chicagotribune--2020-07-13--A neighborhood photographer gives a voice to Latino essential workers during the pandemic: ‘We need

A neighborhood photographer gives a voice to Latino essential workers during the pandemic: ‘We need to tell our own stories’

“ There was and still is not enough community outreach to help our immigrant population comprehend COVID-19 and all its @ @ @ @ @ , even if they understood , no hay de otra , ” they have no @ @ @ @ @ he said .
“ They wanted to keep working because it is instilled in us @ @ @ @ @

Mateo Zapata works a scene on July 7, 2020. Zapata is a neighborhood photographer who has been taking photos of essential workers during the pandemic. (E. Jason Wambsgans / Chicago Tribune)
When the pandemic hit the Chicago area, Mateo Zapata was worried. Not necessarily for himself, but for the people in his community.
He knew “that Black and brown people would be left behind.”
Advertisement
“That (coronavirus) was going to hit us hard,” said Zapata, 36.
When the stay-at-home order was announced March 20, he immediately thought of his local street vendors, the ones he learned to love growing up.
Advertisement
“How are they going to survive without being able to go out and sell?” he asked himself. “What if they get sick? They don’t have the income or resources to stay home.”
For many Latinos, staying home was never an option. Some live paycheck to paycheck and many more have jobs that are considered essential. But Zapata saw a lack of focus from the government and mainstream media on Latinos’ stories, even after COVID-19 cases began to spike in majority-Latino neighborhoods throughout the country..
Zapata, a freelance photographer who lives in the Heart of Chicago neighborhood near Pilsen, wanted to make sure the lives of his neighbors and fellow Latinos become a part of history by being “genuinely” documented, allowing their voices to be elevated, he said.
So he put on his face mask and gloves, grabbed his camera and began to document “the experience of Latinos during the pandemic.”
Since quarantine started, Zapata has photographed and recorded in Pilsen and other neighborhoods on the West and South sides in Chicago.
“We need to tell our own stories to preserve its essence, its rawness and realness,” he said. “Too many times our stories get distorted because they come from an outsider’s lens, a predominantly white lens.”
There’s Don Carlos Nuñez,a man who sits outside businesses on 18th Street to play traditional ballads with his guitar. Then there’s Anthony Montana, a construction worker who stopped by La Providencia at 21st and Paulina streets to get lunch.
And among at least 30 more, there’s Juanito, the carnicero, a butcher at Carniceria Maribel, another little corner supermercado at Cermak Road and Wood Street.
Advertisement
“These are people that kept our neighborhoods running and that probably will never be recognized for it,” Zapata said.
“Juanito has been working full-time throughout the pandemic as your local neighborhood carnicero. (hero),” Zapata wrote in the caption of a portrait of the man standing behind the counter, wearing a white face mask and a faded red baseball cap.
The butcher’s full name is Juanito Lopez, a 26-year-old native of Guatemala. Lopez has been working at Carniceria Maribel for nearly five years and went from stocking the shelves to one of the store’s butchers, said owner Alejandro Banda.
Banda, whose grandmother opened the supermarket in 1990, says the pandemic raised a lot of quandaries for the store. And he is grateful for Lopez and the rest of the store’s employees, who “fearlessly” kept working.
Mateo’s portraits are powerful, Banda said.
“Its message is meant to keep us, Latinos, together,” Banda said. “We are responsible for taking care of our elders, our children, our essential workers, of each other, because nobody else will.”
Advertisement
Like other supermercados, Carniceria Maribel was deemed essential and remained open through the stay-home order — “Luckily,” Banda said.
In addition to chronicling individuals’ stories, Zapata is determined to help his beloved immigrant-owned businesses, many of which were already suffering the strains of Pilsen’s gentrification, he said.
So he created a video featuring restaurants and businesses and their workers in Pilsen, urging people to support them. It has been shared hundreds of times and viewed more than 42,000 times through his Facebook Pilsen Taco Fest page, which promotes a summer festival that Zapata curates during the summer.
Support Your Pilsen Locals Because of all the support we receive every year from local businesses we decided to show our support for them during this pandemic and remind everyone in our community about the power of investing in our local economy. Sending lots of love out to Casa Índígō, Don Pedro Carnitas, Carniceria Maribel & all of the small businesses out there doing what they do every single day. This Public Service Announcement was shot and directed by Mateo Zapata. #FromTheCommunity #ForTheCommunity #Fuerza #Comunidad #StillPilsen #Amor #LaDiezyocho Posted by The Pilsen Taco Fest on Tuesday, April 28, 2020
Zapata also noticed government agencies and other institutions were doing what he said was “very little” to address the growing number of COVID-19 cases in Latino neighborhoods. So he produced a bilingual public service announcement to promote coronavirus safety measures, urging people to wear their masks and to continue social distancing.
The video features people from Pilsen and other neighborhoods on the Southwest and West sides.
“Our people need to hear the message coming from their own neighbors,” said Gabriel Hernandez, one of those in the video.
Advertisement
Hernandez, his wife, Maryellen Alanis, and their son Adrian Hernadez appeared in the video standing in front of El Popocatepetl Tortilleria, 1854 W. 21st St., wearing face masks.
He and his wife have been fortunate enough to be able to work from home.
“But many of our elderly family members and friends had to go out to their factory jobs.” Hernandez said in Spanish.
Two of his older friends contracted coronavirus and died of COVID-19, Hernandez said.
“There was and still is not enough community outreach to help our immigrant population comprehend COVID-19 and all its risks, but for many, even if they understood, no hay de otra,” they have no choice but to work, he said. “They wanted to keep working because it is instilled in us,” he added.
Zapata’s video is designed to help people understand that “while they must keep working and living life, the pandemic isn’t over and we must take safety precautions to make sure we don’t lose more of our people to this virus.”
Advertisement
Zapata has shared his photos and videos through his social media accounts, which have gained followers in recent months. Although a few publications have used some of his photos, they’ve asked for permission, he said. But he doesn’t want to sell them.
“I just want to make sure people know what our (people are) about,” Zapata said.
“They are hardworking despite the pandemic. They are still living and smiling despite their pain and struggle,” Zapata said. “I want to utilize my skills as a photographer, as a creator to try to raise awareness on the importance of community.”
With that same mindset, he set out to photograph the Black Lives Matter protests of recent weeks. A native of Colombia, he has strong Afro-Latino and Indigenous Chilean roots and he wanted his images to help combat anti-Blackness in the Latino community and promote unity, he said.
He does not have any particular agenda and does not plan to affiliate with any organization or program.
Most of all, he wants to be known as a cultural worker, “a creative who cares about his community.”


chicagotribune--2020-07-13--Bicyclist, 72, fatally hit on West Side, police say

The man was hit by a white sedan around 2:20 a.m. in the 1500 block of South Central Park Avenue @ @ @ @ @ police said .
Officers stopped a vehicle that had front-end damage and matched the description @ @ @ @ @ the incident .

A 72-year-old man was hit and killed early Monday while riding a bicycle on the West Side, according to Chicago police.
The man was hit by a white sedan around 2:20 a.m. in the 1500 block of South Central Park Avenue in the Lawndale neighborhood, police said. Officers stopped a vehicle that had front-end damage and matched the description of the one used in the incident.
Advertisement
Detectives have a person of interest who was taken in for questioning, police said.
The 72-year-old man was taken to Mt. Sinai Medical Center, where he was pronounced dead, police said.
Advertisement
Check back for updates.
pfry@chicagotribune.com
Twitter @paigexfry


chicagotribune--2020-07-13--Woman shot on Dan Ryan Expressway

Woman shot on Dan Ryan Expressway

A woman was dropped off at the University of Chicago Medical Center with a non-life threatening injury , State Police @ @ @ @ @ between 2:30 a.m. and 3 a.m. on the outbound lanes of I-90/94 between 47th Street @ @ @ @

Illinois State Police were investigating a shooting on the Dan Ryan Expressway early Monday.
A woman was dropped off at the University of Chicago Medical Center with an injury not considered life-threatening, state police said. While speaking with the woman, as well as a man and a girl who were also in the vehicle but who were not injured, investigators learned the woman had been shot just after 2:35 a.m. as the trio traveled in their vehicle along the outbound lanes of I-94 near 51st Street.
Advertisement
“Preliminary reports indicate the shots were fired from an unknown vehicle also traveling on Interstate 94 southbound at 51st Street,” state police said in a statement.
State police investigators had been at the hospital for an earlier, unrelated crash when they learned about the woman who had been shot on the expressway, Trooper Omoayena Williams said in an email.
Advertisement
As of 3:47 a.m., all southbound local lanes on Interstate 94 were closed at 47th Street, which also was where traffic was being diverted off the interstate.
“The public is advised to please slow down, if in the area or seek alternate routes before entering the area. Please avoid using entrance ramps to exit the expressway,” said the statement from state police.
All lanes were reopened about 8 a.m., Williams said.
It wasn’t immediately clear whether any arrests have been made.
Anyone who witnessed or has information about the shooting is asked to call state police at 847-294-4400. Callers can remain anonymous.


chicagotribune--2020-07-13--As COVID-19 cases surge nationwide, we asked Chicagoans: Why are you getting tested?

“ Other countries have been able to do this , and we just need to have the resolve to do @ @ @ @ @ .
“ But that means measuring these key performance indicators of the testing process to @ @ @ @ @ state or county by county , where the bottlenecks are .
Is it still swabs @ @ @ @ @ reagents in places ?
Is it the availability of testing sites in different places ?
@ @ @ @ @ shine a light into the process .
”

Some patients felt sick, nervously ticking off potential COVID-19 symptoms. Some cited possible exposure to the highly contagious disease. Others were there out of an abundance of caution.
All had made an appointment for a test Friday at Heartland Health Centers on Devon Avenue in the Rogers Park neighborhood. In interviews, they expressed common fears of becoming ill or unwittingly spreading the new coronavirus, which has already sickened more than 150,000 and killed more than 7,000 statewide. Illinois on Sunday set a new daily testing record, with 38,894 COVID-19 tests performed.
Advertisement
For Bizi Obedi, a 21-year-old college student, recent travels to Atlanta — a COVID-19 hot spot — made him particularly worried about possibly contracting the virus. He’d stayed in the home of a relative who later tested positive for COVID-19, increasing his chance of exposure.
Before the trip, Obedi said, he had believed the pandemic was a hoax. Now he’s encouraging his friends to get tested as well. While he hasn’t had any COVID-19 symptoms, he lives with his mother and is concerned he could be asymptomatic but still infectious. Obedi said he plans to stay away from others until he gets his test results in a few days.
Advertisement
Bizi Obedi sits in his car as he receives a COVID-19 test outside Heartland Health Centers in Chicago's Rogers Park neighborhood on July 10, 2020. (Chris Sweda / Chicago Tribune)
“It’s definitely a good idea to self-quarantine,” he said. “Because you don’t know.”
Heartland Health Centers provides drive-thru testing by appointment for its patients at three locations, which also include north suburban Skokie and Chicago’s Albany Park neighborhood. The nonprofit also hosts occasional pop-up testing events.
To be tested, Obedi rolled down his car window in the Heartland parking lot on Devon and lowered his face mask just enough for a health care worker to swab his nostrils briefly in a circular motion.
“It was definitely easier than I thought,” Obedi said before driving away. “Just get tested. It’s really that easy.”
Worried for others
Getting a COVID-19 test wasn’t always that way. In the early stages of the pandemic, the state set restrictive guidelines amid shortages of testing materials like swabs and chemical reagents. But since early February, when one Illinois Department of Public Health lab was processing the first coronavirus test kits, the testing landscape has grown to hundreds of COVID-19 testing sites now operating across the state.
State health officials last month opened COVID-19 testing to anyone who wants it and urged people who had been in large crowds to get tested.
Casey Henderson, a bartender who lives in the Bowmanville neighborhood, said she decided to make an appointment after a close co-worker contracted COVID-19.
“I’m mostly worried for him,” said Henderson, 28, adding that she also fears the possibility of transmitting the disease to friends, family members or the public. “I would hate for them to get sick.”
Advertisement
She and her co-worker had been attending meetings on plans for reopening the business after months of closure during the height of the pandemic. Now those plans are on pause, she said.
While the number of new confirmed novel coronavirus cases had largely declined for much of late spring and summer, the state on Thursday exceeded 1,000 new COVID-19 cases for the first time since early June. Then on Friday, state officials announced another 1,317 new known cases. On Saturday came 1,195 more.
Justin Reyes, left, places a sample into a bag held by Emily Rivera as they administer COVID-19 tests outside Heartland Health Centers. (Chris Sweda / Chicago Tribune)
The uptick comes as the economy begins to reopen following months of strict statewide stay-at-home orders. Illinois began the fourth phase of Gov. J.B. Pritzker’s reopening plan in late June, which permitted indoor dining and allowed many other businesses to open or widen capacity, albeit with many restrictions still in place.
Henderson believes the state — as well as large swaths of the country — is reopening too quickly.
“I think it’s hasty,” she said.
Henderson urged anyone who does patronize a bar or restaurant during the pandemic to be patient with staff as they adjust to new protocols aimed at limiting the spread of the virus.
Advertisement
“If you do go out to eat or you have a server, put your mask back on when you interact with them,” she said.
Overcoming obstacles
Heartland Health Centers has performed about 2,000 COVID-19 tests since the nonprofit began offering testing in mid-March. Staff recalled quickly crafting a testing plan from scratch amid a national shortage of personal protective gear for health care workers and a dearth of test materials.
Illinois, along with the rest of the nation, struggled with mass testing earlier this year as the pandemic was just starting to spread across the United States. Local testing locations would open up only to shut down or significantly scale back operations shortly after, citing a lack of testing materials due to supply chain problems.
It wasn’t until late April that the state finally met — and exceeded — its goal of performing 10,000 tests a day.
“Limited access to tests was the biggest problem initially,” said Molly Bougearel, Heartland Health Centers’ senior vice president of strategy and development. “Only the state lab could do testing. When private labs started offering tests, that helped but tests were still limited. As it became more and more available, we could do more testing, and the federal government is supporting us to increase testing.”
Justin Reyes carries a sample after administering a COVID-19 test outside Heartland Health Centers. (Chris Sweda / Chicago Tribune)
So far, more than 1.9 million tests have been performed across the state. The number of COVID-19 deaths has significantly decreased, and the positivity rate in Illinois is lower than in many other states, though it’s been creeping up; the preliminary statewide seven-day positivity rate for cases was at 2.9% as of Friday, up from roughly 2.6% since June 30.
Advertisement
Yet obstacles to testing remain. While patients at Heartland Health Centers typically receive test results in a few days, others locally and across the country have reported long delays, often waiting 10 days or more to find out if they have the virus because of high testing demand and backlogs at laboratories processing the tests.
Bougearel said access to personal protective equipment is still an issue, though it hasn’t stopped Heartland Health Centers from testing. She said another difficulty is the “constantly changing environment.”
“As we learn about this virus and how it spreads, it changes the way we respond,” she said. “Our patient volume decreased over the last few months because of the (economic) shutdown, and now that we are reopening more we expect to get busier, and we may have to hire additional staff to make sure we continue to respond to COVID-19 as well as our regular health care services.”
Jeremy Pineda, 18, was tested Friday for both strep throat and COVID-19 within minutes at the health center. Pineda, who lives in the Uptown neighborhood, said his physician had told him his sore and scratchy throat could be symptoms of the virus.
“I don’t want to get other people infected,” said the recent high school graduate. “I want to isolate myself and keep my distance from other people, so they don’t get sick.”
Testing for all
Emily Rivera, who manages school-based health centers for Heartland, saw her role shift to managing COVID-19 testing during the pandemic. She said the health center has tested patients from all walks of life, including nuns and recent prison parolees; clients also span a spectrum of races, ethnic backgrounds and ages.
Advertisement
“We’ve swabbed babies and people in their 90s, and everyone in between,” she said.
Emily Rivera, a school based health center manager, talks with a patient before a COVID-19 test was administered outside Heartland Health Centers. (Chris Sweda / Chicago Tribune)
While most patients drive up in vehicles, staff say some travel by bicycle, take public transportation, walk up or ride scooters to the health center’s back parking lot, where testing takes place. “However they can get here,” Rivera said.
No COVID-19 testing occurs inside the facility, to limit staff and patient exposure to the virus.
Abi Vivek said she wasn’t suffering from any COVID-19 symptoms, and she had no recent known exposure to the virus.
But the 20-year-old college student plans to return home to Virginia soon; she said wanted to get tested for COVID-19 just to be cautious, because she doesn’t want to carry the virus with her on an airplane or infect her family and friends in another state.
Flying during the pandemic makes her nervous. She said she’s seen recent photos of crowded airplanes online.
Advertisement
“I don’t want to travel and give it to others,” she said.
COVID-19 cases are surging in some parts of the country, straining hospital capacity in states like Florida and Texas.
Mayor Lori Lightfoot earlier this month ordered anyone traveling from 15 states with skyrocketing COVID-19 cases to quarantine for two weeks upon arriving in Chicago.
During a news conference Friday, Dr. Thomas Tsai, assistant professor in the Department of Health Policy and Management at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, addressed insufficient COVID-19 testing — particularly in some of the states where cases have recently surged.
“The goal is to get to a point where everyone who wants to get tested can get tested and should be tested,” he said.
Tsai noted that the nation has greatly expanded COVID-19 testing to perform an average of more than 650,000 tests a day in July, which shows that with “concerted effort” even more testing can be done.
Advertisement
“Other countries have been able to do this, and we just need to have the resolve to do that,” he said. “But that means measuring these key performance indicators of the testing process to figure out, state by state or county by county, where the bottlenecks are. Is it still swabs in places? Is it reagents in places? Is it the availability of testing sites in different places? So, we need to shine a light into the process.”
eleventis@chicagotribune.com


chicagotribune--2020-07-13--Returning South: A family revisits a lynching that forced them to flee to Chicago 100 years ago

“ I have lived a lifetime of always receiving the benefit of the doubt .
I have never had someone @ @ @ @ @ walked by in a store due to the color of my skin .
When I @ @ @ @ @ a speeding violation , I have always been able to expect that I would likely @ @ @ @ @ , a ‘ have a good day ’ — never the possibility that I would @ @ @ @ @ or lose my life , ” she wrote .

Scott and Violet Arthur arrive with their family at Chicago's Polk Street Depot on Aug. 30, 1920, two months after their two sons were lynched in Paris, Texas. The picture has become an iconic symbol of the Great Migration. (Chicago History Museum)
A century has passed since Scott and Violet Arthur fled Paris, Texas, with their family and headed to Chicago.
Far away from the cotton fields of Northeast Texas, generations of the Arthur descendants were allowed to prosper in the Midwest, free of the burden of a lynching that ripped the family apart and threatened its survival.
Advertisement
The photograph of the Arthurs’ arrival at Chicago’s Polk Street Depot on Aug. 30, 1920, eight weeks after their sons, Irving and Herman, were burned alive became an iconic symbol of the Great Migration. The finely dressed family, with their tattered suitcases, personified the mass movement of African Americans to the North and West in the 1900s to escape the perils of the South.
In Paris, the Arthur brothers’ legacy still looms large. This town, like many in America, has never come to terms with its racist past. It was easier to bury this defining moment in history than reconcile it by bringing it into the open.
Advertisement
Recently, a small group of people with ties to Paris decided it was time to acknowledge the travesty, apologize to the Arthur family and begin moving the town forward. A week ago, they gathered at the regional war memorial to observe the 100th anniversary of the lynching. More than 20 descendants of Scott and Violet Arthur attended.
This was a small step toward bridging the divide that has long separated Black and white people in this semirural town of 25,000 just over an hour’s drive from Dallas. It occurred as many Americans are reexamining the role racism plays in sustaining social injustices that have unfairly burdened Black people for centuries.
Only a handful of Paris residents attended, largely because of social distancing restrictions imposed by COVID-19. But for 87-year-old Rufus Sims, the nephew of the Arthur brothers, the remembrance was momentous.
From left, Ralph Sims, Evelyn Sims, Ryan Cooper, 5, Rufus Sims, Rameria Sims, 10, and Roshaunda Sims, photographed on Friday. Rufus Sims, 87, is the nephew of Herman and Irving Arthur, who were lynched in Paris, Texas, in 1920. His grandparents and mother fled to Chicago two months later and the picture of their family at Chicago's Polk Street Depot became an iconic symbol of the Great Migration. (E. Jason Wambsgans / Chicago Tribune)
As one of three surviving grandchildren of Scott and Violet Arthur, along with Dorothy Williams, 93, of Country Club Hills, and Annie Sims, 84, of Atlanta, Sims finds this chapter of his family’s story particularly painful. But he is pleased that it is being told.
“It was a beautiful thing to bring everything out, especially with the way things are going (in America) at this particular time,” said Sims, who was unable to travel to Texas from his home on Chicago’s West Side.
“My uncles were burned up, burned alive in a field because they fought back. A lot of people lost their lives for fighting back. It’s important for the younger generation to understand that.”
The Equal Justice Initiative, a human rights organization that founded the Legacy Museum in Montgomery, Alabama, documented 6,500 racial terror lynchings of African Americans across the South between 1865 and 1950. The first lynching in Paris happened in 1893, when Henry Smith was burned alive after being accused of killing a 3-year-old white girl.
Though lynching has been the most terrorizing hate crime against African Americans throughout history, it is not a federal crime in the United States. Nearly 200 anti-lynching bills were introduced in Congress during the first half of the 20th century, yet none made it into law. In February, the House passed the Emmett Till Antilynching Act, named after the Chicago teen murdered while on a visit to Mississippi. But Republican Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky blocked it in the Senate.
Advertisement
As America engages in perhaps the most honest conversation about race since the end of slavery, Paris could offer a guide for communities wishing to discard antiquated social codes that victimize Black people while giving white people an advantage.
The event to mark the lynching of the Arthur brothers was not organized or sanctioned by the city. Most residents were unaware of it beforehand but were invited to watch a livestream on Facebook. The remembrance was the work of a handful of people who decided to take the first step at the risk of being ostracized by some residents who remain reluctant to change.
It was the idea of Melinda Watters, the great-great granddaughter of John H. Hodges, the white landowner whose refusal to release Irving and Herman from sharecropping on his farm precipitated the series of events that led to the lynching.
Watters, 43, said the story of her relatives’ involvement has haunted her since childhood. Though her family maintains that their ancestors were not supportive of the lynching, Watters said, they bear some responsibility.
“They participated and upheld a white culture and system that exploited and oppressed Black people and even questioned their full humanity. I have benefited from that system as well,” said Watters, who grew up in Paris and now lives in Fort Worth. Her parents are still in Paris.
“I don’t know what my great-great-grandfather’s views of the world were or what his views on the Black community were, but my family was part of a perpetuating system of white supremacy. They were trying to keep the family there and used terrorist methods to do it,” she said.
Advertisement
Herman Arthur, 28, returned to Paris on July 5, 1919, after serving in World War I. In the Army, he traveled to parts of the world that others who had spent their lives tending farms in Texas could not imagine. After a year back home, he was no longer content earning near slave wages on the Hodge family farm.
So he convinced his family to leave the farm, where Hodges furnished the tools and mule, and at harvest time, took more than half the crop.
But Hodges, 61, wouldn’t agree to let the family leave. He insisted that the Arthurs owed him money. According to 1920 newspaper reports, he ransacked the Arthurs’ home, while his son, William, 34, held a gun on the family. Days later, as the Arthurs loaded their truck to leave, Hodges returned and began throwing the furniture off the truck.
One of the Arthur brothers went inside, got a shotgun and killed both men. The brothers knew the fate that awaited them, so they fled to Oklahoma, only to be captured and brought back to Texas four days later.
Within hours of their arrival, a mob of 3,000 white people formed and placed signs throughout town announcing that a lynching would take place that evening.
The brothers were taken from the jail to the fairground, where they were chained to a flagpole, tortured, saturated with oil and set on fire. Afterward, the mob chained their charred, smoking bodies to a truck and dragged them for hours though the street.
Advertisement
Meanwhile, their three sisters, while being held in “protective custody” in jail, were beaten and raped by 20 white men, news reports said at the time. Afterward, the women were given a bucket of molasses, a sack of flour and some bacon and told to “hit the road.” They wandered for two nights before reuniting with their family.
Fearing for their lives, the entire family hid in the woods for weeks until the Black Masons lodge raised enough money to get them safely out of town. They boarded a train for Chicago and never looked back.
Janese Walton-Roberts, a descendant of the victims of a 1920 lynching in Paris, Texas, speaks with Melinda Watters at a memorial event in Paris on July 5. Watters is a descendant of John H. Hodges, the landlord whose actions set in place event leading to the lynching of the Arthur brothers. (Klark Byrd/The Paris News)
Janese Walton-Roberts, 47, Scott and Violet Arthur’s great-granddaughter, said the story has been passed down in her family for generations. She spoke at the commemoration on her family’s behalf.
No one ever wanted to go to Paris, she said. But after the recent civil unrest across the country, it seemed like the right time.
“If anything comes out of this, then it was worth it to go back,” said Walton-Roberts, who grew up in Chicago and now lives in Killeen, Texas.
Though they had been in contact with Watters for weeks, the family was unaware that she was a descendant of the Hodgeses until she read a letter apologizing for her family’s role.
Advertisement
“The city never offered any type of apology,” Walton-Roberts said. “I appreciate it because her letter was something that needed to happen.”
In the letter addressed to the Arthur family descendants, Watters did not seek to explain her family’s actions, even though her own relatives had been killed by the Arthur brothers. She acknowledged what her family did and asked for the Arthur family’s forgiveness.
Then she went a step further and described the privilege she experiences by being born to the Hodges family.
“I have lived a lifetime of always receiving the benefit of the doubt. I have never had someone clutch her purse when I walked by in a store due to the color of my skin. When I have been pulled over for a speeding violation, I have always been able to expect that I would likely get off with a warning, a ‘have a good day’ — never the possibility that I would be harmed or unjustly charged or lose my life,” she wrote.
“I am writing you 100 years belated to say that I lament the monstrous lynching and murder of Herman and Irving Arthur. … I admire Herman and Irving’s courage to remove their family from an unjust labor system and sacrificing their lives to do so. I am sorry for the ways the white community, my family and myself have been complicit in both my biases against black people and in accordance with a system that continues to disproportionately allow violence upon their bodies.”
Rufus Sims, 87, is the nephew of Herman and Irving Arthur, who were lynched in Paris, Texas, in 1920. “My uncles were burned alive in a field because they fought back," Sims said. "A lot of people lost their lives for fighting back. It’s important for the younger generation to understand that.” (E. Jason Wambsgans / Chicago Tribune)
Watters hopes that the event to mark the lynching will start a conversation in Paris, where racial tensions have risen in the aftermath of the Minneapolis police killing of George Floyd. Many young African Americans are frustrated by the lack of advancement in the town and the determination by many white residents to maintain the status quo.
Advertisement
Westley Martin, 29, an African American freelance videographer who organized a Peace and Power rally the day before the Arthur event, described his hometown as a place where many people still have Confederate flags waving on their home or the back of their truck.
There have been three Black Lives Matter protests since Floyd’s death, he said, and each time, white people countered with a Blue Lives Matter event.
“Black people don’t have many opportunities here. It’s like you stay over there and we’ll stay over here,” he said. “But something crazy is happening right now, and people are very vocal and don’t care. It’s like ‘Mississippi Burning’ with a 2020 spin without the Ku Klux Klan.”
Several racial incidents recently put the town on edge. The Rev. Gary Savage, pastor of predominantly Black Mount Pisgah Baptist Church and one of the organizers of the Arthur event, described the climate in Paris right now as “chaotic turmoil.”
Days before the event, a video of an incident in town involving three white adult men and two Black teenagers began circulating. The teens, ages 16 and 17, were walking along when they noticed a man fueling his truck staring at them.
A fight ensued between the man and the 16-year-old. Two other white men approached and ordered the teens to the ground. One had a handgun and the other had an AR-15 rifle. One of the men, who was later found to be a felon, was charged with assault with a deadly weapon.
Advertisement
African Americans are demanding charges be brought against the others as well, but officials say they aren’t warranted.
“Race relations are terrible here,” said Brenda Cherry, 62, a local activist. “But it’s silent and unspoken. Most of the Black people won’t complain openly, so there’s always racial tension.”
But there has been a bright spot, she said. At least half the participants in the Black Lives Matter protests she organized since the Floyd killing have been young white people, unlike previous marches, she said.
Savage said the Arthur event could not have been held at a better time.
“Every time there is racial tension in Paris — and that’s what we’re known for nationwide — the lynchings come up,” Savage said. “It’s a perfect time for healing, and that’s what we’re trying to promote.”
The Rev. Rob Spencer, pastor of the First United Methodist Church, believes that many white people in Paris are ready for change, but they don’t know how to accomplish it.
Advertisement
“We have a lot of work to do on the racial reconciliation front. Much of it is work that most of us are unaware even needs to be done,” said Spencer, who also helped organize the Arthur event.
“Part of the reason people in this area don’t stand up is they don’t believe there are enough willing to stand together. We are hopeful that what we’re doing will allow more people to say, ‘Look, we’ve got to go at this differently and work on these things together.’”
His church, which is 99% white, has a long history in Paris. The Rev. Bob Shuler, the pastor in 1920, is said to have gone to the courthouse and attempted to stop the mob from breaking the Arthur brothers out of jail.
Spencer is hopeful that spirit exists today. It is a good sign, he said, that the group organizing the event was able to raise $10,000 in donations to pay the Arthur family’s travel expenses.
Chicago Tribune Opinion Weekdays Read the latest editorials and commentary curated by the Tribune Opinion team. By submitting your email to receive this newsletter, you agree to our Subscriber Terms & Conditions and Privacy Policy >
Watters, an artist, presented the family a painting she adapted from the photograph of the Arthurs arriving in Chicago. She also tracked down Herman Arthur’s military records and obtained an official paver commemorating his service. But she has bigger plans.
Her goal over the next six months is to engage residents in the required race and justice dialogue needed to obtain a historical marker from the Equal Justice Initiative, to be placed at the site of the lynching.
Advertisement
It will not be easy.
“It was a shameful thing in Paris and nobody wants to talk about it. They want to leave it there and never bring it up again,” Watters said. “For us to experience healing, we have to acknowledge what happened and lament the fact that it happened and move forward as a community.
“The story of Paris is the story of our nation. Future generations should have the true version.”
dglanton@chicagotribune.com
Twitter @dahleeng


chicagotribune--2020-07-13--3 teenagers injured in shootings on South, West sides in under an hour overnight

The first shooting occurred around 11:30 p.m. in the 7000 block of South Damen Avenue in the West Englewood neighborhood @ @ @ @ @ 20-year-old man and the two male teenagers , 14 and 17 , were in a @ @ @ @ @ when a silver SUV approached them and someone inside fired shots .

After another weekend when children were among dozens of shooting victims in Chicago, police Superintendent David Brown repeatedly asked for more time Monday to deploy his strategy of “community policing on steroids” to bring down the nearly unprecedented level of violence.
Unlike at past Monday news conferences, Brown did not hurl insults at gunmen or complain that not enough people are being locked up. Instead, he once again insisted that the drug trade is the “pipeline to the criminal justice system” and doubled down on his belief that community outreach is a solution.
Advertisement
Brown noted that a specialized unit he announced last week would both respond to flare-ups and perform service work in neighborhoods. He also wants cops on tactical and gun teams doing community service every day, and said he believes in street outreach and violence-interruption efforts.
But he said these programs take time to produce results. “Don’t judge it on the short term. It’s just the beginnings of it,” Brown said. “As it matures and grows to a larger capacity, not just geographic capacity but more people doing it. ... I think we’ll likely see great results.”
Advertisement
Brown announced the special unit after an especially violent July Fourth weekend that saw about 90 people shot, at least 17 of them fatally, including 7-year-old Natalia Wallace on the West Side and 14-year-old Vernado Jones Jr. on the South Side.
Expand Autoplay Image 1 of 29 A shooting victim is transported after being shot in the abdomen in the 600 block of E. 40th Street in the Bronzeville neighborhood, July 5, 2020. (E. Jason Wambsgans / Chicago Tribune)
This past weekend, at least 64 people were shot and 11 of them died. The youngest victim was a 15-year-old boy on the Far South Side, blocks from where his older brother was fatally shot in April. As Sunday drew to a close, a 15-year-old girl was shot while standing on a West Side street, just half an hour after two teenage boys were wounded while sitting in a car at a South Side gas station.
The level of violence was similar to the same weekends in 2016 and 2017, the worst years for shootings in Chicago since the 1990s. More than 1,900 people have been shot in Chicago this year, 550 more than at this point last year, according to data kept by the Tribune.
The superintendent did not say when the unit would begin its work, saying officers were still being recruited to reach the full deployment of more than 200 cops. An internal memo obtained by the Tribune indicates it will be called the Community Safety Team and will operate out of the Englewood police district on the South Side and the training academy on the West Side.
“When it is created, we want it to be a community-oriented, policing-first citywide unit, and that’s different, that’s not your father’s citywide unit,” Brown promised, referring to similar attempts in the past. “That’s not something that’s been done with a citywide unit, from what I understand. … They’ll still be getting guns off the street, arresting violent offenders, but we can walk and chew gum at the same time.”
Chicago police canvass the 1100 block of North Lawndale Avenue on Sunday, July 12, 2020, after an overnight shooting injured five people, killing one, in Humboldt Park. (Brian Cassella / Chicago Tribune)
Jasmine McKinney, left, with the help of friend Netta Jones, sets up a memorial for Kearra Thomas on July 12, 2020, in Avalon Park. Thomas was shot and killed in the 8000 block of South Woodlawn Avenue while attending a memorial gathering Saturday evening. (Brian Cassella/Chicago Tribune)
Brown was asked why he thinks the unit will work this time. He chided the reporter, telling her not to be “so jaded” and to “have some optimism.” But he acknowledged that police cannot do the job alone — a message both he and Mayor Lori Lightfoot have driven home over the last several weeks.
“This is a complex, nuanced problem that will take more than just the police,” Brown said. “This is about a lack of opportunity, that’s not a policing issue. This is about social inequality, that’s not police. This is about education opportunities, job opportunities, job training opportunities. That’s not the police, and yet, you only ask me the questions.”
Brown urged a “deeper understanding of the trauma and violent conditions many Chicagoans living in these areas experience.” He talked about a conversation he had with a 25-year-old on the West Side who claimed to have seen 54 of his friends killed.
Advertisement
He discussed systemic issues in the community leading to crime, especially the lack of job opportunities for young people on the South and West sides. Brown said the lack of investment has led people to see the drug market as the only way to make a livelihood.
“They need an opportunity to have a job, participate in the American Dream, see a future,” he said. “And not just this menial job that really doesn’t provide a living wage. They need a real opportunity to learn a trade, to be a part of the capitalist market.”
Also last week, Brown announced a new program requiring summer patrol units to engage in community service projects every week. One alderman dismissed the initiative as “fluff,” but Brown said his plans have been well received by community residents he’s talked with.
“People were on the porch of their homes, out excited about this interaction with the police,” he said. “I think there is a healthy appetite for collaboration with the police in these challenging neighborhoods.”
Shameka Turner, who lives in the Austin neighborhood on the West Side and is the founder of the Resident Association of the Westside, listened to the press briefing and told the Tribune she was not impressed with Brown’s comments.
She said she doesn’t trust the department to pull off a community-oriented approach.
Advertisement
“I’m here in the community, every time I show up to a community meeting, they always bring a Black police officer to say, ‘Oh, community policing,’” Turner said. “As an Austin person, when I call the police or when I’ve been pulled over, guess what, they’ll never look like me on the West Side.
“It’s staged, so that you’re like, ‘Oh community policing, they have Black police officers.’ They have two, and they’re too busy going to meetings,” she said. “It’s the other ones that don’t look like us pulling us over and doing all other kinds of stuff that the people don’t trust.”
pfry@chicagotribune.com
Twitter @paigexfry


chicagotribune--2020-07-13--No bail for LaGrange man accused of killing his stepfather and citing fears of a blood sacrifice for

No bail for LaGrange man accused of killing his stepfather and citing fears of a blood sacrifice for the Illuminati

“ It appears there may have been some kind of psychotic break , according to the information the state has @ @ @ @ @ he was acting differently just prior to this incident , ” Willis said .
“ @ @ @ @ @ the family of the victim and the family of everybody involved in this based on @ @ @ @ @ the defendant ’ s mind of what may have been happening at this time .
@

DeAngelo Hughes, 25, is charged with first-degree murder in the death of Curtis Lee Clark on July 10, 2020. (Cook County sheriff's offce)
A 25-year-old man is accused of killing his stepfather in their La Grange home on Friday morning, shooting him five times in the head and torso, authorities said.
DeAngelo Hughes is charged with first-degree murder in the killing of Curtis Lee Clark, 51, in the Bluff Avenue residence. Clark was pronounced dead on the scene; an autopsy revealed two wounds to the head and three on his thigh and lower back.
Advertisement
Clark was a security guard who, according to records, was dating Hughes’ mother off and on for 20 years. Two days before the shooting, officials said Hughes sent a text message to a childhood friend indicating that he was going to “smoke” Clark.
According to Cook County prosecutors, Hughes shot and killed his stepfather after alleging Clark and a cousin had a plot to kill him. Hughes also claimed that Clark needed a blood sacrifice for the secret society known as the Illuminati.
Advertisement
Hughes’ family informed police that he had not been acting like himself in the days leading up to the shooting. Prosecutors said that Hughes was seen on FaceTime after answering Clark’s phone when Clark’s son called shortly after the shooting.
Judge Arthur Wesley Willis denied bail Sunday afternoon during a hearing broadcast live on YouTube.
“It appears there may have been some kind of psychotic break, according to the information the state has received from family members that he was acting differently just prior to this incident,” Willis said. “This court is saddened for the family of the victim and the family of everybody involved in this based on what may have occurred in the defendant’s mind of what may have been happening at this time.”
Hughes is scheduled to return to court Tuesday.
drockett@chicagotribune.com


chicagotribune--2020-07-13--$50,000 bond for driver in accident that killed 36-year-old man

Prosecutors said in court Sunday that Daniel Mares was behind the wheel of a red truck that evening when police @ @ @ @ @ red light at the intersection of Torrence Avenue and 100th Street .
According to police @ @ @ @ @ , Mares was driving in the wrong lane and going so fast that his car @ @ @ @ @ tracks .

A 31-year-old from the city’s East Side is being held on $50,000 bond after a passenger in his vehicle was killed in a crash April 14.
Prosecutors said in court Sunday that Daniel Mares was behind the wheel of a red truck that evening when police saw him driving through a red light at the intersection of Torrence Avenue and 100th Street. According to police, witnesses and surveillance video, Mares was driving in the wrong lane and going so fast that his car went airborne after crossing railroad tracks.
Advertisement
Daniel Mares, 31, is charged with reckless homicide and aggravated DUI following a car accident that left Damon Pallanti dead on April 14, 2020. (Chicago Police Department)
Officers said that upon noticing his mistake, Mares tried to correct but oversteered, driving his vehicle into a business, where it wedged between a fence and a tree. Damon Pallanti, 36, a passenger in the vehicle, was pronounced dead on the scene.
An autopsy by the Cook County medical examiner’s office determined his cause of death was cervical injuries caused by a major vehicle collision. An empty vodka bottle was observed behind the driver’s seat and recovered when the car was processed by police, prosecutors said. Mares, who prosecutors said does not have a valid driver’s license, was charged with reckless homicide and aggravated DUI.
Advertisement
After the crash, Mares was taken to the University of Chicago Medical Center for treatment, and tests showed his blood alcohol content at 0.197, according to prosecutors. Mares suffered rib and left arm fractures, refused treatment, and left the hospital against medical advice before the blood alcohol results came back.
During a bail hearing broadcast live on YouTube on Sunday, Mares tried to talk over court officials about his reasons for leaving the hospital early.
After being taken into custody on July 11, Mares told investigators he didn’t remember being involved in an accident. Mares is scheduled to return to court Monday.
drockett@chicagotribune.com


chicagotribune--2020-07-13--Mother killed at outdoor memorial among dozens shot during fourth consecutive violent weekend

The sister of one of the wounded women said the event had been peaceful except for the constant sound of @ @ @ @ @ fact , when the gunman began firing , many in the group thought they were @ @ @ @ @ , who asked not to be identified for her own safety , said she knew @ @ @ @ @ muzzle flash from the man standing in the darkness .

Jasmine McKinney, left, with the help of friend Netta Jones, sets up a memorial for Kearra Thomas on July 12, 2020, in Avalon Park. Thomas, 33, was shot and killed in the 8000 block of South Woodlawn Avenue while attending a memorial gathering the previous evening. (Brian Cassella/Chicago Tribune)
Organizers of a private memorial for a slain man held Saturday night in the Avalon Park neighborhood on the South Side said the event was just getting underway as the late evening sun began to set.
There was food on the barbecue, a drink in every cup, and friends were about to release balloons as the group of about 25 people gathered in the 8000 block of South Woodlawn Avenue to celebrate the life of Lorenzo Williams, who had been killed two years prior in the same neighborhood.
Advertisement
Among the mourners was Kearra Thomas, 33, a certified nursing assistant and mother who grew up in the neighborhood, who showed up to pay her respects. But as Thomas stood with a friend among the two dozen young men and women on the block, witnesses and police said a gunman appeared at the corner of 81st Street, took a few steps toward people at the gathering and opened fire.
A family photo of Kearra Thomas, 33, who was shot and killed in the 8000 block of South Woodlawn Avenue while attending a memorial gathering on July 11, 2020. (Family photo)
Thomas and two other women were hit by gunfire as the crowd scattered on the block made up entirely of single-family homes. Thomas, who was pronounced dead at University of Chicago Medical Center, was among at least 50 people shot since Friday afternoon. The shootings continue a trend of double-digit weekend shootings that began Father’s Day weekend.
Advertisement
This latest violence came days after new police Superintendent David Brown announced the forming of a permanent, specialized citywide police unit to quell such sudden outbreaks of violence.
Following the shooting on Woodlawn, the city had 11 separate shootings overnight that left 16 victims, two who died. In one incident, five men were shot following a verbal argument and physical fight in the 1100 block of North Lawndale Avenue in Humboldt Park on the city’s West Side around 12:45 a.m.
One of the men, a 52-year-old, was shot in the neck and was pronounced dead at the scene. Four other men between 23 and 34 were hospitalized for their gunshot wounds.
The violent weekend had another dubious marker: the fourth weekend in a row, a youth under 16 was fatally shot in Chicago.
Terrance Malden, 15, died after he was shot by an assailant in light-colored car in the 9800 block of South Hoxie Avenue in the Jeffery Manor neighborhood on the Far South Side about 4:50 p.m. Friday. He was taken to U. of C. Medical Center, where he was pronounced dead that afternoon.
The shooting happened just blocks from where his older brother Tyler, 20, was fatally shot April 6.
As of Sunday evening, no arrests had been made in any shootings, according to a Chicago police spokesman.
The shooting on Woodlawn on Saturday night touched off a frantic scene as friends and strangers ducked for cover and then rushed to Thomas’ side as she lay dying in the street from a single gunshot wound to the chest.
Advertisement
“We didn’t even get a chance to release the balloons,” said Vincent Hall, a mourner present during the shooting. “Now we’re going to have to release balloons for the lady who got killed.”
After an autopsy was completed Sunday, Thomas’ death was ruled a homicide, according to the Cook County medical examiner’s office. The other two women were treated at area hospitals and released.
By early Sunday afternoon, friends and relatives of Thomas had already erected a small memorial.
“Rest In Heaven Kearra,” read the handwritten poster board, surrounded by small plush toys and candles near the spot where the women were struck. The ground remained stained with droplets of blood about two steps away.
The sister of one of the wounded women said the event had been peaceful except for the constant sound of fireworks going off. In fact, when the gunman began firing, many in the group thought they were firecrackers, but the woman, who asked not to be identified for her own safety, said she knew otherwise when she saw the muzzle flash from the man standing in the darkness.
It wasn’t immediately clear who the intended target was.
Advertisement
“It don’t make any sense. She was in a neighborhood where she should have been safe,” she said. “Who would shoot at women?” asked the woman, as family members cleaned up debris from the party. “I’m lucky my baby wasn’t out here.”
The mother of an 18-year-old daughter, Thomas belonged to a small family that grew all the more close-knit after she lost both parents, her relatives said. “She didn’t have much family, just us, her aunties and her cousins,” her older cousin Tarra Edgeworth, 40, said in a telephone interview. “She was a very happy and good person.”
The news of her death was the latest blow to a family that has been recently plagued by the deaths of relatives in recent years. “It feels like a hex was put on the family.”
Chicago Tribune’s Katherine Rosenburg-Douglas contributed.
wlee@chicagotribune.com
Twitter @MidNoirCowboy