Photo: David W. Johnson
Part of the 2020 Best of Chicago edition.
Best Entanglement
The Mayor, The Police Superintendent and the CPS CEO
Three of the highest-ranking public officials in the city don’t see eye-to-eye on everything. And each has to look out for themselves and their jobs before they can look out for the other’s. It’s a soap opera waiting to happen. Just wait. (Bob Arthur III)
Best Griot/Teacher/Scholar/Poet/Living History of Black Chicago
Haki Madhubuti
An architect of the Black Arts Movement, Haki Madhubuti has used both pen and institution building to express his unflinching love for Black people. A poet and essayist, author of over thirty titles and founder of Third World Press, Madhubuti has fought over five decades to keep this home for Black authors and thought alive and thriving. He also founded the Gwendolyn Brooks Center for Black Literature and Creative Writing at Chicago State University, the International Literary Hall of Fame for Writers of African Descent, and co-founded the Institute of Positive Education, New Concept Development Center, and the Betty Shabazz International Charter Schools. At seventy-eight years young, he shows no sign of stopping. His newest offering is “Taught By Women: Poems as Resistance Language,” a collection of new and classic poems that honor women who have raised, challenged or inspired him. Without apology I inherited his deep respect for Blackness, womanhood and the written word. And for this I am forever grateful. (Laini Madhubuti, grants program manager, writer, daughter)
Best Reason to Maybe Judge a Movie by Its Title
The Trial of the Chicago 7
“Anyone who calls us the Chicago Seven is a racist. Because you’re discrediting Bobby Seale.” Jerry Rubin’s words can now be placed at the soul of Aaron Sorkin’s Netflix film—or at the very least the film’s title—that acknowledges Seale (played by Yahya Abdul-Mateen II), but blatantly ignores the historical and racial statement Rubin was expressing in the legendary quote. (Scoop Jackson)
Best Archive of Black Female Architects—And the Only One
First 500
They’re at 493, so far. The First 500—licensed African-American Women Architects—is the national research brainchild of Tiara Hughes, working to assemble an accessible database of archival profiles. With less than one percent holding licensure in America, this group is significantly underrepresented in the industry, creating a cultural imbalance in our built communities. With substantial industry support, Hughes has launched a national lecture initiative to highlight the noteworthy accomplishments of these women. Lecture platforms at National Organization of Minority Architects (NOMA), American Institute of Architects (AIA) and universities and high schools feature the achievements of Black women in creative professions. Hughes, a senior urban designer at SOM, says that “the lectures have inspired Black girls interested in design to pursue a career and those studying to continue their journey.” (Yetta Starr)
Best Long-Overdue Renamings
Frederick Douglass Park and Ida B. Wells Drive
A change is gonna come. For far too long, monuments, street names and other landmarks honoring the names of historic oppressors were the norm. What took years of activism from West Side youth resulted in a notorious slavery advocate having his name stripped from the park and being renamed after the Black abolitionist. And it was only right that the first major street in the city to carry the name of an African-American woman be named after civil rights leader Ida B. Wells. The expressway pays greater homage than the demolished housing projects that first bore her name. (Chris Cason)
Best Chicago Verzuz
R. Kelly V. Kanye West
The best of our worst. The fact that we have to walk around this city and still claim both of these misrepresenters as our own is insufferable and odious at best. If there were two mofos from Chi that Black Chicago wish we didn’t have to speak for—it’d be these two. But they’re ours. For worse and worser. Because there is no “better” when it comes to either of them. (Scoop Jackson)
Best Third Place Momma Leaving Chicago
The Legendary “Momma Lou”
For generations, Louise Dixon Harper—“Momma Lou” to regulars—held down Lawndale’s New Pine Valley Restaurant, which served as the “third place”—after home and work—for mostly the neighborhood. She also served her food to President Clinton and Reverend Dr. King, but after sixty years on the job—the only job she ever had or likely wanted to have—she’s taking her well-deserved leave, due partly to the recent passing of her son and partly to the pandemic. (David Hammond)
1600 S. Pulaski
Best Overlooked Black Medievalist
Georgiana Simpson
Georgiana Simpson became the first Black woman in the United States to earn a doctorate, with a 1921 dissertation on the philosopher Herder written at the University of Chicago. A recent bronze bust on campus memorializes her achievement, as well as the university’s racist housing practices that slowed her time to degree. Less well-known is her medieval expertise; like a handful of other important Black women in the 1920s, Simpson specialized in medieval literature, studying German philology and writing her master’s thesis on a difficult eleventh-century poem. After leaving Chicago, she turned her attention to the Haitian Revolution and was politically active in Washington, D.C. Her thesis remains one of the few Anglophone treatments of the Early Middle High German poem, “Merigarto.” (Luke A. Fidler)
Best Unknown Monument to The Great Migration
Central Station Fragments west of Metra Tracks and north of East Roosevelt Road, Grant Park
Many know and see Alison Saar’s giant bronze statue at 26th and Martin Luther King Drive. Depicting a man with a worn suitcase facing north, it is Chicago’s official monument to The Great Migration. But in Grant Park there is another, lesser-known tribute to the African Americans who traveled north to Chicago. There rest two cornices of Milford granite that were taken from the Illinois Central Railroad Company’s station. These ornate granite blocks were part of an arch under which hundreds of thousands of African American Southerners, who escaped Jim Crow between World War I and 1960, passed. Chicago cultural historian Tim Samuelson says that for many Blacks “catching sight of Central Station was similar to the first glimpse of the Statue of Liberty that European immigrants saw when landing in New York Harbor.” (David Witter)
Best Battle to Tell Harold Washington’s Story
“Punch 9” and “The Greatest Good”
Between Joseph Michael Chopin’s scripted narrative (with Denzel Washington possibly in the lead) to the documentary produced by Raymond Lambert (“Maya Angelou: And Still I Rise”), the story of the single most significant Black politician in the city’s history (sorry, Barack) will be told in the form of film in 2021. At least, that’s the hope. And if nothing else, especially when it comes to Harold, Chicago has the audacity to do just that: Hope… for both. To further document his amazing legacy and meaning. (Scoop Jackson)
Best Reason to Listen to G.C. Cameron’s “Cooley High”–version of ‘It’s So Hard To Say Goodbye to Yesterday”
The Closing of Kenwood Liquors
COVID got the best of so many businesses. Many closings of many legendary places, victims to the power of “19.” But none hit so hard as the permanent closing of Kenwood Liquors on Stony Island. The news of Kenwood’s closing traveled through the South Side faster than cars driving down side streets with no speed bumps. Some people even left flowers on the curb in front of the store. COVID can’t be the full blame for Kenwood’s demise: the vandalism that totaled the store during this summer sealed the beloved institution’s fate. (Bob Arthur III)
Best “I Told You Muthafuckas ‘I’m LIKE THAT!’”
Anthony Davis, World Champion Los Angeles Laker
Oh, we’ve known! The individual success is unmistakable. Seven All-Star nods, four All-NBA selections… but those accomplishments seemed to go overlooked during his first seven years in New Orleans. He wanted the opportunity to play on the game’s biggest stage consistently to remind pundits never to forget the mention of his name when discussions of the game’s best are had. He’s been ready for the moment. The stars just needed to align. They did! Similar to the ones on the flag that rep his home city. Now, every muthafucka knows he’s like that! (Chris Cason)
Best of He Who Represents Us… and How He Becomes All of Our Responsibilities
The Short Story of Tymel Dunlap
Tymel Dunlap is twenty-eight years old. He’s from Lower Chatham. You know how he came up. Brain Dead crew, 82nd St. Noodle Knockas. Tossing up signs. Lowkey rep’n. Weeded out. Smart. Could be out here with a bullhorn and a BLM T-shirt, could be throwing a brick through Macy’s’ window. Could be both. We don’t know. All of Tymel’s crew, dead or dying that slow jail death. Yet. Somehow. Someway. Tymel survived. How? Again, we don’t know. Tymel is one of the best of us, because he still can breathe. Because he’s trying. Because he still—with us not giving up on him—has a chance. (Scoop Jackson)
Part of the 2020 Best of Chicago edition: read the full feature here, or get a copy in print here.
