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AUSTINWEEKLY news ■
Vol. 33 No. 35
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August 28, 2019
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Summer Fest Wednesday a hit,
austinweeklynews.com
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Also serving Garfield Park
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Explore the 1619 project, page 9
State bill includes funding for Galewood branch library While concrete plans still lacking, Rep. Lilly says funding is major step forward By IGOR STUDENKOV Contributing Reporter
The prospect of a Galewood branch library moved closer to becoming reality thanks to the recent Illinois capital bill, which was signed into law earlier this summer. Tucked away in a long list of capital projects throughout the state of Illinois is up to $600,000 for a grant to the Galewood library for reconstruction projects. State representative Camille Lilly (78th) said that she worked with state Sen. Don Harmon (39th) to include the Galewood allocation in the bill, but she emphasized that the money won’t actually be available until tax revenue and proceeds from bond sales come in. And it will be up to the Chicago Public Library system and the City of Chicago to figure out exactly how that money will be spent, and whether additional See GALEWOOD on page 8
SHANEL ROMAIN/Contributor
SOUNDING ALARM: Harvard philosophy professor Cornel West speaks out against President Donald Trump’s immigration policies during a gathering at Unity Temple in Oak Park on Saturday. West was invited by the Leaders Network, a faith-based social justice organization comprising pastors from Chicago’s West Side, Oak Park and River Forest.
Standing in solidarity with West Side clergy Cornel West speaks in Oak Park on 400th anniversary of slave trade
By MICHAEL ROMAIN Editor
On Aug. 24, roughly 150 people gathered in Oak Park’s historic Unity Temple — the Unitarian Universalist church that worships in the century-old World Heritage Site designed by renowned architect Frank Lloyd Wright — to commemorate a historic milestone. Four hundred years ago, “about the latter end of August,” according to the early English settler John Rolfe, a Dutch ship carrying “20 and odd Negroes” arrived in the colony
of Jamestown — the first documentation of the arrival of Africans to what would become the state of Virginia. For Harvard philosopher Cornel West, the ministers of the Leaders Network (the West Side faith-based social justice organization who invited him to speak), and immigrant rights activists, that moment in Jamestown was part of the long arc of injustice that bends toward the Mexican border today. Diego Amite, 19, migrated to the United States from Colombia nearly two years ago to find a better life. Equipped with a temporary
visa, Amite secured two jobs to pay for school and living expenses, and to send some money back home to his family in Colombia. “I can say that I made the right decision to stay in this country,” he said, before adding that his optimism is tinged with fear that he might be deported at any moment. “Immigrants and communities of color are historically made the scapegoats of our problems,” said Mony Ruiz-Velasco, executive director of PASO West Suburban Action
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See CORNEL WEST on page 11
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