The Burlington Northern Railroad tracks, which carved out a winding ominous road across Chicago’s Southwest Side, form the most permanent ethnic barrier in this isolated city. Before World War II, Jews lived north of the railroad tracks, and Czechs and Poles lived south. Today, trucks separate the neighborhoods of North Lawndale, which is 87% black, and Little Village, which is 85% Latin.
Laura Ramirez, who moved from Mexico to Little Village at the age of 13, just crossed the railroad tracks to catch the “L” with a plus key on her way to Whitney Young High School.
“I hurried home across the border,” Ramirez recalls. “I understand a bit that you didn’t go there. Crossing the railroad tracks, it seemed more disturbed — lots of vacant lots, empty buildings. Little Village was crowded. My My sister went to Farragut, and she talked about how they block the cafeteria as they had a racially motivated gangster fight.
Both sides of the truck were once unified in name — North Lawndale and South Lawndale — when the Black Chicago people began to replace Northside Jewish residents in the 1960s, Southside boosters were in the neighborhood. Renamed Little Village to move away from newcomers, a name reminiscent of “many … farmer’s villages that Bohemian and Polish immigrant stock neighbors remembered or imagined as hometowns of the old country.” Written in AK Sandval-Strauss. Vario America, Little Village Studies.They called it when Mexicans began to arrive in the 1970s La Virita.. (It remains South Lawndale on the city’s community area map.)
“Before the community name was separated, it was always a border,” he said, living in North Lonedale for 62 years. Negative boxing, Westside Youth Boxing Organization. “One was prosperous and the other was trying to get through.”
North Lonedale has lost three-quarters of its population since 1960. More people live in Little Village, a charm of Mexican immigrants, and 26th Avenue is a lively and colorful road with taco stands and stalls. At Shed Park, adjacent to the northern railroad tracks, the boy playing basketball is Mexican. In the parking lot of Kingdom Culture International Ministry, the boy playing basketball on the 19th and in Kezy is a black man.
Efforts have been made to unite the crosstrack. When the new high school opened in Kostner on the 31st of 2001, it was Ald in the 22nd district at that time. Ricardo Munos helped confirm that it was named Little Village Lonedale High and attracted students from both neighborhoods. Just north of the railroad tracks, the currently closed mural of Paderewski Elementary School depicts black and Latin students studying together. But it took a fierce crisis to make both sides of the truck aware that the common problem was greater than the difference.
Last year, a member of a North Lawndale gang stole 90 pairs of shoes from a Korean-owned store in Little Village when downtown Chicago was plundered during a protest against George Floyd’s murder.Correspondingly, Latin Kings guarded outside the 26th Avenue company to prevent looting from spreading. their neighborhood. But beyond protection, they used bats and bricks to attack black-driven cars. In Selmac and Kezy, a black mother and son were separated from the car and the car was on fire.
Community organizations in both regions mediate the end of violence and then “One Lawn Dale.” First, marchers from North Lawndale and Little Village departed from their neighborhood and met on the 19th in Pluskey. The other started on the 26th with Keeler and ended at Douglas Park.
“To be honest, it was the most beautiful experience for an organizer,” said Ramirez, a community organizer at El Foro Del Pueblo, about the latter march. “Some of us have definitely started to become aware of the need for collaboration.”
During the crisis, an organization called Black Lives for Brown Forks raised money to buy toiletries and food for those who were afraid to leave home and shop. Ramirez is now participating in a mutual aid pop-up at Ogden and Plaskey, just north of the railroad tracks, distributing toiletries, toothpaste and diapers to people in need in both regions.
The Firehouse Community Arts Center in North Lawndale hosted a gathering of young people on both sides of the truck designing “One Lawndale” T-shirts. Included Little Village Arch and the former Sears headquarters. “We all got to know each other while exchanging information,” said a boxing match in the neighborhood with “a man named Garcia” at the Shed Park Fieldhouse at an event last August. Kemonte Johnson, who also participated, says.
George Floyd’s turmoil was a “turning point,” says Rev. Philip Jackson of the Firehouse Church. “When they marched in each other’s area, it became a reality. That tension accelerated the One Lawndale movement.”
On the 27th, Aldomedina, the worship director of Nueva Vida, a non-denominational church in Lonedale, says his church has done some joint service with the congregation from the other side of the track. (Nueva Vida is opposite a woman with a “Lawndale Unido” mural depicting black and Latin basketball players and a sign that says “BLACK AND BROWN UNITED.”)
“I feel like there was a community among the pastors, but this year it feels like they were more deliberate about organizing the church,” says Medina.
Churches in both regions participated in the march and protested the killing of a Latin teenager, Adam Toledo, shot by the Chicago Police Department. The incident shows that police violence is affecting both black and Latin communities.
“I think we’re sharing the pain of minorities trying to strengthen each other,” says Medina. “I want to show that we must be together for the younger generation.”
In August, Boxing Out Negativity sponsored a Street Love Ride that began in North Lawndale and ended in Little Village.
“It’s a night ride,” said Olatunji Oboi Reed. Fairness Racial Fairness Movement,I participated. “A lot of energy, music for both the rider and the viewer. We certainly had a strong Latin expression.”
The Burlington Northern Railroad is always there, but both activists want it to have fewer barriers. Latin inhabitants are moving north of the truck to Cermak and Ogden.
“We are bridging both spaces,” Ramirez says. “There is violence and oppression on both sides. The One Lawndale movement has received a lot of attention after last year’s events. There was always an intention to unite the community, but no absolute will.”
Burlington Northern Railroad Breaks Up – Chicago Magazine
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