anti-violence effort. Philonise Floyd, the brother of George Floyd, and Stephen Jackson, the former NBA player who is George Floyd’s close friend, followed the politicians’ polished remarks with much more blunt messages directed both at police officers who kill unarmed Black people and Black people who kill other Black people. “We need help burying these babies!” Williams said. “COVID-19 is enough in itself, but to see all the killing taking place in our own community. It’s not the police — it’s us! This is Blacks killing Blacks!” Williams spoke under an unsubtle backdrop that featured an image of 3-year-old Mekhi James dressed in a suit and standing at a podium bearing the seal of the President of the United States. Next to the photo, a message in bold red lettering accosted the crowd. “Why did you shoot me? I wanted to live! I was going to be your next President!” James was murdered on June 20 — Father’s Day weekend — in South Austin. According to police, he was riding in the back seat of a car with his 27-year-old father, Charles Morrison, when the shooting happened. The day James was murdered, 13-year-old Amaria Jones was showing her mother dance moves inside of their South Austin home when a stray bullet lodged in her neck. Natalie Wallace, 7, was fatally shot in South Austin while playing outside on the Fourth of July. Williams said that she’s raised around $20,000 trying to bury the children. Some of the money has been used to help relocate family members haunted by the children’s deaths and fearing for their own lives. “I can’t sleep thinking about them,” Williams said of the children she’s helped bury. “I see all of their faces every single night.” Preckwinkle said on Friday that between Jan. 1 through July 22, there have been 459 gun homicides in Cook County. “During that same period last year, there were 323 — that’s a 42 percent increase in gun homicide this year compared to last year,” she said. “And with roughly five months of the year left, we’re 125 gun homicides away from matching last year’s total. We cannot accept this as simply a way of life. We cannot continue to live this way and our children cannot continue to die this way.” Preckwinkle added that the county will give $5 million to Communities Partnering for Peace — a coalition of organizations dealing with gun violence in roughly two dozen of Chicago’s most affected community areas, including Austin, West Garfield Park and North Lawndale. Vaughn Bryant, the executive director of the
ENOUGH!: Cynthia Williams, the founder and CEO of the Austin Peoples Action Center, decries shooting violence in Austin during a rally Friday in the parking lot of her facility. Provided
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Communities Partnering for Peace, said that the funding will allow his organization to offer its services to more communities in the city deploy more resources to areas where it already has a presence. State Rep. La Shawn K. Ford (7th) said that he grew up in the area where the Austin Peoples Action Center is located. “One of the greatest things that God has given us is life and it gets hard for us as Black people, but we can never give up,” Ford said. “And we don’t give up. We know the struggles that Black people have had in this country and we know the fight is alive.” “I am pleading, I am pleading at this point with members of our community to just take a step back and recognize that there are so many people on this stage and all around this stage who care about you,” said Senate Majority Leader Kimberly Lightford (4th). Ald. Emma Mitts (37th), a longtime supporter of Williams’ organization, said that “senseless gun violence is a wound that will never heal. The only way you heal those wounds is you get up and do something about it.” “It’s truly our time,” said Craig Hodges, the Chicago area native and retired NBA player whose political activism and outspokenness on social justice issues, in a way presaged the current era of activism among athletes that is presently embodied by Colin Kaepernick. “Y’all are seeing the deliverance of a people,” Hodges said. Philonise Floyd and Jackson, who bears a striking resemblance to George Floyd, used Friday’s platform to lambaste violence by the police and by so-called “gangsters,” a term Jackson used derisively before turning it on its head. “There are more important things going on in this world than a corner,” Floyd said, adding that “it’s a better way to prove our manhood” than gun violence. “I’m tired — not just seeing my brother getting murdered for the world to see, but seeing kids getting murdered. Everybody is my brother. Every child is my little sister or my little brother … I’m putting everything on the line right now just so we can get treated like human beings and not f— animals.” Jackson also decried the social conditions of places like the West and South sides that have become zones of violence. “You have to develop the people,” he said. “You can’t get a heartbeat from a building.” Jackson spoke against the notion of a “gangster” being someone who takes “a life that ain’t even lived yet” or kills others over disputes that don’t address much larger systemic injustices. “They want you to kill each other … so they won’t have to do it,” Jackson said, before recruiting people into a much bigger battle. “You not as gangster as you think! What we doing right now? That’s gangster,” Jackson said. “Putting my whole career and livelihood on the line? That’s gangster.” CONTACT: thevillagefreepress@gmail.com
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PUBLIC NOTICE PUBLIC NOTICE Notice is hereby given, pursuant to “An Act in relation to the use of an Assumed Business Name in the conduct or transaction of Business in the State,� as amended, that a certification was registered by the undersigned with the County Clerk of Cook County. Registration Number: Y20003681 on July 17, 2020 Under the Assumed Business Name of GARDEN OF SECRETS with the business located at: 1124 N MASON, CHICAGO, IL 60651. The true and real full name(s) and residence address of the owner(s)/ partner(s) is: JOHNNAE MITCHELL 1124 N MASON CHICAGO, IL 60651 Published in Austin Weekly News July 22, 29, August 5, 2020
PUBLIC NOTICE Notice is hereby given, pursuant to “An Act in relation to the use of an Assumed Business Name in the conduct or transaction of Business in the State,� as amended, that a certification was registered by the undersigned with the County Clerk of Cook County. Registration Number: Y20003600 on July 14, 2020 Under the Assumed Business Name of CEE ZEE TRUCKING with the business located at:4530 SOUTH PRAIRIE AVENUE 2N, CHICAGO, IL 60653. The true and real full name(s) and residence address of the owner(s)/partner(s) is: CORTEZ ZOLLICOFFER 4530 SOUTH PRAIRIE AVENUE CHICAGO, IL 60653 Published in Austin Weekly News July 29, August 5, August 12, 2020
REAL ESTATE FOR SALE IN THE CIRCUIT COURT OF COOK COUNTY, ILLINOIS COUNTY DEPARTMENT CHANCERY DIVISION HSBC BANK USA, NATIONAL ASSOCIATION, AS TRUSTEE FOR STRUCTURED ASSET SECURITIES CORPORATION, MORTGAGE PASS-THROUGH CERTIFICATES, SERIES 2004-SC1; Plaintiff, vs. LEE WATT; SHIRLEY WATT; CITY OF CHICAGO; Defendants, 16 CH 14732 NOTICE OF SALE PUBLIC NOTICE IS HEREBY GIVEN that pursuant to a Judgment of Foreclosure and Sale entered in the above entitled cause Intercounty Judicial Sales Corporation will on Tuesday, August 25, 2020 at the hour of 11 a.m. in their office at 120 West Madison Street, Suite 718A, Chicago, Illinois, sell at public auc-
REAL ESTATE FOR SALE tion to the highest bidder for cash, as set forth below, the following described mortgaged real estate: P.I.N. 16-09-227-028-0000. Commonly known as 418 North Lavergne Avenue, Chicago, IL 60644. The mortgaged real estate is improved with a single family residence. If the subject mortgaged real estate is a unit of a common interest community, the purchaser of the unit other than a mortgagee shall pay the assessments required by subsection (g-1) of Section 18.5 of the Condominium Property Act. Sale terms: 10% down by certified funds, balance, by certified funds, within 24 hours. No refunds. The property will NOT be open for inspection. For information call Sales Department at Plaintiff’s Attorney, Manley Deas Kochalski, LLC, One East Wacker Drive, Chicago, Illinois 60601. (614) 220-5611. 16-029325 F2 INTERCOUNTY JUDICIAL SALES CORPORATION intercountyjudicialsales.com I3152732 IN THE CIRCUIT COURT OF COOK COUNTY, ILLINOIS COUNTY DEPARTMENT CHANCERY DIVISION U.S. BANK, NATIONAL ASSOCIATION, AS TRUSTEE FOR STRUCTURED ASSET INVESTMENT LOAN TRUST MORTGAGE PASS-THROUGH CERTIFICATES, SERIES 2005-HE3; Plaintiff, vs. HILDRED SATTERFIELD; CALVIN BOBO; CITY OF CHICAGO; JOHN LYDON AS SPECIAL REPRESENTATIVE OF CALVIN BOBO; UNKNOWN HEIRS AND LEGATEES OF CALVIN BOBO; UNKNOWN OWNERS GENERALLY AND NON RECORD CLAIMANTS; Defendants, 19 CH 6071 NOTICE OF SALE PUBLIC NOTICE IS HEREBY GIVEN that pursuant to a Judgment of Foreclosure and Sale entered in the above entitled cause Intercounty Judicial Sales Corporation will on Tuesday, August 25, 2020 at the hour of 11 a.m. in their office at 120 West Madison Street, Suite 718A, Chicago, Illinois, sell at public auction to the highest bidder for cash, as set forth below, the following described mortgaged real estate: P.I.N. 16-15-105-004-0000. Commonly known as 4647 West Monroe Street, Chicago, IL 60644. The mortgaged real estate is improved with a single family residence. If the subject mortgaged real estate is a unit of a common interest community, the purchaser of the unit other than a mortgagee shall pay
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the assessments required by subsection (g-1) of Section 18.5 of the Condominium Property Act. Sale terms: 10% down by certified funds, balance, by certified funds, within 24 hours. No refunds. The property will NOT be open for inspection. For information call Mr. Matthew C. Abad at Plaintiff’s Attorney, Kluever Law Group, 225 West Washington Street, Chicago, Illinois 60606. (312) 236-0077. SPS000182-19FC1 INTERCOUNTY JUDICIAL SALES CORPORATION intercountyjudicialsales.com I3152740
of Foreclosure and Sale entered in the above entitled cause Intercounty Judicial Sales Corporation will on Wednesday, September 2, 2020 at the hour of 11 a.m. in their office at 120 West Madison Street, Suite 718A, Chicago, Illinois, sell at public auction to the highest bidder for cash, as set forth below, the following described mortgaged real estate: P.I.N. 16-23-307-027. Commonly known as 1622 S. CENTRAL PARK, CHICAGO, IL 60623. The mortgaged real estate is improved with a single family residence. If the subject mortgaged real estate is a unit of a common interest community, the purchaser of the unit other than a mortgagee shall pay the assessments required by subsection (g-1) of Section 18.5 of the Condominium Property Act. Sale terms: 10% down by certified funds, balance, by certified funds, within 24 hours. No refunds. The property will NOT be open for inspection. For information call Ms. Kimberly S. Reid at Plaintiff’s Attorney, Marinosci Law Group, PC, 134 North LaSalle Street, Chicago, Illinois 60602. (312) 940-8580. 18-01797 INTERCOUNTY JUDICIAL SALES CORPORATION intercountyjudicialsales.com I3153031
IN THE CIRCUIT COURT OF COOK COUNTY, ILLINOIS COUNTY DEPARTMENT CHANCERY DIVISION BANK OF AMERICA, N.A.; Plaintiff, vs. GERALD NORDGREN, AS SPECIAL REPRESENTATIVE FOR DEBORAH Y. STEPTER; KIRK STEPTER; STARIESHA HENRY; UNKNOWN HEIRS AND LEGATEES OF DEBORAH Y. STEPTER; UNKNOWN OWNERS AND NON RECORD CLAIMANTS; Defendants, 18 CH 5197 NOTICE OF SALE PUBLIC NOTICE IS HEREBY GIVEN that pursuant to a Judgment
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