💪With the release of Daring to Struggle, Daring to Win: Five Decades of Resistance in Chicago’s Uptown Community, Shiller looks back on her decades in service to Uptown, Chicago, and beyond. | ✍️ t_annie_howard👇
Courtesy Helen Shiller
Shiller first arrived in the community in 1972, called to move to the city from Racine, Wisconsin, by the Intercommunal Survival Committee , a cadre of about two dozen young, white organizers working under the guidance of the Black Panther Party . For the next 15 years, Shiller was a lively, committed community organizer who focused on the basic survival needs of the neighborhood’s most destitute residents. She lost a closely contested run for alderman in 1979.
Following those elections, which drew the deadlocked council into a draw between its dueling factions, Washington called upon Shiller to run for office. Their twin victories in 1987 heralded a new opportunity to advance the issues that mattered to them both. Many of those issues had been what drove Shiller to move to Chicago in the first place.
“There were so many people in Uptown that needed services that were just being completely denied, and they were all mixed up together,” Shiller says. “People treated them all the same way regardless, so that nobody was having their needs met, and everybody was being manipulated by the machine.” In the years that followed, Shiller and her comrades found themselves in a variety of struggles, from successfully unseating Cook County state’s attorney Edward Hanrahan, who played a critical role in the police murder of Hampton, to resisting the construction of a new City Colleges campus adjacent to the Wilson Red Line station, which eventually became Truman College.
“Don’t give me a label and then decide what I think, unless you’re actually able to understand where I’m coming from,” Shiller says, regarding the smear. “It wasn’t like I didn’t expect it, but it was what I always hated about politics.” Growing up with Shiller as alderman “was a time where young people of color with all different nationalities were able to flourish and be themselves,” Clay says. “Our families were awarded the opportunity to live in affordable homes a stone’s throw away from the lakefront, and all these resources made us productive humans.”
“The last thing they wanted was me to say anything about them and use their name, either positively or negatively, in front of the City Council,” Shiller says. “That wasn’t the point. The point was to get it done, and to figure out the best way to get the attention of a policy maker who could implement what we wanted.”
Having the mayor’s support proved critical with the development of Wilson Yard, Shiller’s final major project and to this day an emblem of her approach to “development without displacement.” Constructed at the site of a former CTA repair station just south of the Wilson Red Line station that burned down in 1996, the five-acre plot became a fertile source of democratic planning within the neighborhood, initiating a decade-plus process to reimagine the site.
Wilson Yard was a high-water mark for Shiller’s time in office, a parting gift for a community that had changed dramatically since she was first elected. By 2007, Shiller saw the finish line in sight: two decades in office had taken its toll, and she resolved to run one final race before she retired.
Much of this speculation has targeted one of the community’s most common sources of housing affordability: single-room occupancies, or SROs. Uptown has long had some of the greatest concentrations of these properties in the city, allowing long-term residents to stay in place for just a few hundred dollars a month.
“I wrote to the new management company, and I said, ‘Do you know what you’ve done? Do you know the level of impact they’ve had on our building?’” Lalonde says. Regardless of next year’s election outcomes, Uptown will continue to be shaped by the competing forces of gentrification and community resistance. Even as decades of transformation have resulted in the displacement of thousands of working-class residents, the bonds that countless people have formed to one of Chicago’s most inclusive communities are not easily broken, even as their physical presence is often lost., an ongoing research project led by UIC professors Anna Guevarra and Gayatri Reddy.
The problems that the neighborhood still faces are hardly unique, as Shiller first grasped decades ago. Their continued presence in the daily fabric of the political battles that define our city and many others is a testament to the long-term vision required for deep social change. Mayor Washington warned others that the necessary transformations would not come quickly, saying, “It will take 20 years to have an impact on institutional racism and institutional corruption.
France Dernières Nouvelles, France Actualités
Similar News:Vous pouvez également lire des articles d'actualité similaires à celui-ci que nous avons collectés auprès d'autres sources d'information.
Love, Charlie: The Rise and Fall of Chef Charlie Trotter - Chicago ReaderThrough these interviews and Trotter’s letters, Halpern compiles a portrait of a control freak. ✍️ LeighGiangreco👇
Lire la suite »
Wildcat Shadow leads you to your darkest desires as a rubber-clad feline - Chicago Reader'I think a lot of people’s early experiences with kink are about exploring their identity and sexuality. For me, I was exclusively trying to pay bills.'-Wildcatshadow | ✍️ JuggaloReporter 📷 Eddie Quiñones👇
Lire la suite »
Witchslayer have finally released the album they should’ve made 40 years ago - Chicago ReaderSecret History of Chicago Music shines a light on forgotten artists with Chicago ties. Up next, 80's metal band Witchslayer, on their brand new album–40 years in the making. | ✍️Steve Krakow👇
Lire la suite »
American Blues plants a whole holiday garden - Chicago ReaderIt’s A Wonderful Life–the 1940's Christmas classic, is packed frame-by-frame with small moments of storytelling perfection, and this americanbluesth rendition is no exception. | ✍️ DanEJakes👇
Lire la suite »
‘NCIS’ Fans Can’t Stop Throwing Fire Emojis at Katrina Law’s Super Daring Instagram‘NCIS’ Fans Can’t Stop Throwing Fire Emojis at Katrina Law’s Super Daring Instagram Outfit
Lire la suite »
Daring operation rescues woman who fell during Red Mountain hikeTeams were able to safely rescue a woman who had fallen on a mountain hike near Ivins, but not before the entire operation was nearly called off because of a drone.
Lire la suite »