The Bronzeville Curmudgeon

Chicago To Raze 1907 Building on Michael Reese Hospital Campus

2010-12-14T14:57:00.000-06:00

By Margaret Foster | Online Only | Dec. 7, 2010

1907 Main Hospital Building, Michael Reese Hospital campus, Chicago

Credit: Landmarks Illinois

Not long ago, the city of Chicago dreamed of hosting the 2016 Summer Olympics. Of course, every host needs an Olympic village, and last year, Mayor Richard Daley convinced the city council to spend $86 million to purchase the 37-acre Michael Reese Hospital campus, co-designed by Walter Gropius, founder of the Bauhaus school. The idea was to raze the campus and replace it with state-of-the-art housing for athletes.
Then Chicago lost out on the Olympics, with the 2016 summer games awarded to Rio de Janeiro. But any relief felt by preservationists quickly dissipated when the city proceeded to demolish seven Gropius-designed buildings anyway, hoping to sell the land to developers. And though Daley had promised to spare the 1907 main building of the campus (a high rise designed in the Prairie Style and a structure unaffiliated with Gropius), last month, the city announced that due to severe deterioration, the main hospital building could not be saved after all. Its roof leaked, and squatters had vandalized the structure, stripping it of valuable copper.
"The Chicago Fire Department, following an inspection of the main hospital building, determined that it posed an actual and imminent danger to the public and recommended it be demolished," Erin Lavin Cabonargi, executive director of the Public Building Commission, said in a statement last month.
In preparation for the main hospital building's demolition, a two-month abatement process will begin next week, and demolition should be completed in about four months, according to commission spokeswoman Mimi Simon.
"It was a surprise," says Jim Peters, president and executive director of Landmarks Illinois, which fought to save the main hospital building and the Gropius-designed structures. "We've long felt that this was the one building that was safe."
The city estimates that it would cost $13.2 million to stabilize the main hospital building (designed by Chicago architects Schmidt, Garden & Martin) and $2 million to raze it.
"The city did precious little to secure the building from squatters and the rain," Chicago Tribune architecture critic Blair Kamin wrote last month. "The building is crumbling (because the city let it crumble), so now the city has to tear it down."
Landmarks Illinois is currently turning to another surviving building: the 1950 Singer Pavilion, a collaboration between Chicago architects Loebl, Schlossman and Bennett and Walter Gropius and his Cambridge, Mass.-based firm. The preservation group is asking the city's Public Building Commission to develop a plan to mothball or stabilize the pavilion.
The Michael Reese Hospital's location—in the South Side neighborhood of Bronzeville, a place long afflicted by urban renewal—contributed to its demise, Peters says. "Many people just didn't know about this," Peters says. "Unless you went there, you never saw it, so it's been very hard getting the public's attention."

Losing the Michael Reese structures, Peters says, is "kind of a black eye for preservation. Unfortunately it's at the end of a 20-year term of a mayor who otherwise has been a tremendous advocate for historic preservation."

The New Jim Crow

2010-12-14T14:55:00.003-06:00

Dear Harold,

We’ve all heard the statistics, and most of us have simply become numb to hearing them. For many people, the over-incarceration of Black people is simply a fact of life. It shouldn’t be.

Thanks to legal scholar and professor Michelle Alexander¹ we now have a new book that explains how we ended up with a criminal justice system that targets and endangers Black communities, as well as ideas on what we can do to free ourselves from that system’s clutches.

When we put the book — The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness — in the hands of 20 ColorOfChange members to review, the response was unanimous. In addition to giving the book glowing reviews, they all wanted the entire ColorOfChange community to know about it.

It’s why we’re now inviting you to get your own copy (and one for your friends or family as well, in time for the holiday season), as well as participate in a conference call with Professor Alexander in the new year to discuss it.

You can get your copy here:

http://act.colorofchange.org/go/284?id=2126-1436905&akid=1771.1389429.ERFqIh&t=4

Professor Alexander’s book outlines the evolution of drug laws and how their ongoing effects on Black America parallel the role that segregation played in the period following the Civil War and preceding the Civil Rights Movement.² And it raises questions about what it will take to build a movement that can reform the broken drug laws that fuel high incarceration rates.

Criminal justice reform is key to our community — a third of Black men will spend part of their lives in prison,³ and Black children are more than six times more likely to have a parent incarcerated than White children.⁴ ColorOfChange members have demonstrated time and again that they want to change the status quo. More than 59,000 ColorOfChange members called on Congress to remove the sentencing disparity between crack and powder cocaine, and nearly 25,000 sent a statement to Senator James Webb of Virginia, thanking him for his attempts to overhaul our approach to incarceration.

We believe — and the ColorOfChange members who read and reviewed the book agreed — that the book will help us, as everyday people, stand with even more power to advocate for change. Ms. Alexander is herself a longtime member of ColorOfChange.org, and she’s agreed to speak with those of you who read the book, and answer any questions you have. We’ll contact you again early in the new year with more information about how to participate in that conference call, which is sure to be informative and powerful.

Here’s what ColorOfChange.org members are saying about The New Jim Crow:

“This book explains how this new Jim Crow came to be and how deeply ingrained it is now in the American psyche. Unless we really understand how this happened, we’ll never break this vicious cycle of African-American overincarceration… How many family members of prisoners lie about their relatives in the penal system in an effort to mitigate the stigma of criminality? This system penalizes entire families. [The book] was such an eye opener."
— Irma, Washington, DC
“This book will give you a good understanding of the system, its historical roots, its origins in the War on Drugs, the complicity of the police and legal system leading to mass incarceration of people of color, and the tragic result of creating a permanent caste system based on color. It opened my eyes and stirred my soul.“
— Larry, Freeland, WA
“This isn’t a fight for the lawyers. This is a fight for regular people, the non-experts, the advocates, the sympathizers, the human beings who care and want to care more. Fertile ground for change is wherever we are, however we are, and accessible to those of us with less than sizable monetary wealth or a law degree.”
— Thuha, Fountain Valley, CA

For more on The New Jim Crow and to get your copy, click here:

http://act.colorofchange.org/go/284?id=2126-1436905&akid=1771.1389429.ERFqIh&t=6

Thanks and Peace,

-- James, Gabriel, William, Dani, Natasha and the rest of the ColorOfChange.org team
December 9th, 2010

Help support our work. ColorOfChange.org is powered by YOU -- your energy and dollars. We take no money from lobbyists or large corporations that don't share our values, and our tiny staff ensures your contributions go a long way. You can contribute here:

Black leadership nationally is stratified along class lines and economic issues

2010-12-02T16:47:00.000-06:00

It's obviously unclear whether this Detroit can again be joined to the desolate, exhausted Detroit of so many of its neighborhoods. There are all sorts of reasons longtime Detroiters are suspicious of government planning: the network of freeways that permanently scarred the city in the 1950s and '60s (and simultaneously sucked the life out of it) were another era's idea of urban redevelopment, as were the spirit-deadening public-housing projects that replaced paved-over neighborhoods. In the spring, a prominent local minister declared that the mayor's shrinkage plan amounted to "ethnic cleansing" — an odd (and offensive) charge to throw at an effort proposed by an African-American mayor, his largely African-American planning officials and the African-American consultant who is the project's point person. At one of the community forums where planner Toni Griffin and her city colleagues attempted to explain the planning process, members of a group calling itself By Any Means Necessary vowed to oppose not a specific plan, or a specific sort of plan, but whatever plan emerged. (Read "Detroit Tries to Get on a Road to Renewal.")
Some city officials, citing Griffin's out-of-town provenance — rarely a positive attribute in Detroit — wish to diminish her influence. ("If they marginalize her," says the Kresge Foundation's Rapson with a stern finality, "they're on their own.") And it's reasonable to question whether Bing, the former basketball player and steel-company executive who ran for mayor as a nonpolitician, has the political skills to do what's necessary. Will he, for instance, be able to tell individuals and community groups who have labored hard to save their neighborhoods that their efforts have failed and the city is walking away from them? Early on, Bing said he was interested in only a single full term, which would presumably free him to act without fear of reprisal at the ballot box. Now some of the philanthropic foundations, understandably desiring continuity, want him to stick around. Paradoxically, this might require him to pay greater heed to political power brokers disinclined to support something that comes from any agency not under their direct control.
But the essential challenge for everyone involved in the effort to reinvent this storied and suffering city, says Bing aide Marja Winters, is, "How do you get people to think optimistically again?" The likely answer might be found in one of her office's promotional handouts. It's a statement attributed to Heaster Wheeler, a former city firefighter who is now executive director of the Detroit branch of the NAACP.
"The best way to predict the future," Wheeler says, "is to create it."

Racism is hardly a thing of the past!

2010-12-02T16:43:00.002-06:00

BY JESSE JACKSON

Is Jim Crow back? Are African Americans, particularly African-American men, once more suffering systematic discrimination on the basis of race -- a discrimination that locks them out of equal rights and basic citizenship?
The question is incendiary -- and seems unreal. This is the post-racial America, where an African American can be elected president. Overt expression of racism is no longer socially acceptable. So, how could anyone allege the revival of Jim Crow laws, the laws that locked blacks into a permanent underclass under segregation?
Listen to the hard logic offered by Michelle Alexander, a law professor and author of The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in an Age of Colorblindness. Professor Alexander makes the following points:
• More African Americans are under correctional control today -- in prison or jail, on probation or parole -- than were enslaved in 1850, a decade before the Civil War began.
• More black men were disenfranchised in 2004 than in 1870, the year the 15th Amendment was ratified, prohibiting laws that explicitly deny the right to vote on the basis of race.
• More than half of working-age African-American men in major urban areas -- according to one report, as much as 80 percent in Chicago -- have criminal records and are thus subject to legalized discrimination.
These staggering figures aren't because African Americans are more prone to violence and crime. As Alexander points out, incarceration rates are not related to the rate of criminal activity. Crime is at a relatively low level in recent years, but incarceration has remained high.
The primary reason for our high rates of incarceration is the war on drugs. The courts have given police a virtual exemption from the Fourth Amendment in the war on drugs. This freedom to stop, search, seize and arrest clearly has discriminatory effects.
This drug war has been waged intensively almost completely in communities of color, even though studies show that drug use is remarkably similar across racial lines. The use of drugs isn't much different, but young African-American men are stopped more often, searched more often, arrested more often and prosecuted more often.
This isn't about drug-related violence or even about major traffickers. Alexander cites studies that in 2005, for example, four out of five drug arrests were for possession, while only one out of five were for sales. Most people in state prison for drug offenses have no history of violence or significant selling activity. Most of the increase in incarcerated drug offenders came from marijuana use, a drug widely available on campuses across America.

These are stunning facts. The U.S. has developed a prison-industrial complex -- with private prison companies listed on the stock exchange -- that, in Professor Alexander's words, "locks an extraordinary percentage of our population -- a group largely defined by race -- into permanent, second-class status for life."
Yet, this system is largely immune from constitutional challenge. The courts have decided that overwhelming evidence of the discriminatory effect of policies -- the fact that African Americans are deprived of their rights for life in disproportionate numbers -- is not sufficient. Proof of conscious, intentional racial bias in intent and action must be shown.
The result is shocking -- yet is accepted largely in silence. The drug war, the court system, the privatized prison-industrial complex have provided the means of disenfranchising African Americans in large number.
This has implications in elections, in juries, and in school and poverty subsidies. Clearly it is time to end the silence -- and confront the reality.

An African American Mayor of Chicago?

2010-10-08T14:06:00.000-05:00

Civic, community leaders tell how to get a Black mayor

2010-10-06T14:30:00.004-05:00

by Wendell Hutson

As several potential Black candidates ponder whether to run for mayor of Chicago, community activists,
clergy and elected officials offer key ingredients needed for a Black candidate to win.

Facing the best shot in decades to push an agenda — including better solutions to violence, foreclosures and unemployment plaguing underserved Black neighborhoods — Black clergy, politicians and others have been meeting to try to throw their collective weight behind just one person, hoping the rest of the Black community follows their lead.
“It is important to get behind one candidate ... who has a sense of urban reconstruction,” said the Rev. Jesse Jackson, one of several community leaders arranging meetings.
But others put less stock in the effort. At least one candidate has expressed impatience with the notion of waiting to be anointed. And there is no guarantee such a coalition can unite a community that is more independent than ever — or persuade other candidates to bow out after making its pick.
Chicago’s Black community, 35 percent of the city’s population, is increasingly diverse and not as tied to racial politics as in the past.

Political consultant Delmarie Cobb says the heightened interest in running also stems from how long people have waited for the opportunity — Mayor Richard M. Daley won six straight terms before announcing last month he wouldn’t seek a seventh. The last Black mayor was Eugene Sawyer, who was elected by the City Council and served a mere 17 months after Washington’s death in office in 1987.
“I really don’t think we will come up with a consensus candidate because egos won’t let (the others) step aside,” said Cobb, spokeswoman for Jackson’s 1988 presidential bid and the 1996 Democratic National Convention.
Several groups considering whom to support plan to come together and try to pick “the best candidate to pay attention” to issues in the Black community, said Ald. Walter Burnett (27th), chairman of the City Council’s Black Caucus.
Those involved in the meetings among Black leaders say their candidate doesn’t necessarily have to be Black, though it seems likely.
The top vote-getters in a straw poll of about 100 ministers taken Sept. 17 were state Sen. James Meeks, D-15th, also a prominent Black minister, and U.S. Rep. Danny Davis, D-7th, who also is Black, said the Rev. Ira Acree, pastor of Greater St. John Bible Church.
Runners-up included former U.S. Sen. Carol Moseley Braun and U.S. Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr., D-2nd, despite recent revelations of an affair and allegations he wanted a group of Indian businessmen to raise millions for ousted Gov. Rod Blagojevich in exchange for Jackson’s appointment to Obama’s old Senate seat.
But nobody is ruling out Cook County Sheriff Tom Dart, who is white and has made a name for himself with several actions viewed favorably in Black communities, including his prosecuting several people in a burial scandal at a historically Black cemetery. He came in fifth in the ministers’ poll, Acree said.
Acree acknowledged Emanuel could benefit in the Black community from his connection to Obama, who once worked as a community activist on the South Side and remains immensely popular there. But the former presidential aide isn’t as popular among the city’s Black leaders, who hope his entry in the race could help unify the community around someone else.
“Our job is to educate (voters) that Rahm is not the second coming of Barack Obama, that what they’re thinking is based on irrational logic,” Acree said.
No candidate will get far without being able to raise a lot of money and “show evidence of moving voters to vote” across all races and neighborhoods, the Rev. Jackson said.
To win a Black candidate must be able to register large masses of Blacks but also be able to inspire and encourage them to vote, especially seniors, said Harold Lucas, president and CEO of the Black Metropolis Convention and Tourism Council, a Chicago community, non-profit organization.
“The most viable Black candidate is the one who can get the Black community involved in the election process. It (is) also important for Black candidates to attract the white liberal community as well.”

But registering voters is only half the battle, said Illinois Secretary of State Jesse White.

“You have to be able to raise money. You have to be a good fundraiser because you will need roughly $10 million to be a formidable candidate,” White explained. “Money is a big part of any election.”

In 1983 Chicago elected Harold Washington as its first Black mayor. White had served with Washington in the Illinois General Assembly.

According to the Chicago Board of Elections, when Washington was first elected he received the majority votes in every Black ward over incumbent Mayor Jane Byrne by a five–to-one ratio. He later won re-election in 1987 by once again beating Byrne, in part, after receiving the majority vote in every Black ward and a few non-Black wards, such as the 22nd, 26th, 46th, 48th, and 49th.

Washington not only defeated Byrne in 1983 but also then-Cook County State’s Attorney Richard M. Daley, who finished a distant third place. Daley later defeated Mayor Eugene Sawyer in 1989, two years after Washington died from a heart attack.

Over time Washington built a coalition that included strong support from the Hispanic and Asian communities, White said.

“He was articulate, smart and for all of Chicago. So the next Black mayor of Chicago would have to be for everyone and not one ethnic group,” White said of Washington.

Beyond money and registering voters, White added that to launch a successful mayoral bid a Black candidate should have currently or previously held an elected office. By doing so it provides much needed experience to manage a large government such as Chicago, White said.

Additionally, a strong Black candidate should have unquestionable credibility and should have a track record as an effective community leader, he added.

“I don’t care if they were a board member of a school or park, they should be able to show how they have made life easier for the community,” White said.

And equally important for the next Black mayor is the ability to connect with churches.

“Precinct captains play an important role in who gets elected mayor because they are the ones who help register voters and serve as a liaison to churches,” the secretary of state explained.

Rev. Leon Finney, pastor of Metropolitan Apostolic Community Church on the South Side, has worked on several campaigns for Blacks – including Washington – and insists the number one ingredient for a Black to win the mayoral race is receiving a wide spectrum of ethnic votes.

“To win, a Black candidate would need to command a decent amount of votes from three of the four groups: organized labor, lakefront liberals, southwest voters (voters living in Southwest Side communities, such as Beverly), Catholics or Hispanics,” explained Finney.

State Sen. Rickey Hendon, D-5th, Braun and community organizer William “Dock” Walls are the only declared Black candidates for mayor.

Other potential Black candidates include Meeks, U.S Reps. Davis and Jackson Jr., businessman Larry Rogers, attorney Christopher Cooper and Chicago State University Professor Jonathan Jackson, son of the Rev. Jesse Jackson.

Lucus said he expects more Black candidates to enter the race before the Nov. 22 filing deadline.

At that time, candidates must submit at least 12,500 signatures from registered voters to be placed on the ballot for the Feb. 22 non-partisan election. And to win, a candidate must pick up at least 50 percent of the vote. If no candidate reaches that percentage, the top two vote getters will face off in an April runoff and the winner would be sworn into office May 16.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Copyright 2010 Chicago Defender

City Room™ - Metro - Chicago Bakery Experiences Gentrification in an Unusual Way

2010-09-22T15:05:00.003-05:00

Chicago Bakery Experiences Gentrification in an Unusual Way
Clickable Link

What are your thoughts on gentrification?

Poet Haki Madhubuti headed in new direction

2010-09-20T11:53:00.000-05:00

Acclaimed educator, publisher reflects on transition to DePaul

By Lauren R. Harrison | Tribune reporter

On a wooden podium inside DePaul University's Cortelyou Commons, the man's voice rose a few decibels. “Introduce your children to the cultures of the world through …”

“Art!” The crowd of more than 100 yelled.

“Keep them curious and political and creative with …”

“Art!”

Some might mistake this call-and-response oration for a sermon. But the man with a gray mustache, dressed in a gray pinstripe suit with a yellow vest and red-and-cream striped tie, isn't a preacher. He is Haki Madhubuti, 68-year-old poet, publisher, educator and seminal figure of the Black Arts Movement. And the occasion Wednesday evening, featuring poet, educator and activist Nikki Giovanni, was Madhubuti's introduction to DePaul University as its Ida B. Wells-Barnett professor for the 2010-2011 academic year.

“I'm totally thrilled to be here with you today, celebrating with my old and dear friend Haki,” Giovanni said to the audience, which included the grandsons of journalist and civil rights activist Wells-Barnett, Benjamin Duster, 83, and Donald Duster, 78. “Everything is an opportunity. And this is an opportunity for Haki. It's an opportunity for DePaul. It's an opportunity for everybody to grow.”

While at DePaul, Madhubuti plans to hold faculty and public lectures on Wells-Barnett's legacy, and teach two courses on art and race and the Black Arts Movement to the present.

The celebratory scene Wednesday was a world away from the controversy surrounding Madhubuti's retirement from Chicago State University this summer after 26 years of teaching. During that time, he recruited the late Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Gwendolyn Brooks and established Chicago State's Brooks Center for Black Literature and Creative Writing, annual Gwendolyn Brooks writing conference, master of fine arts in creative writing program and International Literary Hall of Fame for Writers of African Descent.

In a recent interview at Third World Press — one of the oldest independent black-owned presses, founded in 1967 by Madhubuti — he shook his head at the memory of feeling “forced out” of Chicago State.

“This all started when the board of trustees decided to politicize the selection of the new president,” Madhubuti says, seated near a wall that includes an oil painting of the poet when he was known as Don L. Lee, complete with Afro and Ankh jewelry.

In an open letter last June, Madhubuti criticized the selection process that led to Chicago State tapping current President Wayne Watson. Consequently, Madhubuti said, Watson demanded that he teach additional courses during the middle of the school year — a time when he taught one course and helmed the annual writers conference, as well as led the Brooks Center.

“So that means that essentially, I can't write,” Madhubuti said. “And I'm not going to take it. Not at my age and not what I've contributed to the university, so I just totally retired.”

In an e-mailed statement, Watson declined to comment on specific questions about his interactions with Madhubuti. “Chicago State University has great respect for the work of Dr. Haki Madhubuti,” he said. “We appreciate his contributions … during his 26 years at our institution. His decision to retire … was a personal one. We wish him well in his future endeavors.”

Though he felt miserable at the time of the Chicago State tussle, in retrospect, Madhubuti says, “it was supposed to happen, because at this time in my life, I need to be someplace where people appreciate me.”

Chuck Suchar, dean of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences at DePaul, explained why a search committee chose Madhubuti: “We found someone that was reflective of the contributions that Ida B. Wells made during her lifetime.” Suchar added that Madhubuti “has been extremely sensitive to the issues that reflect the African-American community and larger community as well.”

Jacqueline Bryant, former chair of the English department at Chicago State, who retired last month, agreed. “When you sit back and you think about the lives that he has made an impact on, it's just amazing.”

Madhubuti has published more than 28 books of his poetry and nonfiction (including best-selling “Don't Cry, Scream” and “Black Men: Obsolete, Single, Dangerous? Afrikan American Families in Transition: Essays in Discovery, Solution, and Hope”); published such literary giants as Sonia Sanchez, Amiri Baraka, his “cultural mother” Gwendolyn Brooks, as well as emerging black writers; and co-founded four South Side charter schools serving 1,000 children with wife Carol D. Lee, an education and social policy professor at Northwestern University. His accomplishments can be traced to his impoverished upbringing — born in Little Rock, Ark., and raised in Detroit — by a mother involved in sex trade who was “a reader.” She asked him to check out “Black Boy” from a Detroit library when he was 13 years old.

“This was the first time in my life that I was not reading literature that was an insult to my own personhood. Sentences in the paragraphs, chapters, about me, that essentially gave me a different type of insight into my own history, which is critical,” he said. “So I read ‘Black Boy' in less than 24 hours … went back to the library and checked out everything Richard Wright had published.”

He says he took this thirst for reading with him to the Army, where he served from 1960 to 1963, reading nearly one book a day and writing a 250-word essay on each book. “That was my entry into writing,” Madhubuti says. “Because I was trying to save myself.”

He continues his self-discipline today.

A strict vegan, Madhubuti clocks nearly 100 miles a week cycling and rises at 4 a.m. to write for three hours when working on a project.

“He's like a ninja, because he really is one of the, if not most, disciplined person that I know,” said Kevin Coval, poet and artistic director of Louder Than A Bomb youth poetry festival, whom Madhubuti mentors.

Perhaps some of that discipline will rub off on students at DePaul.

“I think if America has any great promise, it's because of young people. So, that's what I see happening with my life now — that I use these whatever years I have left to continue to work with young people,” Madhubuti said, adding that he's “not going to disappoint” — and doesn't want others to disappoint.

“Because I'll be on them like black on coal and white on rice, all right?” He chuckles.

Madhubuti will be leading public lectures in the fall, winter and spring. They are free and open to the public. Check dates on DePaul's African and Black Diaspora's Web site: las.depaul.edu/abds/

lharrison2@tribune.com

Sun-Times:Daley defends takeover of Harold Washington Cultural Center

2010-09-20T11:26:00.000-05:00

BY FRAN SPIELMAN City Hall Reporter

Without a City Colleges purchase made possible by a $1.8 million city subsidy, Bronzeville’s Harold Washington Cultural Center would become another “vacant building,” Mayor Daley warned Thursday, defending the hostile takeover he proposed to save an auditorium built primarily with city funds.

“We want to keep the Harold Washington Cultural Center alive. We want to keep it alive with young people, keep it alive with artists and rebuild the 47th Street dream of … wonderful music — not for Chicago, but for the world,” Daley said of the 1,000-seat auditorium at 47th and King Drive.

“It’s in foreclosure. We want to make sure that, when you drive by there and you look at that building, it’s not gonna be vacant. It’s gonna be used by young people. It’s gonna be used by community people. We want to keep that alive, just like the dedication [Harold Washington] gave to the people of Chicago. That should not be a vacant building.”

Tobacco Road, the not-for-profit organization that runs the Harold Washington Cultural Center, is directed by the daughter of former Ald. Dorothy Tillman (3rd).

Tillman has branded the proposed City Colleges takeover “totally illegal … political harassment” and vowed to fight the lame-duck mayor “tooth-and-nail.”

On Thursday, Daley fought back.

He argued that Tobacco Road has had every opportunity to make a go of it and ended up in default of a grant agreement that provided $7.7 million in city funds used to build the facility.

Armed with an independent audit, the Daley administration has accused Tobacco Road of falling more than 200 events-a-year short of its booking obligations.

“It has nothing to do with Dorothy. The building is foreclosed and they have not fulfilled their responsibility. … I want that building to be alive with younger people. … That should be the center of attention. … City Colleges can do that,” he said.

“We think we can have more use of it through City Colleges. We have many, many programs. And with the Board of Education in there. We think we can do a much better job.”

The latest in a string of controversies surrounding the theater that Tillman hoped would anchor a “Chicago Blues District” along 47th Street was triggered by a $1.3 million foreclosure lawsuit filed last year by the now-shuttered ShoreBank.

The Chicago Sun-Times reported earlier this week that Daley wants to give the City Colleges $1.8 million in tax-increment-financing funds to purchase the center’s foreclosed mortgage and turn the 1,000-seat auditorium into an education and performing arts center.

City Colleges Chancellor Cheryl Hyman has acknowledged that she doesn’t have a “full-blown plan” for the center. But, she talked about providing “credit courses” in performing arts and about operating the center “as you would any other college.”

“We could share it with area high schools and local performing artists. We could build out a student-run jazz and blues-themed restaurant and create a museum celebrating the rich history of Bronzeville. We’re looking at a lot of different options with academic and community focus,” she said this week.

Civic Federation President Laurence Msall has questioned whether City Colleges have the “resources to operate” the troubled facility. Msall noted that Hyman is consolidating nursing and other programs to ease an “operating deficit.”

Have a lovely day!

Leilawww.bronzevillemetropolis.com

Famed civil rights photographer doubled as FBI informant

2010-09-20T10:59:00.004-05:00

Ernest C. Withers, a revered civil rights photographer who captured iconic images of Martin Luther King Jr. on the night King was shot in Memphis, actually played a different role the day before: FBI informant.

Children huddle in entrance in Tent City

Children huddle in the entrance of a tent during 1960 in Tent City near Somerville, Tenn. Tent City was home to black sharecroppers who were kicked-offwhite-owned lands in 1960 because blacks were registering to vote. Pipe at top is from a stove in the tent.

Tent City, near Somerville, Tenn., was home

Tent City, near Somerville, Tenn., was home for black sharecroppers who were kicked off white-owned land in 1960 because they registered to vote.

Link To Story -Famed civil rights photographer doubled as FBI informant

The Schott Report

2010-09-13T15:31:00.002-05:00

Hello Folks!!!

This is a powerful piece. Please read and advise the body on what approach you think BPNI needs to go. At our last meeting (8/28/2010), we decide to form a Consortium with several of the PN applicants from the south side. BPNI needs something to sell to the PN applicants as to WHY they need to collaborate with US. We need an actual something that BPNI DOES!!! And BPNI needs money to DO IT. Please give this document and BPNI as a leader of a Consortium real thought. We need to come up with a system, an endeavor, a Promise Neighborhood way of thinking for Chicago. Think folks, think then do.

Peace,

Roberta ;robertastrotter@comcast.net

Clickable Picture

Presented by:www.blackboysreport.org

Chicago 4th Ward "Politics" Shuts Down Legendary Hyde Park Jazz Society at Room 43 and Other New 43rd St Business?

2010-09-03T12:31:00.001-05:00

by Mark S. Allen on Thursday, September 2, 2010 at 10:53am

Chicago 4th Ward "Politics" Shuts Down Legendary Hyde Park Jazz Society at Room 43??
Where is Andy Shaw and Better Government??? IS THIS HOW GOVERNMENT IS SUPPOSED TO WORK??

Norman Bolden and Room 43 HAD the proper Building Commission Licence to operate and offer local entertainment at Room 43 and a new Indoor/Outdoor Restaurant on 43rd, BUT all those final Zoning approvals negatively changed when he announced plans to be a 4th Ward Aldermanic candidate? Come On Alderman Preckwinkle, Mayor Daley, Do NOT preside over this type of process and stop people from working or new businesses from opening !!!!

Dear Jazz Friends,

This is such a painful email to write. Because of a City order, our performances in ROOM 43 are cancelled on SUNDAY, 9/5 AND 9/12. Furthermore, unless our licensing problems are settled by October 17th, we will no longer be able to offer you jazz in the beautiful ROOM 43.

This is a huge blow to us and, frankly, to the neighborhood that brought in so many people--black, white, Asian, Hispanic--to listen to the music they love. Sadly, we are still fighting the battle with City Hall. The "we" is the Hyde Park Jazz Society, founded by Jim Wagner, and Norman Bolden, owner of ROOM 43, who took us in 14 months ago when we were thrown out of the Checkerboard.

Norman applied for a Public Place of Amusement license (PPA) so that we could have our music. He received approval from the Building Commission, leaving only the stamp from the Zoning Department remaining. The PPA should be issued if these two departments sign off.

I will spare you the painful details, but the bottom line is that the Zoning Department has chosen not to respond in a timely manner. The Hyde Park Jazz Society has now had to spend what is left of our resources on a Special Events License and Insurance, both of which expire on October 17th.

Without a PPA, the Sunday night Jazz Series becomes homeless. All that we ask is that the Zoning Department give Norman Bolden an administrative adjustment and sign off on his parking. Those of you have been with us know how available and simple parking is for Room 43- much better than in Hyde Park. With the Zoning stamp, there should be no further excuses for the City to withhold the PPA.

It does strain credulity that an organization should be dealt with so poorly when it brings to the heart of the mid south side middle class people who pay their taxes and vote. We have been treated by some (definitely not all) City officials and departments indifferently at best; punitively, at worst.

We'll keep you posted. But please stick with us!

Judith

Malcolm X's "Who Taught You To Hate Yourself" Speech

2010-09-01T12:55:00.000-05:00

Who was Wallace D. Fard Muhammad?

2010-08-30T16:25:00.001-05:00

Wallace Fard, also known as W. Farad Muhammad, the Prophet, was founder of the fist Temple of Islam, which evolved into the Nation of Islam or the Black Muslims.

Clickable Text

Nation of Islam beginnings

2010-08-30T16:02:00.001-05:00

Clickable Photo

Wallace Fard Muhammad

The Great black Migration: An Analysis of "A Raisin in the Sun" through poetic voices by Sharon Ponder

2010-08-30T13:17:00.000-05:00

http://teachers.yale.edu/curriculum/search/viewer.php?id=initiative_07.01.09_u&skin=h

Painter: Archibald Motley (1891-1981)

2010-08-27T16:09:00.000-05:00

Painter: Archibald Motley (1891-1981)

The Bronzeville landgrab discussion

2007-02-19T18:51:00.002-06:00

What is going on in the historic Bronzeville community in Chicago?

Welcome to Bronzeville

2007-02-15T18:31:00.000-06:00

Here come The Bronzeville Curmudgeon, a online dialogue about the historic Bronzeville community and the issues of economic empowerment.