W E D N E S D A Y
Tickled by Pickleball Sports page 32
JOURNAL of Oak Park and River Forest
August 15, 2018 Vol. 39, No. 3 ONE DOLLAR
@oakpark @wednesdayjournal
Robinson’s Ribs faces neighbors’ ire over DJ nights Restaurant owner says police checkups constitute profiling By TIMOTHY INKLEBARGER Staff Reporter
Tensions are running high lately around the 800 block of Madison Street, where Robinson’s No. 1 Ribs has been holding “happy hour” nights with DJs that neighbors say have brought noise, garbage and public drinking. The restaurant has received more than a dozen noise complaints to the Oak Park Police Department since the beginning of 2018, and police are now conducting regular “premise checks” on the business to make sure patrons aren’t disrupting the neighbors. Katy Groves, a resident who lives near Robinson’s, said in a telephone interview that she is reluctant to call police on the business, but has done so because Robinson’s has not been responsive to her complaints. Charlie Robinson, owner of the decades old restaurant, said his security staff monitors late noise and litter and suggested there are racial elements to the complaints. See ROBINSON’S on page 13
ALEXA ROGALS/Staff Photographer
ALL THE WORLD’S A SCREEN: Steve Edwards, (far left), of WBEZ, moderated a panel discussion after two episodes of “America to Me” were screened at the Lake Theater on Aug. 13. The panel included (left to right): D200 board President Jackie Moore, D200 Supt. Joylynn Pruitt-Adams, Steve James, students Grant Lee and Caroline Robling-Griest, and English teacher Paul Noble.
‘America to Me’ makes Oak Park debut
Steve James’ 10-part docuseries inspires and makes some uncomfortable By MICHAEL ROMAIN Staff Reporter
There’s a scene in America to Me — the 10-part docu-series by renowned documentary filmmaker and longtime Oak Park resident Steve James — that made Jackie Moore, the president of the District 200 school board, “openly weep.” An African-American parent — whose charismatic and smart but vulnerable
black son is among the students James profiles in the film — is seen walking through the hallways of OPRF, reminiscing on her own days at the school. The reminiscence is, as she put it, hellish. She attended OPRF in the 1990s but never finished. During one scene, she’s looking at a room in the school that, at the time of filming, was dedicated to “motivational mentoring,” according to the placard outside the door. The woman laughs. She remembers the room differently. It was where she and other African-American students had a class that consisted of shooting pool and watching episodes of “Jerry Springer,” as if they were getting prepped for prison.
The woman also recalls her last day attending OPRF. She had just had surgery and wanted permission from her counselor to use the elevator instead of the stairs. “You will get nothing,” the woman recalled the counselor telling her. She used the elevator anyway. After a security guard asked her to show her pass, she pulled up her shirt to show him the stitches on her stomach left from the surgery. That was her pass, she recalled telling the guard, not long before she was escorted out of the building. The woman said she felt that the whole confrontation was “a setup,” designed to See AMERICA TO ME on page 14