October 2018 marks the 50th anniversary of John Carlos' Black Power salute at the 1968 Mexico City Olympics. Carlos, a former resident of the Harlem River Homes, alongside his teammate Tommie Smith's action brought to the foreground America's deep rooted racism to an international audience.
This Saturday, October 20, John Carlos will speak at the Parkway Ballroom to discuss his decision to use his platform to fight against racism, as well as the aftermath of his action. A copy of "The John Carlos Story: The Sports Moment that Changed the World" is included with your ticket purchase.
You can purchase your ticket for this informative discussion here.
Imagining America 2018 Gathering
On October 20 at 10:30 AM, join Jamie Kalven, investigative journalist and longtime public housing activist, Crystal Palmer, former head of the Chicago Housing Authority Tenant Patrol, and NPHM staff Lisa Lee and Mark Jaeschke to learn about how we are creating a more equitable workforce in the Museum, informed and inspired by the history of the CHA's Tenant Patrol, a citizen’s initiative that served as an example of social innovation and community empowerment.
This event is part of the Imagining America Gathering, Transformative Imaginations: Decarceration and Liberatory Futures. Conference requires registration.
"The Area" Screening and Storytelling Session at Gene Siskel Film Center
We're extremely proud to share with everyone David Schalliol's new film, The Area during its Chicago premier at the Gene Siskel Film Center of the School of the Art Institute of Chicago this Sunday, September 16, at 5 PM! After the viewing, the Museum's Oral History Corps will facilitate a storytelling session addressing disenfranchisement and gentrification with attendees.
The Area shares a dramatic story of community and displacement that occurred over a five year period in Chicago's Southside, told through the eyes of lifelong activist, Deborah Payne. The film focuses on Norfolk Southern Railway's transformation of 85 acres of houses, once home to over 400 families, into a desolate prairie landscape in the name of supposed economic revitalization.
For all public housing residents that are interested in attending, please e-mail us at info@nphm.org for complimentary tickets!
Robert Smith III In São Paulo
Associate Director, Robert Smith III, addressed a group of artists, architects, and activists at Ocupação 9 de Julho, an urban occupation in São Paulo, Brazil, about the complex history of Chicago public housing. Smith’s talk was part of Chicago’s Architecture Biennial program, A Cidade é um Direito / The City is a Right.
NPHM Awarded IMLS Community Catalyst Grant
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: August 31, 2018
National Public Housing Museum Awarded IMLS Grant for Entrepreneurship Hub
The National Public Housing Museum is one of twelve awardees of FY2018 Community Catalyst Grant
Chicago, Illinois. Today, the Institute of Museum & Library Services (IMLS) announced that the National Public Housing Museum has been awarded the Community Catalyst Grant for $147,083, with funds to support the Museum’s Entrepreneurship Hub. The highly competitive grant received forty-nine applications this year, and the Museum is one of twelve institutions that will be awarded funding for this grant period. The Museum’s community partners for the Hub include University of Illinois-Chicago’s Social Justice Initiative, the Chicago Housing Authority’s Central Advisory Council, Civic Projects, Archeworks, and many public housing residents.
The project is inspired by the resilience of Chicago’s public housing residents who have worked in informal economies as artists, hair stylists, food purveyors, fashion designers, and social entrepreneurs. The Entrepreneurship Hub focuses on Chicago’s homegrown talent and invests in the innovative potential of public housing residents by providing support, resources, and collective imagining as they move their businesses from the kitchen table to the storefront and beyond.
“With the support of the IMLS grant, we are investing in Chicago’s greatest resource–the creativity and resilience of its people, and demonstrating the power of serving community needs in collaboration with those most impacted,” says Robert Smith III, the Museum’s Associate Director who is leading the efforts to create the Hub.
The Museum’s Hub is made up of four parts including:
The Social Justice Business School, a curriculum of classes on economic development economic democracy, cooperative enterprise, small business ecosystems, racialization of space, and neighborhood change.
Open Hours, a drop-in and pro-bono business services for public housing residents provided by Chicago designers, architects, and small business owners,
A Museum Store, as a groundbreaking public housing resident-owned cooperative business
A Storytelling space, featuring workshops that empower residents to share their own stories about entrepreneurship as well as train residents to become oral historians themselves.
“We are excited to play a role in the design and build-out of the Entrepreneurship Hub as the Museum moves closer to completion,” says Monica Chadha of Civic Projects. “The Hub will provide incubation and growth for entrepreneurs and its pairing with the Museum co-op shop creates an ecosystem for businesses to distribute products directly to consumers. The project is a vital component of the Museum’s mission and supports new and innovative approaches to business growth.”
The Community Catalyst Grant supports the work of museums and libraries that push the boundaries of collaboration and innovation within their communities. Through invested partnerships with museums, libraries, and the community developments they serve and interact with, IMLS hopes to create frameworks, tools, and resources that help to strengthen organizational capacity to bring about community change and bolster resilience.
“Social justice activists often know what we are against but this highlights one example of what we are for,” say Barbara Ramsey of UIC’s Social Justice Initiative. “ It offers a chance to experiment with an alternative economic model based on the common good, rather than individual greed.” The Hub is one of the central components of the Museum and will serve as an innovative creative placemaking initiative that seeks to invest in the existing assets of Chicago’s public housing communities to help generate ongoing civic dialogue, transform public perceptions about public housing, and stimulate equitable economic development.
The Museum uses its cultural capital as well as its existing relationship with Chicago Housing Authority to nurture and grow the social and economic capital of low and very low-income people by providing gathering space to share knowledge, giving opportunities to build business skills through workshops, and offering creative, cultural, design, and architectural services to public housing residents in a dedicated effort to help realize their fresh, dynamic ideas. “ By constructing a space for one of the city’s most marginalized groups of people, the Museum’s Hub is one of the most progressive incubators we’ve seen,” says Willie Lewis of the Central Advisory Committee.“ Between the different teaching opportunities that will be paired alongside the Museum Shop, the Hub innovatively allows for financial opportunity and economic mobility for the residents that will be involved with the project.” The Hub is, as one resident put it,“ a hand up, not a handout.” Rather than individualism or self-reliance, the Entrepreneurship Hub at the NPHM emphasizes community, interdependence, and the common good in order to advance sustainability and strengthen the city’s economic, social, and cultural fabric.
About National Public Housing Museum
The National Public Housing Museum preserves, promotes, and propels housing as a human right, and the right of all Americans to a place where they can live and prosper–a place to call home. Led by the indefatigable Commissioner Deverra Beverly, a founding board member of our institution, public housing residents mobilized and organized in 2010 to save one building in the Jane Addams Homes located in the Near West Side on Taylor Street from demolition in order to create NPHM. Residents insisted on a museum that would preserve and tell their stories, particularly after a devastating period of urban renewal that dramatically erased many of their homes from the urban landscape. In 2018, the Museum was deeded the building by the Department of Housing and Urban Development and negotiated a 99-year lease for $1 with the Chicago Housing Authority. When the Museum opens in their permanent space in 2019, it will include the Entrepreneurship Hub, education and storytelling spaces, historic public art sculptures (Animal Court by Edgar Miller), and several apartments recreated and restored with material culture and artifacts based on oral histories gathered by the Museum over the past decade. Current exhibits and public programming are held at the Museum’s offices at 625 North Kingsbury. To learn more, visit www.nphm.org and follow us on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter.
About IMLS
The Institute of Museum and Library Services is the primary source of federal support for the nation's approximately 120,000 libraries and 35,000 museums and related organizations. The agency’s mission is to inspire libraries and museums to advance innovation, lifelong learning, and cultural and civic engagement. Its grant making, policy development, and research help libraries and museums deliver valuable services that make it possible for communities and individuals to thrive. To learn more, visit www.imls.gov and follow us on Facebook and Twitter.
Contact: Mark Jaeschke
mjaeschke@nphm.org
773.254.1621
Museum Closure for Labor Day
In observation of Labor Day, the Museum will be closed on Friday, August 31 and Monday, September 3.
We will re-open at 10 am on Tuesday, September 2.
Earth, Wind & Fire Recap
We had such a wonderful evening at our Earth, Wind & Fire Summer Concert Fundraiser! Many thanks to our board, friends, and supporters of the Museum for helping us raise money for our Oral History Corps project and future exhibitions. We hope everyone's concert experience was as memorable as ours, the soundtrack to the night could not have been more energetic and uplifting!
Pictured above (left to right, click on the images to scroll): 1) Board Member and granddaughter of Robert Taylor, Gail Dugas, celebrating Ann Ruzicka's birthday 2) Reverend Marshall Hatch with NPHM Executive Director, Lisa Yun Lee, and Alderman Jason Ervin 3) Board Member Crystal Palmer with Senator Mattie Hunter and Lisa Yun Lee 4) NPHM Board Members celebrating a successful fundraiser.
A special thanks to our wonderful sponsors, Applegate + Thorne-Thomsen, P.C., Brinshore Development, LLC, East Lake Management Group, Habitat Company, Holsten Real Estate Development Corp., Landon Bone Baker Architects, Linn-Mathes Inc, Amy Reichert Architecture & Design, Site Design Group, LTD, Woodlawn Community Development.
NPHM Oral History Corps Interview Kim Foxx
Colette Payne of the Museum’s Oral History Corps recently interviewed Kim Foxx, Cook County’s State’s Attorney. Foxx grew up in Cabrini-Green and was raised by her mother, Gennell Wilson, who encouraged her to study hard in school.
While she was on the campaign trail, she stated that "We need someone who has a vision to do something different," in reference to her lived experience in Cabrini-Green. Her historic victory as the first African American woman to lead the State’s Attorney’s Office resonants during a time that demands for more transparency and equity from our criminal justice system.
Thanks to Colette for your work!
REMINDER: Earth, Wind & Fire Summer Concert Fundraiser
On August 17th, please join us at our Summer Concert Fundraiser featuring the legendary Earth, Wind & Fire, whose founding members lived in the Henry Horner Homes! The concert is sold out through Ravinia’s box office, but we have a limited number of lawn and premier pavilion seats still available. In addition to enjoying classics like “September” and “Let’s Groove,” attendees have their choice of reserved pavilion seating or a spot on expansive lawn (we supply the chairs!), either ticket will provide access to our private tent with a delicious dinner and an open bar.
We would also like to extend a warm and sincere thanks to everyone who attended the spectacular Mary J Blige fundraiser earlier last month - you helped make this event a success! We enjoyed a wonderful evening with our good friend and guest of honor, Secretary of State Jesse White. Also joining us were 24 Local Advisory Council leaders, NPHM board members, and many generous donors.
NPHM Welcomes Sue Enright, Director of Development!
As Executive Director of National Public Housing Museum, and on behalf of our board of directors it is a pleasure to introduce you to Sue Enright, Director of Development and leader of our capital campaign. We are delighted to welcome Sue as we continue to move forward with
plans to further cement our role in the community with the opening of the museum in 2019.
Sue Enright, NPHM's new Director of Development
Power of Place: the Capital Campaign for the National Public Housing Museum will
advance our mission as a museum, cultural center, and creative place making hub, to
preserve, promote, and propel housing as a human right.
Sue comes to us with leadership experience in the non-profit sector in strategic planning,
management, communications and fundraising. With a life-long commitment to helping others
thrive in our community, she was most recently Director of Development at Lakeview Pantry
where she led the annual fund and capital campaign for the purchase, renovation and furnishing
of their new home.
Sue brings passion and creativity to her work on behalf of others and has demonstrated
innovative thinking and the ability to craft vision into measurable outcomes through fundraising
and the development of strategic partnerships.
As Executive Director I have every confidence in her ability to lead the museum’s capital
campaign. Please join me in welcoming Sue to the National Public Housing Museum community.
-Lisa Lee
Affordable Housing Rally Cancelled
Due to reasons outside of our control, the ReThink Why Housing Matters affordable housing rally next Monday has been cancelled. We hope to announce a rescheduled date soon, so be on the look out for more information.
Mary J Blige Ravinia Recap
Thanks to everyone who was able to make it out to the first of two concert summer fundraisers with Mary J Blige! Despite the wet weather earlier in the day, friends of the Museum were able to spend a wonderful evening of food, drinks, communion, and of course, Blige's wonderful songs. We hope those in attendance had just as much fun as we did! If you want to share photos you took at the event, you're welcome to send them to info@nphm.org! We'd love to see and share them!
Our next fundraiser will again be at Ravania on August 17th and will feature the talent of Earth, Wind, and Fire! The concert is sold out through Ravinia's ticketing agency, but you can still buy tickets through our website here, but tickets are running low for us as well, so grab yours today!
Rally to Support Affordable Housing in Chicago
Join us on July 30th at 11 AM at the James R Thompson Center (100 West Randolph Street) for a rally to support affordable housing in Chicago. Our director, Dr. Lisa Yun Lee will be attendance, alongside our friends J.R. Flemming of the Chicago Anti-Eviction Campaign and author of High-Risers: Cabrini-Green and the Fate of American Public Housing, Ben Austen.
We hope to see you there!
Cabrini-Green Exhibition Visit
We had our friends from Cabrini-Green come visit our exhibition, History Lessons on July 14th. It was a wonderful afternoon communion featuring food, music, and storytelling.
Thanks to our friend, Raymond McDonald, for helping to helping to coordinate the program, we hope everyone had as much fun as we did!
Interested in having a tour of our exhibition? Reach out to info@nphm.org to schedule a tour! The exhibition closes on July 27th.
Dr. Lisa Yun Lee and Brad Hunt on Shelf Life Podcast
In the most recent installment of The Newberry's podcast Shelf Life, Lisa joins Newberry's Vice President and NPHM Board Member, Brad Hunt to discuss the complexities of telling the story of public housing, the power of place, and and some behind the scenes from our current exhibition, History Lessons.
You can listen to the interview here.
Saturday Hours
Photo courtesy of Richard Cahan
We're excited to have open office hours the next three Saturdays, from June 30th through July 14th. We'll be open from 10 AM to 4 PM for those interested in visiting our current exhibition, History Lessons: Everyday Objects From Chicago Public Housing. The exhibition closes on July 27th.
We hope to see you there!
Dr. Lisa Yun Lee Speaks at Chicago Community Conversation
Photo courtesy of Marc Monaghan
NPHM Executive Director, Dr. Lisa Yun Lee, alongside our friends and allies, J. R. Flemming, Dolores Wilson, and Ben Austen, participated at the Chicago Community Conversation. The Conversation, hosted by the Obama Foundation and the University of Illinois-Chicago, featured workshops that focused on the power of young people, the importance of mentorship for urban communities, and the importance of solidarity in the face of historical trauma.
You can read more about her keynote speech, alongside those of bluesman Billy Branch and UIC physician Robert Winn here.
Langston Allston speaks with WGN
One of our current artists in residence, Langston Allston, recently spoke with The Cornerstore on WGN about his life growing up in Champaign, Illinois and how music and comics shaped his identity, gentrification in New Orleans and Chicago, his current series Radiant City, and his partnership with the Museum.
You can listen to his interview here.
One of Langston's pieces, Modern Kitchens, is currently on display as a part of our exhibition, History Lessons: Everyday Objects from Chicago Public Housing.
Langston Allston, photo courtesy of Max Weissman
History Lessons Now Open!
National Public Housing Museum
History Lessons: Everyday Objects from Chicago Public Housing
The National Public Housing Museum is pleased to invite you to History Lessons: Everyday Objects from Chicago Public Housing. The exhibit opens on May 30th and runs through July 27th.
History Lessons features an array of ordinary objects from public housing residents that help tell the extraordinary stories of their owners, including a championship boxing belt owned by Lee Roy “Solid Gold” Murphy, and the leather motorcycle jacket of legendary Cabrini-Green organizer, Marion Stamps. The exhibition will also feature a mural-sized newly commissioned painting by Milton Reed, an artist who transformed thousands of apartments in the Robert Taylor Homes into dreamy landscapes.
Over twenty objects are accompanied by labels written by public housing residents, created during workshops with Audrey Petty, author of High Rise Stories, and award-winning Chicago poet Nate Marshall, as well as interview-based labels conducted by photo-historian Richard Cahan. “What we have found is evocative of what life was like in Chicago public housing,” says Cahan, who co-organized the exhibit with the Museum’s Executive Director Lisa Yun Lee. “The shortest distance between two people is a story,” Lee says, “and these objects help to tell both the beautiful and troubled history of public housing in Chicago and the diverse experiences of those who survived and thrived in those communities.”
The exhibition also includes our new Animal Court Audio Story, a collection of oral history interviews recorded in the past year by the Museum’s Oral History Corps. The audio features public housing residents and their Near West Side neighbors, including Desiree Davidson, Dennis O’Neil, Ida Brantley, Blanche Winston, and Mary Baggett, as they reminisce about these enchanting animals.
You can listen to a story collage that spans decades of memories by calling (312) 348-7834.
The recordings included in the story were conducted by Shirley Alfaro, Shakira Johnson, and Francesco de Salvatore. The audio stories were funded by the Terra Foundation for American Art.
The exhibition is reachable by public transit. Ample street-meter parking surrounding the office is available as well as a public parking lot at 520 North Kingsbury Street, which charges $12 per hour at the corner of Grand and Kingsbury.
This event is wheelchair accessible. Individuals requiring sign-language interpreters, real-time captioners, or other accommodations should contact Mark Jaeschke at 773.245.1621 or mjaeschke@nphm.org at least one week in advance of the event.
Summer Fundraisers: Mary J. Blige and Earth Wind & Fire
The National Public Housing Museum is pleased to announce that we are bringing you two wonderful fundraising concert events this summer featuring performances from Mary J. Blige and Earth Wind & Fire at the Ravinia Festival.
These concerts are a unique opportunity for you to not only help contribute to the work at the Museum, but to also enjoy an evening of music created by former public housing residents. Blige, originally from the Schlobohm Projects in Yonkers and Earth Wind & Fire, which had founding members that grew up in the Henry Horner Homes, and now features David Porter and Maurice White of the Foote Homes Projects in Memphis, will be performing on July 20th and August 17th