Altgeld Community Has High Hopes for Chicago
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- WBEZ
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- WBEZ (Chicago, Illinois)
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- cpb-aacip/50-84zgn3km
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- " Altgeld Gardens is about as far as you can get from Grant Park and still be in Chicago. Photographer Richard Cahan and I were there just as the sun was coming up the morning after Barack Obama's election. SAULTER: OUR PRESIDENT! Barack Obama.. HE DID IT !! ( laughs ) WHoaaaaaa This is good. From dawn until dusk, that's the kind of joy that burst out of the dozens of people who stopped to talk with us. They feel they have a special connection to Obama. But we also heard something else: High hopes.. and very high expectations of the man who did some of his early organizing work here. SAULTER: My name is LaQuita Saulter & I'm the laundry attendant here at 927 E. 131st St & I'm just startin' work.. I'm just comin' in .. So, this is the laundry facility ! PAUL: " How" -- well I'm not gonna say " how " -- WILL this change things? BASS: Yes it will.. It will change things definitely because we finally have a chance as Democratic Americans.. I think that our children will have better schools. The education system is gonna be better. Job-wise we will be okay. And I don't think we will have to struggle as hard. BASS: When I heard Obama won.. I was overwhelmed. And I was in my room and I just kept screaming & screaming: No words LIKE WHOOOO!! TINNEL: It was out of joy. It was like a new 4th of July. It was actually history, like, we came to the point where we have a black president now. Adella Bass and Latoya Tinnel are waiting for a bus to take them to Fenger Academy. PAUL: Does the world feel different to you in any way? BASS: Yeah , It really does. I actually feel like free. I feel like a bird, like happy. TINNEL: Yes. ( laughs ) Like the weight have been liftedoff your shoulders.Yes CAHAN: Altgeld Gardens. You think it'll get better cuz of Barack ? TINNEL: Yeah, yes BASS: Public housing in general will get better. And I think with the education, everything gonna be so much better. TINNEL: I think that's gonna be pushed because, like, okay Barack gets people to look forward to. He SAYS he's gonna make a change in education. We can go far. So I'm really lookin' forward to it cuz I know I really wanna go to college.. PAUL: And you two ladies. What are your aspirations?. What are your career goals ? BASS: MY career goal is I'm going into the nursing field and just do all the different levels of nursing. TINNEL: My goals are to become a pediatrician and I want to minor in cosmetology. Just as we're finishing up, Artease Coley rolls by with his car window down. COLEY: Let me play that again for you. It's my morning anthem and it should be everybody's morning anthem.. Now listen ! COLEY: Now we can interview ! I had to get that out. I HAD TO ! I feel better now. Young Jeezy made that song. His name 'Young Jeezy.' PAUL: What is he talking about in there ? COLEY: Okay, he say my president is black, my Lambo is too and I be God-damned cuz my rims ain't too. I mean, it's just, it's just so much PAUL: How might this country change? How might this world change? COLEY: Okay, my perspective and my personality...I woke up with a whole new attitude. It's just time to look forward.. No more looking back. No more blaming nobody. It's just this is the time, I think, now, as a race we need to get together, just come together, stop killing each other and just prosper. But I honestly don't think anything's gonna change overnight. Because it's gonna take time and just because we have a black president and a new president, doesn't mean anything's gonna change overnight. I mean, not even in a few years. I'd say, it's so much a big mess it's gonna take a minimum of two terms for any president to fix this problem we in now. COLEY: What's good ? A man has pulled up along-side us in his car COLEY: I don't even KNOW you. Sorry about that, I don't talk to strangers. You guys, you media. Or you radio. Cool. You PERFECT strangers. He look like "no good" strangers. I don't sell drugs. I don't do none of that. So what you want me for ? CAHAN: Oh, you didn't know him? COLEY: NO! And I don't walk up to nobody I don't know. He cudda shot me, see? I try to avoid situations like that. And like the police say, you gotta be on your toes ( honk ) at all times. We leave Artease Coley, walk a block or two, and come upon Tyrone Nelson who's out on his front porch. We're encountering a lot of euphoria, but it's sometimes tempered with a dose of reality. NELSON: See, I'm kinda old. I remember back when Kennedy was elected and everyone thought automatically that Civil Rights was just gonna pass through. And it took Johnson, you know, to sign the Civil Rights Act. Some of the things we have to do as far as the economy, unemployment, housing, foreclosures; you know, it's gonna take awhile. Helloooo Mr. Nelson has invited us into his living room. We meet his 95 year old mother and then settle onto his comfortable leather couch to talk about life at Altgeld. NELSON: Through the years, I think, people collectively -- I'm not saying everyone, but too many.We have a tendency to be passive and we don't fight. Well, we'll complain, gripe among each other. But we won't stand up. I think a lot of people have been groomed not to challenge authority HAZEL JOHNSON: That's why I say it's the master. They tell you, you do this -- you got to do it! If there's anybody at 'The Gardens' who has always challenged authority, it's this lady: HAZEL JOHNSON: And a lot of people being threatened with eviction. And a lot of people scared to say anything. Hazel Johnson's been around for awhile. As a founder of the local group "People for Community Recovery,"" she's one of the few people who actually remembers when Obama was here : HAZEL JOHNSON: Now when I was working with him, I never had no idea. I know he was an ambitious young man.. He was nice, polite, very mannerable. You know, I know he wanted to go beyond what he was, already. But I had NO IDEA that he would go THAT far. And I'm very proud of him. Very proud. Johnson worked with Obama on some environmental issues, and recalls how unusual he seemed at the time. HAZEL JOHNSON: It was more womens out being active in the community. We didn't have that many men. And to see a real young man to come out to work with a bunch of womens. I though that was awesome and I know he was highly intelligent. So you know, that went a long ways with me. CHERYL JOHNSON: This is my life. This is my calling, I believe. Today it Hazel's daughter Cheryl who heads 'People for Community Recovery.' For about 30 years they've battled PCB's, toxic waste, asbestos and ignorance about related health issues. CHERYL JOHNSON: If someone out in the community died of cancer, they say, "Oh, she just had cancer."" No conversation, anything like that. When it comes to someone got shot in the community, they'll say: "Oooh. Who shot him? Why he got shot? Where he got shot at?" So much information generated from it. But when it come to cancer, nobody wanna question.. Just "oh, she got cancer." Because we think it's that normal in our neighborhood.. PAUL: Environmentally, is this a reasonably safe place to live in? CHERYL JOHNSON: I would say no. It's fifty documented landfills in this area. And only 2 companies are active. We have 18 mile of waterways around my community, but 11 miles is unfit for human consumption & recreation. So when you put all those together you just got a TOXIC SOUP. And we live in a TOXIC DONUT. CHERYL: Hey Jason. I needed to call you, too. ( sighs ) Cheryl Johnson has to conduct some business with a call that's just comes in. Seems they have to raise some money to keep the phones turned on. CHERYL JOHNSON: Yeah, it's always a challenge. As a not-for-profit for 30 years and still got to worry about telephone being paid, getting our gas back on before it get too cold. That's the reality of our organization to do what we do everyday. PAUL: You're tired, aren't you ? I can see it. CHERYL JOHNSON: No, I'm just frustrated. It's just hard right now. Just gotta come up with different strategies to do different things.
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- Sound
- Credits
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: WBEZ
Editor: Sam Stalling
Producing Organization: WBEZ
- AAPB Contributor Holdings
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Chicago Public Radio (WBEZ-FM) and Vocalo.org
Identifier: (unknown)
Format: audio/mpeg
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- Citations
- Chicago: “Altgeld Community Has High Hopes for Chicago,” WBEZ, American Archive of Public Broadcasting (GBH and the Library of Congress), Boston, MA and Washington, DC, accessed April 25, 2025, http://americanarchive.org/catalog/cpb-aacip-50-84zgn3km.
- MLA: “Altgeld Community Has High Hopes for Chicago.” WBEZ, American Archive of Public Broadcasting (GBH and the Library of Congress), Boston, MA and Washington, DC. Web. April 25, 2025. <http://americanarchive.org/catalog/cpb-aacip-50-84zgn3km>.
- APA: Altgeld Community Has High Hopes for Chicago. Boston, MA: WBEZ, American Archive of Public Broadcasting (GBH and the Library of Congress), Boston, MA and Washington, DC. Retrieved from http://americanarchive.org/catalog/cpb-aacip-50-84zgn3km