Still Enchanted After All These Years, “Running Out of Options” in Policing, An Autobiography of Black Chicago

The *Chicago Way* and “Reform” 🤦🏽‍♀️

Often called the most American of American cities, Chicago has a deceptive relationship with the concept of “reform.” The term is often articulated here, but seldom really implemented. And it’s not as if we haven’t had many erudite thinkers—derisively, called “goo-goos” for “good government types”—pushing for better city ethics and more just, equitable, and humane ordinances and policies.

From the magnificent Ida B. Wells, who migrated to Chicago after her brilliant and blistering editorials on lynchings caused her to be exiled out of Memphis, to Jane Addams of Hull House settlement fame to Fannie Barrier Williams, and so many others, we have had extraordinary people on the case for reform.

The problem is that “reformers” are given the Chicago Way “treatment” by politicians determined to maintain the status quo that prioritizes White access, success, and privilege. Throughout the city’s illustrious history, “charismatic” politicians have smiled, and even allocated a few resources—after all they had to try to make it look good to the “goo goos.” But, there have been many bold politicians who have said the quiet part out loud, too, like saloon owner and notoriously corrupt Alderman Paddy Bauler who, leading up to the 1955 mayoral election of Richard J. “Boss” Daley, famously opined, “Chicago ain’t ready for reform.”

When the Honorable Mayor Harold Washington was elected in 1983, essentially, the majority of voting Black Chicagoans said they were tired of machine-style, bossism, politics. That’s why Harold won, because he was determined to break the machine. He was determined to break the system that saw most government contracts go to (white) insiders, and too many jobs go to politicians’ family members, friends, and associates (exemplified by the Chicago politician who famously said, “We don’t want nobody nobody sent.”) In other words, with the machine, ethics were extremely lax, and white politicians pretty much did what they wanted to do. When the first Daley was mayor, many Blacks called the city the “Daley plantation;” so, you can guest where Blacks were in the hierarchical caste system. There was so much greed and corruption in Chicago, that a very popular newspaper columnist, Mike Royko, once suggested that the city motto should be, “Where’s mine?”

When Washington died, early in his second term, Chicago quickly regressed back to the status quo, rough and tumble politics that grossly neglected Black and Brown communities. This election on today, April 4th, is between Brandon Johnson (the “progressive”) and Paul Vallas, (the business as usual, Republican supported, candidate) who is on record saying that he is more like a Republican than a Democrat. Millions upon millions of dollars are being spent in this race because the stakes couldn’t be higher, including jobs, contracts, community investment, improvements in education, housing, and dignity, in addition to respectful policing. These two candidates represent a contest between one who argues for an inclusive style of government and one who appears to want the city to continue favoring the (white) wealthy and powerful while admonishing poor and working class people to work harder, as if systemic racism is not a huge and unjust impediment to ultimate success (The Chicago Way). The question is, therefore: Is Chicago Finally Ready for Real Change (and a radical reordering)?

Still Enchanted After All These Years

  Part of the healing process for Black people in Chicago is in knowing that we are not the authors of the city’s violence. We must understand that horrific physical, psychological, legal, and policy-based violence has been enacted upon Black people. There is so much talent literally trapped in the Black community with no meaningful outlet because of racism, discrimination, and other inequities in this city; so, the level of frustration in communities can reach very high, sometimes toxic, levels.

Our task, as a people, is to resist internalizing all the horror we have experienced, and to which we have been exposed. Our challenge, in our understandable pain, is to, in the words of the Rev. Jesse Jackson, ‘turn to each other and not on each other…’”

(READ the whole essay in the “HEALING” section below and learn about the book “If Christ Came to Chicago”)

Time to “Cop” to the Fact that Police Are Not THE Answer?

Chicago has a phalanx of police, about twice as many per capita as the national average. If one is honest in acknowledging that violence has been a problem in Chicago practically since it’s incorporation,* it seems pretty clear at this point that Chicago will not police its way out of crime and violence. Factor in the ridiculous amount of corruption that has long been a problem within the police department, as well as the city and state, and it doesn’t take a genius to realize we need more innovative and comprehensive socioeconomic solutions centered around justice and equality. Several years ago, after the police execution of Chicago teen, Laquan McDonald, the Justice Department assessed the CPD and issued a scathing report. So did the Police Accountability Task Force created by former mayor, Rahm Emanuel.

For years now, many have advocated for community control of policing, and, finally, a few concrete steps have been taken, but, of course, already, there have been attempts to undermine this modest gain. Also, many in the public health community, like Deborah Prothrow-Stith, M.D., long have admonished public policy-makers to view violence through the lens of a public health crisis. And people in the social justice arena have begged politicians to be more honest about the ways in which structural inequality, caused by racism and racist policies, tremendously affect public safety, and to look seriously at different models. So, to quote Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., where do we go from here? (* Read an excerpt from Still Enchanted After All These Years in the Healing section below.)

Scholar’s Corner: Policing in America

For brilliant insights into and analyses of historical policing in America, view some of the many videotapes and writings of Chicago’s own Dr. Khalil Gibran Muhammad, a Harvard University professor. Here is a must view interview with him after the death of George Floyd. His book, The Condemnation of Blackness, is a classic. It is a dense read, but it’s an important read, so here is a thoughtful, highly intellectually stimulating interview where Dr. Muhammad discusses his book with the venerable Bill Moyers.

And never forget that the Black Panthers (originally the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense) began as a response to the police brutality that was/is so rampant in the Black community. Therefore, they saw an urgent need for “policing the police.”

The people’s state’s attorney in Cook County, award-winning, two-time elected State’s Attorney Kim Foxx, is often thrown under the bus by disingenuous politicians, because it’s an easy thing to do when people don’t really understand the job of the prosecutor versus the job of the cops. For more than 100 years, the state’s attorney’s office* was complicit in terrorizing Black people, and there was rarely an official comment about it. Remember that it was Cook County State’s Attorney, Edward Hanrahan, who had a battalion of police officers fire a fuselage of bullets into Fred Hampton’s home in the middle of the night, with a no-knock warrant, to assassinate him. Do you remember all the lies the SA and the Chicago Police told in the aftermath of that unconscionable and savage modern day lynching? And, lastly, do you remember that Fred Hampton was feeding poor, hungry school children breakfast before school and leading the Rainbow Coalition at the time of his senseless murder? Well, there is a new SA in town who is determined to combat the abuses that were once taken as a given in Black and Brown communities, because marginalized communities have a hard time fighting the kind of outsized state power an SA’s office wields.

Stay tuned for more about the horrific historical abuses of the Office of the Cook County State’s Attorney. In the meantime, however, if you want to know who Kim Foxx is— beyond the racist caricatures—listen to her for yourself, and then do it again! SA Foxx has a more lighthearted conversation here. (*See the second article on this web page for some history on the SA Office in Cook County.)

Keystone cops? What happens when police do their own thing “overriding” the State’s Attorney’s office?

This is the president of the Fraternal Order of Police (FOP) Chicago Lodge 7, a January 6th sympathizer who retired/resigned as a cop while he was facing disciplinary charges that could have ended in his termination. Apparently, under their union rules, he can still front the organization.

In the Spotlight:

Dr. Khalil Gibran Muhammad

A native of Chicago and the son of Ozier Muhammad, a Pulitzer Prize winning photographer, Khalil Gibran Muhammad is a highly-esteemed academic who also carries a pedigree surname that references Black self-determination. He is the great-grandson of Nation of Islam founder, Elijah Muhammad. Additionally, his mother, Dr. Kimberly Muhammad Earl, is a highly respected educator in Chicago. An often quoted and highly-sought after scholar on race, policing, and economics, Dr. Muhammad formerly taught at Indiana University before becoming the director of the exalted Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture in New York City. A graduate of the University of Pennsylvania and Rutgers University, he is also a contributor to the 1619 Project, having written the essay on the barbaric history of sugar (“white gold”). A list of some of Dr. Muhammad’s many achievements, awards, and accomplishments can be found here.

Culture

Architecture

Madam C.J. Walker’s fabled estate, the four level Villa Lewaro, in the village of Irvington-on-the-Hudson, NY, was a splendid symbol of Black prosperity when it was built back in 1918. Madam and her daughter, A’Lelia Walker, hosted many a marvelous soirée, and several political and philanthropic events, in that fabulous palace designed by Black architect Vertner Woodson Tandy. One of the “Seven Jewels” who founded Alpha Phi Alpha fraternity at Cornell University in 1906, Tandy was influenced by his father, Henry Tandy, who was an extremely impressive builder in Lexington, Kentucky during a time when the going was not easy. In the annals of architectural history, the Tandys, along with Vertner’s one time business partner, George Washington Foster, should never be forgotten.

Entertainment

Wondering what the pad of a young Nigerian Grammy winning star looks like in beautiful Lagos? Check out Burna Boy’s home! His architect, Akose Enebeli, is also featured.

Taraji P. Henson is set to play Janine’s mom in Abbott Elementary; and check out Quinta Brunson’s famous friends

Janelle Monae’s Harlem Renaissance revival in Brooklyn

IN CASE YOU MISSED IT:

Inside superstar, Erykah Badu’s spiritual, “sacred” “Badudio” studio

Sports

UConn wins the NCAA men’s title; and, well, LOL

After the LSU win, star player, Angel Reese, named Most Outstanding Player

As usual in America, race came to the fore after the game

Many people, including Shaq O’Neal, rallied to Angel Reese’s defense

Superstar coach Dawn Staley had her say about the coverage of her team

And, boy, did the women’s collegiate game deliver in terms of audience appeal

Books and Literature

An Autobiography of Black Chicago, an older book (1981 & 1991) by the late Black millionaire and Chicago historian extraordinaire, Dempsey Travis, is an overlooked treasure. Born and raised in Chicago, Travis rose from poverty to become a real estate mogul in a town that did not readily extend mortgages to Black people, no matter their financial position. To fight the blatant discrimination, Travis became a mortgagee, in addition to a realtor and property manager. But Travis had to survive as a Black man in America, and the book traces his journey while providing an extremely enlightening glimpse into Black Chicago, and America, during that time.

For example, he and his fellow soldier and bunk mate, “Kansas,” were shot in cold blood in the military, on the base, when “six open Army trucks pulled up, filled with white military police carrying M-1 rifles and double-barreled shotguns aimed directly at us. On signal, the whites turned out all the lights on the east end of the post and opened fire on the unarmed Blacks standing in the middle of the street. We all tried to break for cover, but it was too late. The screams and cries of those who had been shot pierced the hot July night air.” This was life in a segregated World War II American military camp so viciously racist that the federal government changed the name from Camp Shenango to Camp Reynolds. Travis survived three bullets but his dear friend, Kansas, who already had a bachelor’s degree and wanted to become a doctor, was shot in the head and murdered.

The book yields a fascinating account of the sociopolitical fabric of Chicago (with pictures and illustrations) during Travis’ coming of age, and of how deft he had to be to navigate all the racial land mines and still succeed. It also provides a great deal of context for understanding the Chicago of today. Another great feature of the book is that, in Part 2, Travis interviews some of Chicago’s Black elite, including Jewel LaFontant, the first Black female graduate of the University of Chicago Law School, and the granddaughter of millionaire J.B. Stradford whose luxury hotel was burned down during the Tulsa race massacre of 1921. Another not to be missed interview in the book is with Renault Robinson (interviewed here by the the inimitable Studs Terkel), one of the founders of the Afro-American Patrolmen’s League in Chicago. Robinson surgically breaks down some of the components of racist policing and how it is executed to the absolute detriment of Black communities and Black police officers. (There are abridged versions of this book that do not contain the Part 2 interviews. Be sure to get the right edition of this classic book.)

History

Ever hear of Brooklyn, Illinois? Founded by enslaved people and fugitives in the 1820s, Brooklyn is located near East St. Louis, Illinois, in St. Clair County, and it is the oldest town in the United States to be incorporated by African Americans. It was founded as “Freedom Village,” and it is also known as “Lovejoy” (after publisher Elijah P. Lovejoy, the white abolitionist hero who lost his life to rabid white mob violence in Alton, Illinois in 1837). Brooklyn’s town motto is, Founded by Chance, Sustained by Courage, and one of the town’s founders, “Mother” Priscilla Baltimore, purchased her own freedom before helping to settle the town.

IN MEMORIAM:

Randall Robinson, a brilliant leader on the international stage advocating for the liberation of Black people everywhere, as well as a brilliant thinker concerning Black people’s right to reparations, has left us. A prolific author, lawyer, and activist who founded TransAfrica, Robinson influenced world leaders and fellow freedom fighters in pursuit of what’s right. After quitting America, he died in self-imposed exile in his wife’s land of St. Kitts. (His brother, the late Max Robinson, was the first Black to anchor a national network news program.) Rest in Power, Mr. Robinson.

Science

Anarcha, Betsey, and Lucy, and the barbarism these Black women endured at the hands of a slave era so-called gynecologist

News

Yet, another “new manifestation of white supremacy” in the state of Mississippi via the Court system

Mental Wellness

After a traumatic birth experience, seven-time gold medalist Allyson Felix learned to prioritize self-care

What is intimacy? Are you in an intimate relationship?

Just for you; check the innocent gaze

Humor

Create your own fun

Be good to yourself 

Find Peace

Looking at other traditions on the road to finding peace

Feed your mind timeless work: Here is a poem by the late, great former Illinois Poet Laureate, Gwendolyn Brooks about Dr. Martin Luther King centering justice. Ms. Brooks was the first African American to win a Pulitzer Prize—and she was a Chicagoan. Dr. King was murdered on April 4, 1968; celebrate his life today.

Healing

Still Enchanted After All These Years

Editor’s Note: This is an excerpt from an essay about Chicago that explores violence and corruption in Chicago. This excerpt adds context to the discussions about Chicago and violence, and it centers healing in the Black community.

“[Jean Baptiste Pointe] DuSable* was long gone when the exquisite beauty of the City of Chicago, with its ‘Magnificent Mile,’ intoxicating skyline, and 26 mesmerizing miles of shoreline abutting Lake Michigan for driving, biking, running or walking, as well as its luscious and plentiful parks and forests, came into view amidst corruption on a breathtaking scale. Chicago has always brimmed with colorful characters, many of whom readily flouted the law as they trafficked in crime, profited immorally, and jockeyed for control of the city and its people. As early as 1894, English journalist, William T. Stead, met with astounding success when he wrote If Christ Came to Chicago. The writing reportedly sold 70,000 copies the day it was published. Stead, who would later die on the Titanic, had penned an expose charting some of the most scandalous vice and corruption for which the city, which was incorporated in 1837, was already known…

“One of the first documented serial killers roamed middle class society at the time of the tremendous buildup of Chicago, just ahead of the 1893 World’s Fair. This was the same World’s Fair that Ida B. Wells and her eventual husband, Attorney Ferdinand Barnett, protested because of the organizers’ intent to exclude Black Americans’ participation in any significant and meaningful way. While George Ferris, Jr. was perfecting his Ferris Wheel for the Fair, and many of the city’s famed architects and builders were making Chicago a city of exceptional beauty, a pharmacist and con man, whose alias was H. H. Holmes, was carefully constructing what others would dub his “Murder Castle,” heavy with trap doors, concealed rooms, and a sadistic torture chamber.

“Holmes methodically cultivated relationships with women before luring them to his home to murder them, all while presenting himself as an upstanding businessman. Over the course of Chicago’s history, many other serial killers would emerge, including the “Lipstick Killer,” William Heirens, who used lipstick to scribble verse on a victim’s mirror, pleading to be captured because he could not “control himself.” Heirens dismembered two of the three females he confessed to murdering in 1946.

“Violence in Chicago has ranged from the unbelievable viciousness of one of the worst “race riots” in United States history that erupted in the Red Summer of 1919, to the spectacular brutality of the 1929 St. Valentine’s Day Massacre, which most officials connect to Alphonse “Scarface” Capone. But “Public Enemy No. 1,” of course, always denied involvement. Capone, Chicago’s most notorious gangster, along with his “Outfit” extorted saloon keepers and merchants, rigged elections, intimidated voters, had a bomb squad, and, by the time of his death, had been linked to hundreds of murders, all while controlling an inordinate number of city “authorities.” Bold, murderous hoodlums practically ruled the city during Prohibition.

“During the “Sinful, Ginful” 1920s, Al Capone’s “Tommy gun,” aka the “Chicago Typewriter,” was so devastating, with its automatic rapid-fire magazine, that it sparked the passage of the National Firearms Act of 1934 to get it off city streets. The long “Taxi War,” which was well underway in the 1920s, saw Yellow and Checker Cab company drivers brazenly and bizarrely shooting at each other in broad daylight on city streets with bewildered passengers scrunched in terror inside.

“Then there were the two rich University of Chicago students, Richard Loeb and Nathan Leopold, Jr., who, in 1924, kidnapped and murdered Loeb’s 14-year-old cousin, Bobby Franks, in the “crime of the century,” to see if they could get away with it. Bank robber, John Dillinger, was bumped off by the FBI after exiting the downtown Biograph Theatre in 1934. He had been set up by an acquaintance, the infamous “Woman in Red.” Some of Chicago’s other depraved crimes were committed by dangerous extortionists, like the “Black Hand,” who early in the 1900s mailed letters demanding money from wealthy Chicagoans, and by everyday white people who executed inhumane violence, for which they were very rarely prosecuted, including terrorizing many Black families who moved into previously segregated White neighborhoods.

“So the dominant culture’s continuous desire to abuse and exploit the image of certain Black youth, in an effort to make them the face of violent crime, is antithetical to the history of this city. A part of the healing process for the Black community is to understand that Chicago has long been violent. Chicago is a deeply segregated city with a plethora of White ethnic groups, and some members of those White ethnic groups have exhibited belligerent behaviors and aggressions for all sorts of reasons, including politics and racial hostility towards Blacks. It would take volumes of books to examine crime and violence that has taken place at the hands of white people in Chicago past and present.

“Yet, today, it is in vogue to talk about the impoverished Black gang members who menace Black communities. However, some of those gangs were rooted, early on, in the need to organize together, for one thing, to defend against malicious and incessant assaults that met them when they moved into previously all white communities, attended previously all white public schools, or crossed certain streets that whites established as racial dividing lines. The fact that Black communities are routinely disinvested in (and all the ramifications that flow from that, including poor educational systems and a lack of healthy outlets once they become predominantly Black) is a whole other book!

“Part of the healing process for Black people is in knowing that we are not the authors of the city’s violence. We must also understand that horrific physical, psychological, legal, and policy-based violence has been enacted upon Black people. There is so much talent literally trapped in the Black community with no meaningful outlet because of racism, discrimination, and other inequities in this city; so, the level of frustration in communities can reach very high, sometimes toxic, levels.

“Our task, as a people, is to resist internalizing all the horror we have experienced, and to which we have been exposed. Our challenge, in our understandable pain, is to, in the words of the Rev. Jesse Jackson, ‘turn to each other and not on each other…’”

*Jean Baptiste Pointe Du Sable, sometimes written “Jean Baptiste Point du Sable,” was a brilliant Black Haitian who founded Chicago.

Excerpted from Surviving, Healing, and Evolving: Essays of Love, Compassion, Healing, and Affirmation for Black People, by Dr. Rhonda Sherrod (©2015 (Published in 2022)

Erratum: In the last SHE Newsletter, we mistakenly celebrated Megan Piphus Peace as the first Black puppeteer on Sesame Street. She is the first Black female puppeteer on the show.

VOTE!

SHE (Surviving, Healing, and Evolving)

“Unlocking Healing, Fearlessness, and Freedom”

-30-

🤎

HELP us grow our distribution list and forward this email to family members, friends, and associates who might want to subscribe to The SHE Newsletter. It’s FREE. Thanks!