Equally important to Madhubuti is the library that spans two rooms on the building’s main floor. Yes, the arts, including jazz music and paintings, saved his life, but books are where it all began. Madhubuti says a copy of Black Boy by Richard Wright, which he found in the Detroit Public Library, initiated his mental and physical escape from a life of poverty more than 50 years ago.

This is the 40th anniversary of Third World Press (TWP), one of two African-American owned publishing houses in the country. Madhubuti – poet, publisher, educator, institution builder and community activist – remains on his grind. Once an impoverished child and teen engulfed by anger, Madhubuti now unapologetically works for the betterment of Black people of all cultures.

A winding staircase leads to Madhubuti’s dark, wood-paneled office. Dressed in his signature button-down shirt and sweater vest, Madhubuti settles into a comfortable leather couch. Above him is an oversized self-portrait representing the days when his pen and birth names were the same: Don L. Lee.
He changed his name in 1973 to Haki Madhubuti, which translates from Swahili to mean just, precise, accurate and dependable.

Today, the neat afro in the portrait has been replaced with thinning, cropped, curly hair. Standing 6’1”, Madhubuti has filled out a bit from his youth, but he keeps in shape thanks to regular yoga classes, bicycling and a strict vegan diet. His focus on what he considers “wellness living” began in the late 1960s, when he reassessed his life intellectually, philosophically and materially. “In the early days, we worked 16 hours a day,” he recalls. “I had to find a way to write and do everything else without losing it.”

Madhubuti drew on the discipline he learned between 1960 and 1963 when he was in the U.S. Army, a time marked by firsts, including eating three meals a day, which was a big deal for someone who grew up in extreme poverty. Before that, school lunch often was his only meal of the day, and he paid for it by cleaning up his school cafeteria. The military provided mental nourishment as well. He read a book a day, concentrating on Black and African history and political science, and he listened to jazz greats like Miles Davis. Reading and music provided a refuge from the harshness of a newly racially integrated military.

Forced to conform in the military, Madhubuti emerged a critical and singular thinker and more committed than ever to empowering people. He chose poetry as the vehicle to drive the change, in line with the Black Arts Movements of the 1960s. “I’m a poet first,” Madhubuti says of the anchor that gave him his early start in publishing and continues to ground him. He used money collected from poetry readings to buy a copy machine, and in 1966 he started printing books from his basement apartment at 63rd and Ada streets in Chicago. A year later, Third World Press was born.

Since then, TWP has published more than 300 books in a wide range of genres, including history, political commentary, economic development, psychology, education, biography and poetry. At least four TWP books have sold more than 50,000 copies. Madhubuti has written 28 published books of his own, including a 1991 book of essays, Black Men: Obsolete, Single, Dangerous?: The Afrikan American Family in Transition, which sold a million copies. The Covenant with Black America, edited by talk-show host Tavis Smiley, became a New York Times bestseller in April 2006 – the first title by an African-American book publisher to reach the top position in the 60-year history of the New York Times’ list. But Madhubuti is most proud of publishing the work of acclaimed poet Sonia Sanchez and his 33-year mentor, Gwendolyn Brooks, Illinois poet laureate from 1968 until her death in 2000. “I don’t measure turning points only in monetary terms,” Madhubuti says.

TWP has been the only viable option for some African-American scholars and researchers wanting to publish serious work. Take, for instance, The Sanity of Survival: Reflections on Community Mental Health and Wellness by Dr. Carl C. Bell. Other publishers weren’t interested in a book about African-American mental health needs. TWP answered the call and published Bell’s book in 2004.

TWP hasn’t embraced the popularity among Black readers of urban novels and titles lending  street credibility–titles such as Street Love, Get Money Chicks and It’s Like Candy: An Urban Novel. Madhubuti says he doesn’t want to help glorify what he calls “street culture,” which he believes keeps Black folks mentally and physically in bondage.

Holding fast to the conviction that when you know better you do better, Madhubuti aims to be a “cultural father” to youth, especially those at risk. It’s a concept he writes about in his 2002 book, Tough Notes: A Healing Call for Creating Exceptional Black Men. He writes that if he were the father of slain rap stars Biggie Smalls and Tupac Shakur, they would still be alive. “Cultural fathers stop bullets, just like available jobs stop bullets,” says Madhubuti. “And my sons are alive and they’re doing well.”

One of his three sons, Akili Lee, 27, is a spitting image of Madhubuti in his younger years. A vegan like his father and just as tall, with locks that hang below his shoulders, Lee is the director of the Digital Youth Network at The University of Chicago Center for Urban School Improvement. “There’s a responsibility we have to give back to the community,” says Lee, echoing his father but emphasizing that Madhubuti didn’t push his philosophy on his six children. “It’s just the natural thing to do.”

Lee says his parents, who have been married for more than 30 years, set high expectations for their children. (Their mother, Dr. Carol D. Lee, also known as Safisha Madhubuti, is a professor at Northwestern University.) These high expectations were reinforced by the Madhubutis’ friends and co-workers, many of whom taught at the Institute of Positive Education, a group of community-based schools which they founded together in 1969.

Madhubuti’s success is in striking contrast to his start. He mother, Maxine Graves Lee, died at the age of 35 when he was 16. “My mother was in the sex trade and she was an addict,” he says. “There was nothing I could do about it.” His father was alive but not involved in the family, so Madhubuti was the man of the house and worked multiple jobs to help support his mother and sister.

With nowhere else to turn, Madhubuti joined the Army. He sent half his pay to his sister, Jacklyn, who had three children before the age of 20 and six by the time she was 30. Madhubuti writes about both his sister and mother’s extreme beauty in his 2006 memoir, YellowBlack: The First Twenty-One Years Of A Poet’s Life. He also writes candidly about his mother’s alcohol and drug addiction. “I had become stone as my mother’s condition worsened each day,” Madhubuti writes in YellowBlack. “The lowest season of my remembrance was when she stole my bank and used my savings to feed her habit.” No wonder Madhubuti avoids both alcohol and drugs.

After the army, Madhubuti enrolled in college, transfering between various Illinois schools before completing his bachelor’s degree and then earning an M.F.A. from the University of Iowa. He began teaching English at Chicago State University in 1984 and helped establish the school’s M.F.A. Program for Creative Writing, the only one of its kind centered on Black literature, as well as the Gwendolyn Brooks Center for Black Literature and Creative Writing.
He is still on faculty at Chicago State, currently teaching a class called “Writers at Work.” It’s all part of Madhubuti’s commitment to consciously surround himself with everything good. “Most people hate going to work and they work for people who don’t even like them,” he says. “But I don’t hate anything I do.”

Madhubuti has touched the lives of an extraordinary range of contemporary African-American artists. At the recent 40th Anniversary Gala for Third World Press, held in September 2007, Madhubuti was feted by family, community supporters and local and national celebrities. Author Walter Mosley shared the stage with actress and community activist Ruby Dee. At an October 2007 event called “Verbs & Vibes” at Chicago State University, Madhu­buti was accompanied by flutist Nicole Mitchell and her band, Black Earth Ensemble, as he read his poetry. Mitchell recalls how Madhubuti allowed her to work a flexible schedule as a graphic designer while she completed undergraduate and graduate studies, and also moonlighted as a musician. Now a music professor and full-time performer, she says Madhubuti inspired her to create her own music label, Dreamtime Records.

“A lot of people can have ideas, but to be able to actually manifest those dreams and have continual longevity is a different challenge,” Mitchell says. “Haki’s institutions have stood the test of time.”

“There’s this utopian ideal that we’re all supposed to live together in peace and harmony,” says Christina Santiago, Andersonville resident and an employee at Howard Brown Health Center, which provides healthcare and services to the gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender community. “The segregation is happening within our own community, which is the saddest part of all.”

It wasn’t so long ago that Chicago’s rainbow-ensconced Boystown neighborhood was a thriving lesbian community. Then a population of predominantly white, affluent gay men decided to call it home. Wielding the power of two disposable incomes, gay men bought up the homes and storefronts faster than you could say “gentrification.” According to U.S. census data, gay men earn 80 percent more than the median household income. Lesbians, unable to compete or keep up with housing costs, were forced to move north to Andersonville.

Now lesbians are faced once again with an involuntary shifting of borders. Boystown has been so successfully gentrified, many gay men can’t afford to live there any more. Andersonville is the next logical progression. Queer friendly and wholly more affordable, it offers everything that Boystown no longer can.

However, many Andersonville residents have already noticed the small community feel and affordable property being compromised. “Affordable housing used to be around $200,000. Now it’s somewhere around $300,000, which limits the pool of buyers,” says Joseph Summerville, a Chicago realtor for more than 20 years. Ten years ago, high-end housing in Andersonville cost approximately $400,000, according to Summerville. Today, property on my street goes for $1.3 million.

While gay men seem to feel quite comfortable in Andersonville, lesbians can’t say the same about Boystown. We notice that bars there are slow to serve queer women, and some residents make it obvious that we’re not wanted. On more than one occasion, strangers have sidled up to me and said, “Oh, I didn’t know this was a lesbian bar.”

Meanwhile Stargaze, Chicago’s only official lesbian bar, is being infiltrated. Dee, a 10-year Andersonville resident and bouncer at the bar, has noted an increase in the number of male patrons over the past year, despite the fact that Andersonville is now jam-packed with gay male establishments.

Chicago’s queer community is divided. Lesbians feeling the palpable intolerance of Boystown would like their own community where people look like them instead of, unnervingly, at them. So where do we go next? How much farther north can the lesbian community travel?

“As a landlord, I can tell you that in the last few years, as lesbian renters have turned to condo ownership, they have looked to the more affordable Rogers Park area,” says property owner Victoria Vasconcellos.

But there are those who feel Rogers Park isn’t safe enough for a two-woman household due to its higher crime rates. Older lesbians have found a home in Oak Park, immediately west of the city, which has a domestic partnership ordinance and is known for its efforts to promote diversity and be welcoming to gays and lesbians. But Oak Park isn’t a great place for twenty-something lesbians in search of culture, community and nightlife.

“When I stepped into Andersonville it was very women-specific and very lesbian. That was home,” says Santiago. “I want to find a new Andersonville. I don’t know if that exists yet.”

It was a weekend celebration where graffiti got the recognition and respect it deserves. Called the Meeting of Styles, the 4th annual International Graffiti and Hip Hop Festival drew graffiti artists from across the country, allowing them to “unify together,” in the words of Seel Fresh, one of Chicago’s leading graffiti artists.

To the left of the train tracks, a group of young boys scribbled their names in permanent marker, mimicking the graffiti artists nearby. And why wouldn’t they?

“It’s unbelievable how some of these guys can do what they do… including myself,” said Wise, sarcastically patting himself on the chest.

The murals were amazing. Wall pieces ranged from themes about the mafia and the sky to cell phones. The outdoor exhibit ran along Kedzie from from 24th to 36th street. “The best in Chicago, or in the United States if they decided to fly out here, will be placed on 30th street,” Wise said.

The event kicked off with a gallery event showcasing and selling the work of artists such as Stef, Mayor, Trixter, Denz, Prove, Kato, Demon, Thor, Nerd and Zore.  Outside, crews such as S3 (South Shore Slayers), CRS (Contemplating Real Schemes), LUV (Lurking Under Vapors), TD4 (The Deadly 4mula) and CAB (Cold Ass Brothers) showed off their “notoriety.”

“Graffiti is all about notoriety,” said Seel Fresh.

“I flew here from New York,” said Vik, 21, one of the only  girls in the festival. “My friends make fun of me because I flew all the way to Chicago, but this is what I love to do.”

Non-celebrity offenders often face stricter penalties. Students whose partying gets out of hand can suffer consequences ranging from loss of financial aid to jail time.

Most colleges have stiff substance abuse policies, including zero tolerance for first offenders. The Columbia College Student Handbook states the school may “legally prosecute with criminal charges” students possessing, using or distributing illegal drugs on campus. DePaul University students are subject to school-ordered completion of an appropriate rehabilitation program and/or expulsion. Roosevelt University’s drug policy is similar to Columbia’s and DePaul’s, but that school also reserves the right to file civil charges against student offenders.

Although these stiff penalties relate to drug use, alcohol abuse also poses a host of potential problems, including the obvious danger of drinking and driving. Alcohol use increases the chances of a person committing or being the victim of violence. And underage drinking can lead to legal problems for adults present at the party.

So how do you confront a friend who has a drinking or drug problem? Drew Burns, a senior marketing and communications major at Columbia College, faced that dilemma with a friend who couldn’t remember what he had done during his drinking binges.

“I confronted him about the issues in his life,” Burns says. “It took him a while to deal with those things, and he is better now. He’s still a partier, but not as much.”

The first step is recognizing the signs of a serious partying problem. Some are obvious: Your friend wakes up with a stranger after a wild night of partying, or is unable to remember anything that happened the night before. But the biggie is denial.

“One of the hallmarks of drug and alcohol addiction is [a person’s] own ability to have insight into the fact that what they are doing is potentially dangerous,” says Dr. Matt Mills, staff psychiatrist at the Cook County Jail. “Once it becomes a problem, they try to explain away their habit as if the dangers and pitfalls that apply to others don’t apply to them.” Rationalization and denial are common defense mechanisms people use when confronted about their habits.

The answer to denial is assessment—getting the friend to take a hard look at exactly how often he or she is partying and how much of the substance in question he or she is ingesting. “Early intervention is available where you count your use and get a better idea of what could happen if you continue to use,” says Donald Hamilton, client assessor at Chicago’s Haymarket Center, a treatment facility for substance abuse.  In addition to programs for full-fledged drug abusers, the Center offers help to those who believe drugs might become a problem and for those using the gateway drug, marijuana.
For Burns, the intervention succeeded. He confronted his friend and encouraged him to face the issues that were causing him to party. Over time, he  saw the partying become less extreme. Their friendship survived, too. “It wasn’t pleasant,” Burns says of the confrontation. “But he is still my friend.”

The signs of alcohol abuse include:

• The need to drink in certain situations
• Frequent intoxication
• A steady increase in the amount of alcohol consumed
• Solitary drinking
• Early morning drinking
• Denial of drinking
• Family disruptions over drinking
• Blackouts or temporary amnesia
• Continuing to drink despite the ­consequences

The signs of drug addiction include:

• Inability to have fun without doing drugs
• Sudden changes in work or school attendance and quality of work or grades
• Borrowing or stealing money or possessions
• Angry outbursts, mood swings, irritability
• Talking incoherently or inappropriately
• Deterioration of appearance and grooming
• Wearing sunglasses and/or long sleeves when unnecessary
• Avoiding friends who don’t use drugs
• Secretiveness

The block’s tranquility isn’t mirrored within the school; there is nothing quiet about Southside Occupational. A vocational public high school for students with mild to severe cognitive disabilities, it operates at almost 150 percent capacity—so full that the administration no longer accepts incoming students. This decision affects a wide geographic range of children. Southside educates students south of 55th street, west to the city border and all the way to Indiana, says Gwendolyn Mims, in her third year as Southside’s principal.

The overcrowding has forced the school to conduct classes in the garage, where students sit on plastic chairs atop the damp cement floor, blanketed by a ceiling of rafters covered with a dark, thick, unidentified substance. The class syllabus is posted on the rolling garage door. Other classes are held in the greenhouse, where the glass panels convert sunlight into sweltering heat in warmer months and offer little insulation from Chicago’s frigid winter air. The activities hall has been converted into two classrooms, separated by moveable cloth dividers. On one side, a young language arts teacher attempts to instruct her students over the echoing vocational training of a janitorial class on the other.
Down the hall, senior boys shoot hoops in a gymnasium smaller than those in standard elementary schools. A boy stands dazed beneath the hoop, transfixed on something the rest cannot see. One of his classmates throws a basket. The ball bounces a foot from his face. He stumbles back as though in slow motion, keeping the same expression.
Mims notices his strange behavior. “What’s wrong today?” she asks.
He shrugs. “Nothing.”
As she turns to exit the gymnasium, she confronts another student walking with his P.E. instructor. “Were you acting up?” Mims asks him.
“We just needed to take a walk,” says the gym teacher, explaining that Tom* was arguing with Billy*. When Mims calls Billy over to talk about the problem, Tom’s relaxed expression immediately hardens. He points a calloused finger directly at Billy and pantomimes slitting his throat. “No! You’re not going to cut this throat,” Mims says without missing a beat. “We don’t fight here.”

The incident is resolved within minutes. The boys smile sheepishly and Tom salutes Mims and returns to the gym.
Students like this would likely be suspended or expelled under “zero tolerance” policies at conventional schools. At Southside, educators understand how differently individuals with special needs sometimes express themselves. “Zero tolerance is theoretically directed at students who misbehave intentionally, yet it also applies to those who misbehave as a result of emotional problems or other disabilities,” according to a 2000 report by the American Bar Association’s Juvenile Justice Committee. At Southside, teachers and administrators are able to make this distinction.
The school day is a chronological string of distractions for educators and students. They practice math equations across the hall from pounding and sawing that resonates from the woodshop; teachers bring their supplies with them throughout the day on what they call “classes on a cart.”

“Not having the space to provide the kind of instruction we are known to provide really limits what we can do with the students,” says Mims.

Unlike traditional schools, Southside focuses on helping students become as self-sufficient as possible. Students learn basic skills like cooking, laundry and personal hygiene, in addition to social rules, and laws and consequences. Individuals physically and cognitively able to enter the workforce after graduation are placed in entry-level jobs with assistance from the Bridge program, which helps low-income or low-skilled adults obtain job training.

The facility, built in 1987, has been overcrowded for about 10 years, Mims says. It was designed to house 150 students and currently serves 223, though enrollment once peaked at 250. To address this problem, Southside stopped enrolling ninth and tenth graders five years ago. Students attend conventional high schools during these years, and Mims feels the transition limits the effectiveness of the students’ education. With less time to teach life skills in addition to academics, Mims is concerned “they don’t get the best use of their time to really drill the independent living skills. Our emphasis is to teach them to navigate the community and teach them entry level [skills].”

Students with disabilities are entitled to a free and appropriate public education until they are 22 under the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, but Mims feels the longer students can be educated in this type of setting, the better chance they have of success.

Even with the delayed entry age, students are often turned away because they can’t be accommodated. “They don’t have anywhere else to go because once they’re done with their two years [at a] conventional high school, they want them out,” says Tracy Navarro, a language arts teacher at Southside. “Most of the time they just end up getting lost somewhere, sitting at home and doing nothing.”

Mims says they can apply to other occupational programs in Chicago at the Ray Graham Training Center, Northside Learning Center and Las Casas Occupational High School. But those schools also are  overcrowded, and they are far away. She doesn’t know what happens to the growing number of students Southside can’t accommodate.

Southside isn’t a high priority for the Chicago Public Schools because of the current emphasis on inclusion, which aims to integrate students with disabilities in traditional schools. While integration may be beneficial for some students, Mims says the vocational and self-help training they need aren’t offered in conventional schools. “I don’t know how successful our students would be in a regular program all the time,” she says.

She’s not alone. Many educators have “serious reservations about supporting the widespread placement of pupils with special education needs,” according to a 2007 report issued by the International Journal of Special Education. Mims is proud that her school is able to do many of the conventional activities of regular schools, like high school dances and sporting events, while still providing them with the life training they need.

“We’re teaching the skills that they need in real life,” says Navarro, noting that she could not teach the way she does in a conventional school. “It really is a disservice to our students to be cramped up in here.”

On October 24, parents and teachers fed up with Southside’s overcrowded conditions voiced their concerns at a school board meeting. Chicago Public Schools officials acknowledged the need for change at the school and promised a solution within two weeks. But two months later, as Echo goes to print, a decision had yet to be made, and the school’s future remains uncertain. “I don’t know [if the school could close],” Mims says. “I would hope not, but I really honestly don’t know.”

*Students’ names have been changed to protect their privacy.

The students branch off into the four separate high schools within the large building: Multicultural Arts; Infinity Math, Science & Technology; World Language; and Social Justice. As they walk through the halls, the students barely notice the officers; police patrols and metal detectors have become a common sight in Chicago Public Schools and schools across the country due to the increase in youth violence, school shootings and gang crime.
In the Little Village and Lawndale communities on Chicago’s southwest side, violence is a particularly big issue. “We had an excessive amount of students killed in Chicago Public Schools last year, the highest number in many years dying from gun violence,” says Linda Becker, a Social Justice teacher who has taught in various Chicago schools over the past 10 years.

In the past two weeks, there were three gang-related incidents. The first was minor—two students of different races fighting. The second was much worse, as two large Chicago gangs, the African-American Gangster Disciples and the Latino 26s, chased and physically assaulted a group of students during a conflict.
After that incident, students began asking members of the administration to walk them home so they wouldn’t have to go through gang territory alone. The following day, Principal Rito Martinez and Assistant Principal Chad Weiden of Social Justice High School were accompanying several students when they saw gang members attack two students from Infinity High School. Though Martinez and Weiden were able to break up the fight, the two students were injured and hospitalized.

The students say they witness incidents like these all the time. “We just try to ignore it,” says Manuel,* a freshman at Social Justice, shrugging his shoulders.

A fresh start
Although the gang issue isn’t new, Little Village Lawndale High School Campus is. The school opened in 2005 after a 19-day hunger strike by local parents protesting the unmet promise that a new school would be built. Today it stands out in an otherwise industrial area. Among trash-littered freeways and graffiti-sprayed buildings, the school is a place of hope and safety.

Before classes begin, students take off their coats and hoodies and put them in brick-red lockers lining the halls. Wearing coats in class isn’t allowed in most schools, but in Little Village, hoodies are banned because they’re a sign of gang affiliation. (Wearing gang symbols or colors also is prohibited.)
“As a teacher, it’s really hard because you have to look at kids and go, ‘Are you wearing [gang] colors or is that just your shirt?’ You don’t necessarily know,” says Emily Alt, a young teacher from Michigan who came to Little Village to teach World Civilization and African-American and Latino Literature.

Alt often uses references to gangs to help students comprehend the subjects she’s teaching. Today, the freshmen in her World Civilization class are learning about the Roman Empire. Unlike her sleepy students, Alt is wide-awake and borderline hyper as she compares the power struggle of the Roman Empire to the struggles between gangs for power, territory and money. While some of the kids have difficulty understanding how governments function, they clearly know how gangs work. Understanding empires is only a step more complicated, and the comparison immediately makes sense to most students.
Unlike many CPS schools, Alt and other teachers at Social Justice are open with their students about gang activity. “This school addresses gang issues really clearly, and they don’t pretend it isn’t there,” says Becker, who teaches social studies to juniors and seniors across the hall from Alt’s classroom. Becker credits this openness with making it easier for students to approach the administration with gang problems.

Finding their voices
During Advisory, a shortened class period where students can talk about what’s going on in their lives or do homework, Alt tries to empower her students by encouraging them to open up. “When you have power, or you have a sense of power, you’re a lot less likely to get so down on yourself that you do look at a gang as the only way to pull yourself up,” she tells her students. “What we really want to emphasize here is that regardless of your skin color or race, your gender, your sexual orientation, you all need to take ownership and realize that you have the power to change this.”
For the most part, however, the students keep quiet about gang affiliations or the way gangs affect them. They understand that incriminating themselves could mean expulsion, and exposing friends or family members with gang ties could mean an arrest or separation from people who are important to them.

Also, while teachers have a fairly good idea who is in a gang, they don’t actively look for gang members. The importance of keeping kids in school is often more pressing than finding out who is in a gang.
“We now have zero tolerance in schools,” says Oscar Contreras, an outreach worker for CeaseFire, which provides resources and education to communities to help reduce violence. “It’s easier to kick a problem child out of school than it is to work with him.” But when students are expelled or suspended, they can spend the entire day getting into trouble. “If you throw that kid out of school, where’s he going to go? What’s he going to do?”

Social Justice High School rewards its students for staying away from violence. A poster on the wall in the entrance of Social Justice shows a thermometer with 60 lines and an arrow. If the students go for 60 days without violence, they get a skating party. Right now, the arrow sits at one because of the recent violence.

Alt’s last class of the day is her African-American and Latino Literature class, where she encourages her students to speak more openly about their lives in discussions and writing assignments about race, class, stereotypes and society. The class is about half the size of her other classes, and the chairs are arranged in a circle facing each other. The students are reading Our America: Life and Death on the South Side of Chicago. The book is a series of interviews by LeAlan Jones and Lloyd Newman for a National Public Radio documentary.
Although not all the students like the book, most of them relate to the troubled South Side community and the violence that occurred there more than a decade ago. Alt asked her students to write their own memoirs. Some students included fun events like birthday parties, but others included stories about the hard times they’ve faced in Little Village and Lawndale. In an assignment earlier this year, Alt asked what they considered the biggest problems in their community. “Gangs was one of the things almost all the kids listed across the board,” she says.

Alt says her version of the Freedom Writers curriculum, in which students are urged to write about their community, isn’t that revolutionary. “It’s basically just giving kids a voice,” she says, which is important to keep them out of gangs. When youth feel like an important part of the community, they’re less likely to search for that sense of power through gang affiliation, which would give them power and belonging, but not necessarily safety.

Handling Harrassment
Within the fortress-like walls of Little Village High School, the students have that sense of safety, which they may not feel on the outside. On their way to and from school, gang members harass them, asking “Who you with?” and “Where you from?”
Elena*, a sweet, soft-spoken girl, says members of one gang kept asking her to “throw up the bunny,” a hand symbol for the 26 gang. “I said, ‘I don’t know how to throw up the bunny,’ and they’re trying to teach me and I’m like, ‘I don’t know how to do it.’ They don’t believe you and they don’t go away.”

Some gang members threw bottles at her as she drove home from the store with her older brother. “We had little kids with us, and they saw. We were stopped at a red light and were all scared, so my brother just passed the red light to get out,” Elena says.

That kind of harassment causes some kids to join gangs for the protection they offer. Freshmen are at the prime recruitment age, Alt says, when they’re most insecure and unsure of the world around them. Children as young as 11 and 12 are often pulled in to push drugs, because if they get caught, the consequences will be much less severe than for older teenagers and adults, Contreras says.

Other kids join gangs because their friends are in them, or because of troubled home lives, Contreras says. But even good kids with good families can get pulled in. Becker recalls an especially bright student who joined a gang as a sophomore. “I cried, because I knew where he was going,” Becker says. “I knew I wouldn’t see him senior year. He’d be gone. And he was. He was in jail.” When the student was finally released from jail, he was shot four times by a rival gang member and ended up paralyzed.
That’s the kind of situation Little Village Lawndale High School Campus hopes to prevent by offering better alternatives. Becker notes that even in the bleakest neighborhoods in the city, less than a quarter of the students are involved in gangs. The rest need opportunities to help them stay out of the crossfire.

The students know what those opportunities look like. “Programs, like baseball,” Juan* says hopefully. Corina* says she wants to see a dance program.

“Parents. They gotta be more involved with the student,” adds David.* “When a kid feels left out he’s going to do something he’s not supposed to do because he feels left out. He wants to be a part of something.”
The kids also say they want strong role models, like outreach worker Contreras. And, of course, they want to be heard.
“We really try to love on them a lot and give them a lot of support,” Alt says. “Hopefully kids feel like they have more of a chance when they’re here.”

As the school day ends, a voice interrupts the jazz music on the PA system to announce, “Due to the violence that has been occurring off campus, we feel it might be a dangerous bet to have a dance this Friday. We want to keep everybody safe, and in order to do that, we want to take as many precautions as possible. So again, our homecoming dance has been postponed. It will occur sometime in November around Thanksgiving break. But I do apologize for any inconveniences, and I do encourage all students to do their best and check each other so that this kind of violence does not prevent any other of our extracurricular activities. As long as we continue to have days of peace, our school dance will not be threatened again.”

The students file out of the school. The halls, which had been vibrant with laughter and chattering student voices, are eerily silent.

*Students’ names have been changed to protect their privacy.

This story is written in memory of Miguel Gomez, a 16-year-old sophomore at the School of Social Justice in Little Village High School. Miguel was shot and killed on Nov. 8, 2007 in the crossfire of gang violence. Miguel was the only child of Celso and Marcolina Gomez, who planned to send him to Mexico to live with his grandparents for a few months. Miguel was the eighth Chicago Public School student killed this school year.

At the root of all of this is the concept that one person’s story might be another person’s pay day, that it is possible for a writer, musician, artist or filmmaker to capitalize off of someone’s personal history. This concept is increasingly relevant in the wake of high-grossing box office documentaries, reality television, and both written and visual art. If I tell your story, what compensation do you deserve?
“People have the right to protect, and potentially profit from the tangible manifestations of their ideas,” says lawyer Amy Cook, who specializes in intellectual property issues. “You don’t necessarily have to get someone’s permission to tell their story. Sometimes, it can be a detriment because the subject may try to exert too much control.”  This is the gist of intellectual property law.

From the beginning, Thomas and Legler knew they wanted to include their subjects in the project.  Everyone was thrilled that the MC5, robbed of the fame they had so deserved, was being resurrected. “Right from the start, everybody assured us that they were a hundred percent behind the project,” Thomas says.
With the help of several attorneys, Thomas and Legler set up their own company, Future/Now Films, a limited liability corporation that would act as an umbrella to protect its members and distribute any potential profits. Everyone involved in the film enthusiastically joined Future/Now Films. Everyone but Kramer, who was presented several times with the documents but delayed signing them, particularly after seeing the marketability of the finished product.
“He was heading us toward a stick up,” Thomas says.
“In my opinion, if a party won’t sign an agreement, you probably shouldn’t enter into a working relationship with that person. It will most likely lead to headaches down the road,” Cook says. “Sometimes people think ‘making’ someone sign an agreement means you don’t trust them. It’s just the opposite; it will preserve a good relationship.”
Despite their strained relationship with Kramer, Thomas and Legler promoted the film. They spent a year on the International Film Festival circuit. The film premiered with great success at 12 festivals, including Chicago, Toronto, San Francisco, and Tribeca.  The cast was elated, but Kramer continued to demand control of various aspects of the project that Thomas and Legler had no way of granting.  Sometimes he would take his complaints to the press. “I have been telling the story of the MC5 all my life. It belongs to me and my partners in the band, not Future/Now Films,” Kramer wrote in an open letter on April 1, 2004.

“He had confused the fact that his image was up on the screen with the idea that the film somehow belonged to him. It was his to make money from. It was his to take and do what he wanted. And being a participant was not good enough for him,” Legler says.  “He fell back on old gangster behavior.”
After one grueling year on the International Film Festival circuit, the film was picked up by Sony BMG, the second largest distributor in the country. Nine years of meticulous work finally was coming to fruition. There was just one little glitch. Warner Chapel, the company that owned the rights to the music, suddenly refused to give Thomas and Legler the licensing deal they had been promised. Intimidated by such a large corporation, Thomas and Legler hadn’t been able to get the agreement in writing. Without the music, a documentary about a rock band had no chance of making it.
“It’s like helping a little old lady across the street and you feel great about it and you turn around and realize she stole your f***in’ wallet,” says Thomas of the double cross.  “We immortalized his story for him and he spit on it.”
Kramer went on to make his own movie about the MC5, Sonic Revolution: A Celebration of the MC5.  When the movie did not meet Kramer’s expectations, he sued Thomas and Legler for more than $50 million for losses incurred from halting distribution of their movie, the very halting he had legally insisted on.

He remains unapologetic.  “I’m no saint,” he wrote in the aforementioned open letter. “I’ve been to prison, I’ve been to skid row, I’ve been homeless and in rehab and have known some shady characters in my day, but rarely have I come across people whose actions have been as cowardly, unprincipled, duplicitous and fundamentally dishonest as Dave Thomas, Laurel Legler, and their attorneys.”
In federal court, Thomas and Legler were vindicated. “We didn’t screw anybody.  That was just a story he made up,” Legler says. “Winning the lawsuit was all that we needed to put that all safely behind us.” But it will be difficult for the filmmakers to start any new ventures.

“Our investors never saw their money back,” Thomas says. “They’re still entirely supportive of us and great friends but we can’t go back and ask ‘em for money for another movie at this point.”
So how could such bad things happen to such good artists? Cook, who is on the board of Lawyers for the Creative Arts, an organization that provides free or low cost legal aid for artists, recommends that artists begin by knowing the legal aspects of their projects. (Visit www.law-arts.org for more information.) She emphasizes that intellectual property has value and is not free for the taking.

Though they know they’ve made a fantastic film, Thomas and Legler have, for the moment, parted with their dreams of mainstream distribution. The faces they’ve filmed so closely, so passionately, haunt them now.
“We breathed life back into the serpent,” Thomas says of Kramer.  “We re-animated the corpse. But the head and the heart, they were gone.”

Echo: How did it feel to go to South Sudan with the men on their first return in more than 20 years?
Jen Marlowe: Being a witness to these young men at an incredible time in their lives was very intense. It was a discovery of their past, and it represented hope for the future as they try and rebuild their homeland. One of the young men, Gabriel Bol Deng, just graduated from Le Moyne University in Syracuse, N.Y. with a degree in education. He is raising money to build a school for his village. Another man, Koor Garang, lives in Tucson, Arizona and is studying to become a nurse. He has raised thousands of dollars to take medical supplies to his village. The third young man, Garang Mayuol, lives outside Chicago. He wants to raise money to build a water pump in his village.

Echo: What’s the desired end result of your current project?
JM: A few things, including a feature documentary film, Rebuilding Hope. Proceeds from the film will go to support the three young men’s various projects. We went with a journalist David Morse, who’s working on a series of articles and a book. We received grants from the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting, and the Nation Institute’s Investigative Fund helped fund us to travel to South Sudan to document what is happening there.

Echo: The media coverage of the Darfur crisis and other parts of Sudan seems to go in cycles.
JM: One thing neglected in media coverage is what’s happening in South Sudan. Yes, recently there has been coverage of the Lost Boys as local human interest stories because they are here now in the States, but there is a very large absence of current coverage of South Sudan. This includes what happened since the signing of the Sudan Comprehensive Peace Agreement in 2005. And even though the Darfur coverage comes and goes, it’s always entirely in isolation, instead of looking at Darfur as a piece of a larger whole that includes South Sudan. There’s a larger pattern of marginalization and oppression going on in Sudan.

Echo: How would you describe the character and strength of the Sudanese people?
JM: I found in Darfur, South Sudan and in other parts of the world some of the most inspirational examples of humanity have come from people who have faced and witnessed some of the worst atrocities imaginable. As much as I support movements that encourage us to work in solidarity with other people in the world, we must never underestimate people’s strength, courage and resilience. Any work we undertake with them, we must always have a respect for their human dignity.

Echo: How has filmmaking in Sudan changed your life?
JM: I had never made a film before, so using film as a form of activism was brand new to me, and something I’ve embraced and worked on in subsequent projects. I had never worked deeply in Africa. My focus in previous work had been in Palestine, Israel and Afghanistan. I began speaking out about human rights issues affecting us worldwide. I started understanding more about the global power structures and the high stake investment in keeping the world working the way it currently is, which is on a collision course.

Echo: What’s the most challenging aspect of being a filmmaker in a war-torn country?
JM: It’s the feeling of wanting to be able to provide something in the moment beyond what I can do with my camera. You feel completely inadequate when you’re confronted with such overwhelming needs, and all you can do is photograph and document it.

Echo: Does that feeling keep you wanting to do more?
JM: Yes. That’s a part of why when I’m working on a project. I want the local communities to experience direct benefits from the work. For example, some of the proceeds from the book Darfur Diaries: Stories of Survival, the film screenings of Darfur Diaries: Message from Home, and our speaking engagements go toward funding four schools in the Darfur villages where we filmed.

Echo: What can Chicagoans do to help Sudanese people?
JM: I suggest working in partnership with the local Sudanese community in Chicago, and finding out what they need. They’ll have firsthand information about the struggles they’re having as immigrants and refugees. And they’re very tapped into their home communities.

“Um, excuse me. What are you?” he asks.

“Excuse me? What am I?” I reply.

“Yeah, my friend and I walked past here and saw you. We were wondering what you are.”

“Funny,” I say. “I thought I looked like a human. Have a nice day, sir.”

The man gives me a disgruntled look and turns away, mumbling under his breath. Oh well, another day, another rude “what are you” question.

Maybe working alone at a kiosk makes me an easy target. Maybe if I didn’t wear such big hoop earrings, or pants that hugged my curves instead of hiding them, or if I cut my hair short instead of letting it sway at the bottom of my backbone, I wouldn’t have to explain to people “what” I am. But then again, I’ve been asked this question my whole life. I don’t look 100 percent Sicilian or 100 percent Mexican; I can’t speak fluent Italian or Spanish to tongue-roll around the qualifications of being considered one or the other. I don’t have blonde hair or thin thighs, yet I don’t have curly hair or an accent either. It isn’t obvious what race I am. This is what I assume they mean when they ask “what are you?”

What ever happened to “What ethnicity are you?” Or “What decent are your parents?” Asking “What are you?” feels like an insult, whether it’s meant to or not, which is why I reply, “I am a human. Can’t you tell?”

Truth is, I know what they are trying to ask me. I just don’t feel the need to answer a question that shows someone is paying more attention to my looks than my voice. Particularly with dating, I find it amusing when men consider me “exotic”…I know, weird. I never tried to figure it out, but today, as I sit on my bed next to my Chihuahua, Muchacho, I realize it’s time I try.

The first time I remember wondering about race was back in second grade. Ms. Timpson handed out the standardized tests and told us to begin. At the top of the page, we filled out the empty lines: name, grade, birthday, teacher. Then, something that confused us all: race. There were several little boxes, but we were supposed to shade in only one. I raised my hand and asked the teacher what to do.

“Just shade in Caucasian,” she said. So I did. I was far more interested in which Ninja Turtle my grandma had waiting for me back at home, or what outfit I’d put on my Barbie next. Looking back, I wonder why Ms. Timpson didn’t ask me what ethnicities I am. I guess since everyone else in the school was white, she figured I should be, too.

In middle school, I decided I should check “other.” I am not white non-Hispanic, I am not Hispanic non-white, and so I am “other.” The first time I marked “other,” I remember I felt like an alien, like an outsider, like I couldn’t just fit in somewhere.

The 1950 Census was the first to attempt to identify individuals with mixed heritage by offering a box called “other.” In the 2000 Census, people who are mixed were finally allowed to check more than one box to identify their race. The categories are White, Black or African American, American Indian or Alaska Native, Asian, Native Hawaiian and Other Pacific Islander, Some Other Race, and Two or More Races.

Wondering what happened to the “Hispanic” category? It’s the new “other.”

In the 2000 Census, “other” includes people who are Moroccan, South African, Belizean, or of Hispanic origin (e.g., Mexican, Puerto Rican or Cuban). And the new “Two or More Races” category is for respondents who chose more than one of the race categories. So, if I were to take a standardized test today, I could choose between checking the “Two or More Races” category, or I could mark off “white” and “other.”

Being multiracial has its ups and downs. I am proud of my race, but sometimes I sense that others think I should feel shame. I realized this when I was looking for my mom during one of her employer’s charity events, and I saw a man who had been talking to her earlier.

“Do you know where my mom is?” I asked.

“Who’s your mom?”

“Christine Palazzolo. She’s got brown hair, light skin, she’s Mexican…”

“Mexican! What? Don’t say that about your mother. She’s Italian!”

“Um, no, sir. She’s not. That’s my father’s last name.”

“Well geez. Don’t tell people your mother is Mexican, young lady.”

I was stunned. I turned around and decided to keep the night peaceful. Maybe this was why my mother always passed for Italian when she was younger—to avoid the criticism. I realized that the stupid remarks I get are nothing compared to what my mother must have received. It seemed less acceptable from her generation to be of mixed or minority race. I am so grateful that being multiracial is more acceptable now.

I understand that I am unique, and in recent years I have come to terms with it. In grade school and junior high, I was not so comfortable. I would come home everyday crying because there was another song making fun of the way I looked, or another incident where someone called me “ghetto booty ho.” The one that hurt the most was a song called “apples and oranges,” because I was the only girl in school developing. Since no one else was, I must have been using apples and oranges to stuff my bra.

I don’t look like the crowd I grew up around. My skin is olive-toned; my hair and eyes are dark. I am a short little thing, as I always was, and my figure since day one was equipped with thighs. In the summer, I turn a golden brown, the skin of my father’s Sicilian decent, yet in the winter I might as well blend with the snow. My Sicilian eyes, colors, and last name can make some guess that I am Italian or of some European decent. But my Mexican nose and lips have people confused as to what race I am. And oh how it bothers some people that they cannot decide what category to put me under! And it’s to the point where they stop in their steps, or tilt their head in the middle of my sales plug, and ask “What are you?” Once again, I am a seven-year-old asked to choose from the boxes.

But now that I’m in college, I realize there are many people like me who are of multiple backgrounds. Mutts and proud. And my eyes have opened to what I wish I would have known when I was younger. I realize now that I don’t have to choose what “race” I am. I don’t have to explain what “race” I am. And I don’t have to answer questions I find rude.

A lot of my inner issues with my “race” changed when I went to my parent’s house this past summer. They were ecstatic about the patio; it was finally done after all these months. I walked through the door, and made my way to the back. As soon as I got to the screen door, my mom said “It’s the eagle and the medusa!” She was smiling with her red lipstick on (as always) and motioned with her hands. Sure enough, the left side of the patio had the Sicilian flag’s medusa, and the right side had the eagle of the Mexican flag. My dad stood on top of the steps overlooking his creation.

“Nice, huh?” he said.

“You have no idea,” I replied.

My thoughts rewound back to when I walked in the front door and saw the American flag dancing in the wind above my address. My parents’ families went through hell to be here, to be American, and I am here because of them. I am multiracial. I am “other.” I am American.

“I also tell them to have a working knowledge of everything going on in the industry,” says Baker, an Illinois native. “It makes you more marketable. It gives you options.”

Baker started out as a photographer in Champaign, Ill., then worked as a broadcast news reporter, producer and video editor in markets from San Diego to Orlando, Fla. Throughout all these moves, Baker relied on Rose, a 25-year ABC7 sports anchor and reporter, for critiques and industry advice. And when NBC5 hired Baker in 2003, Rose proved his biggest cheerleader.

“I saw Rose at a Bud Billiken parade, and he was screaming and shouting my praises,” laughs Baker.
Rose, too, had a mentor: Warner Saunders. “I’m continuing the chain, so to speak,” Rose says. “As an African American in an industry in which we’re underrepresented, I understand that the few who try and get in need all the help they can get. I had one request,” he says of the help he gave Baker. “That he do the same.”
So what makes Baker an effective mentor? For starters, his work ethic. That’s something interns and budding journalists can emulate, says Geoff Glick, NBC5 sports producer. “He’s very driven,” Glick says. “He’s very hands on. He wants to get the information first hand—from the horse’s mouth—and he involves the interns in the news-gathering process.”
That was the quality that led Wiley to take Baker under his wings as one of his dozen or so mentees. “You had to make the cut with him,” Baker says, recalling the popular author and contributor to ESPN.com and ESPN’s Sports Reporters and SportsCenter. “Ralph was very good at instilling confidence and keeping you focused on the big picture.”

Wiley died suddenly in 2004. His obituary hangs in Baker’s office among the awards and trophies, college sports schedules from Baker’s alma mater, the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and life-size posters of sports greats Michael Jordan and the late Walter Payton. The obituary cover reads, “All a man’s got is the integrity of his work.”
Lesson learned.