Last Saturday afternoon, a small but enthusiastic group of activists and community members gathered in Washington Park to play kickball. Class-conscious kickball, that is. The event was part of the Unlympics, a movement that seeks to raise awareness and questions about the prospect of a 2016 Chicago Olympics. Characters dressed as wealthy corporate representatives from Phillip Morris and Walgreens played alongside people playing blue-collar workers and asthmatics lacking proper health care. The events on Saturday were part of a series of “games” organized by the Unlympics Committee. Future competitions include a spelling bee, jump-rope, and karaoke. Read the rest of this entry »

The Woodlawn Center, a mental health clinic that serves the low-income community of Woodlawn, offers its clients a quiet refuge from the harsh and often bewildering realities of the outside world. But on Thursday morning, this inconspicuous one-story building became the site of a heated political protest, as a group of about thirty patients, activists and community members rallied against the potential closure of the clinic. Read the rest of this entry »

The Chicago Neighborhood Tours website boasts that Hyde Park and Kenwood are “where lakefront vistas, ancient history, architecture and Nobel Prizes meet.” Now that Senator Obama, who used to be the neighbor of thousands of proud South Side residents, has become President Obama, the tour company offers the opportunity to “admire distinctively designed dwellings in President Obama’s Kenwood neighborhood.” Read the rest of this entry »

“This little light of mine,” a swell of voices rang out over darkness twinkling with red, white, and blue lights. “I’m gonna let it shine, let it shine, let it shine, let it shine.” The DuSable Museum of African American History Theater was full to the brim with bodies and feeling as visitors sang the spiritual and waved glow sticks in celebration after President Obama’s inauguration speech. Read the rest of this entry »

“Martin should have been born in June,” Rev. Joseph Lowery said, laughing. As the keynote speaker at Thursday’s MLK Commemoration Service at Rockefeller Memorial Chapel, Rev. Lowery spoke to a crowd of a couple hundred people, despite the fact that it was the coldest day so far this winter. Women adorned with fur hats, men dressed in wool coats, and children and students of all ages gathered together to listen to Rev. Lowery speak on behalf of Martin Luther King’s efforts to improve the state of civil rights in the 1960s. Read the rest of this entry »

Today the sight of workers pouring molten steel into molds, sending forth bursts of orange sparks and flames, seems industrial to the point of anachronism. Chicago’s once-famous steel industry has gone the way of much American manufacturing of late; almost all of its steel mills have closed or left the city. A. Finkl & Sons Co. is one of the few that remain. It continues to process over 100,000 tons of steel each year at its Lincoln Park location, cutting a striking sight for passersby and maintaining an active presence in the community. Finkl donates to many environmental and educational causes and has hosted events as momentous as Rod Blagojevich’s gubernatorial election victory parties. It has also contributed greatly to the area’s status as one of the five most polluted zip codes in the city. Now, though, the company is leaving its home of more than 100 years, moving to a more spacious location in the South Side neighborhood of Burnside. Read the rest of this entry »

Of all the speakers chosen for the panel on “Race and the American Voter,” Nate Silver is possibly least qualified for the role. The other members of the discussion are, unlike Silver, mostly minorities; all add more to the conversation than Silver, and when he does speak, he doesn’t really bring up the detailed statistical analyses that made the 2008 presidential campaign predictions on his blog, FiveThirtyEight.com, so remarkably accurate. Nonetheless, Silver is almost assuredly the most well-known speaker in attendance; to the thousands of political junkies w­­­ho frequented his website every day, multiple times a day, until November 4, his name is as familiar as Obama’s, Clinton’s, or Sarah Palin’s. Read the rest of this entry »

2008 ended on a somewhat sour note for Chicagoans.

Sure, it was a bad year for most everyone in a lot of ways, but at least the election of the South Side’s favorite son, Barack Obama, gave us some inspirational hope to go on. Then Hot Rod Blagojevich stepped in and left us a nasty year-end surprise. Read the rest of this entry »