Several days ago I posted a picture of Chicago taken in the early 1950’s. The picture was looking North on Michigan Avenue near Grant Park. A green bus was heading northbound through the intersection. The women in the picture were all wearing skirts, the men brimmed hats. They were all white.
The post read "Chicago in 1954... everybody minded their own business and still took care of their neighborhoods." Close to fifty people gave a thumbs up or a heart. Most of the comments were nostalgic, but two of my friends didn't see eye to eye with me.
Two well educated and successful men that I respect greatly. One of the men is married to a woman of color. They are raising their two children on the near Southside of Chicago in I believe the Bronzeville Area. The other man worked with me on the trading floor and is currently an expatriate living in Nigeria.
They see the historical value of Chicago a little differntly than I do. I see a Chicago with clean streets and well manicured citizens. I see a Chicago that has a faith in itself, in its government and in the services that it provided. Chicago had neighborhoods and Catholic parishes that ran smoothly by alderman, ward bosses, priests and capos.
I look at historic pictures and see neon lights, table clothes and torn down train stations. I see pictures of buildings that once stood and pictures of buildings that still stand, but stand in the shadows of the modern age.
My friends see pictures of hastily built housing projects and expressways that divided neighborhoods. My friend from Bronzeville posted pictures of an uglier side of Chicago. A Chicago seen through segregation and racism. He made his point that not everyone sees Chicago the way that I do.
My other friend who once took a college course taught by James Baldwin said to me, " you are the kind of guy that will celebrate Mandela and then post the above. Think long and hard before you respond."
I didn't start thinking, I just started typing. The first thing that I did was look through my 1,300 Facebook friends. I did a rough count of how many of my friends are of color and counted close to two hundred. I don't know if that is a good amount or not. I thought about those 200 people and wondered if they saw the picture from 1954. Were they offended and did they share similar views with Vincent and Jeffrey?
Here is my conclusion.... if I didn't post that picture, I would have never seen or heard the otherside of the story. History is an important lesson. The common thread that we all have is the history our family handed down to us. Then we went to school and learned more about history and social studies.
Several years ago I took the Shepkids to the 31st street beach. Just north of the beach is a boulder with a plaque for the 1919 Chicago Race Riots. We stopped and read the words on the memorial and talked about what they meant. The Shepkids learned on that beautiful summer afternoon about the ugliness that has lerked in Chicago.
Last week I posted a picture that showed the beauty of Chicago and that triggered a Chalkhead to show us the uglier side of the city on the lake.
Yes, I post about King, Mandela, Angelou and Langston. Yes, I post about the Daley family, the Capone family and the Accardo family and I glorify the machine and the mob.
When that picture was taken on Michigan Avenue, projects were being built in the ghetto. The Dan Ryan expressway was built to segregate the white neighborhoods from the black neighborhoods. I can't go back and change it, but I can make sure the Shepkids won't have to.
Today I quoted Tolstoy... it is hard to be patient in the short lives that we really do have. In the grabber section I counted 10,000 days into the future and 10,000 days into the past. That is just over twenty-seven years.
We all know what we were doing in September of 1996, but we have no clue what we will be doing in 2051.
2051 seems like an eternity, but 1996 was just yesterday.
Don't think about that right now. Think about the later sunset today and that I put a smile on the sun.
.... and be kind!
