Playlist: Chicago Proud

During Fall Fest 2019, CHF celebrated the power of hometown pride:

Maybe we have to leave home in order to get a clearer look at it. South-Shore native Carlo Rotella did just that—he lives and teaches in Boston now—but then he came home to write about it. Spurred by the tremendous changes he’s seen occurring in his South-Shore neighborhood over the last fifty years, Rotella takes a journalistic yet personal look at the impact of race and class bias, the dissolution of the true middle class, and fear of neighbor—not only on the function of a neighborhood, but on the entire concept of home. Above all, Rotella has talked to people—about how it all happened, and how things are now— but also about turning it back. The resulting book, The World Is Always Coming to an End: Pulling Together and Apart in a Chicago Neighborhood, has been described as “urban history with the soul of a memoir.” Rotella came to CHF to discuss his neighborhood’s history: past, present, and future.

Anyone hoping to properly honor the history, power, and sheer impact of the Black press in America simply must include a tip of hat to the legacy of the Chicago Defender. This historic newspaper is said to have helped activate the civil rights movement; influenced the desegregation of the military; and even “jump-started the Great Migration”—not to mention publishing the likes of Ida B. Wells, Gwendolyn Brooks, and Langston Hughes. Just this summer, after cranking out weeklies for more than a hundred years (and, for forty-seven of those years, dailies), the Defender ran its last print edition. Mary Datcher, the former Managing Editor of the Chicago Defender , and Chicago Tonight correspondent Brandis Friedman joined CHF for a conversation on the power of the Black press.

CHF also hosted a celebration of the contributions made by Chicago’s South Side neighborhoods to the history of soul music in America, in two parts. Part 1, a tribute in words: Ayana Contreras, host of Vocalo Radio’s Reclaimed Soul; Ruben Molina, DJ and historian; and DJ Tone B. Nimble, all well-versed soul aficionados, joined, radio host, and activist Mario Smith to uncover all the best soul-music stories from our fine city’s history. Then, Part 2, a tribute in music: Contreras, Molina, and Nimble DJ'ed some soul sets to get the South Side Soul afterparty started.

Header image: Kevin Young | Unsplash