Being up on this roof has made me more
compassionate, because it’s made me more keenly aware of things
that are going on around me. Every day I ask God to forgive me for
not paying attention to people who were hurting. Especially when
gun violence is involved. Because I think for a long time I just
really did not think about the fact that so many young black men
were dying. And it almost seems as if these kids don’t understand
the magnitude of what’s going on. For them, it’s almost as if this
is
normal
.
When you turn the light off at nighttime,
this tent is really dark. There’s that eerie feeling, that sense of
nothingness. And I know this is going to sound strange, but
sometimes when it’s dark like that, I think about people who don’t
have electricity, and I think about when I grew up, how my mom
couldn’t afford things. So that’s what I think about at night:
“Man, this is lonely; it is cold; it’s dark. How many people have
to live this way?”
If you look north from here at night, you see
the lights of the Loop. And there’s been nights that I’ve been on
the roof and all the street lights on King Drive have been turned
off. And you think, here you have the bright lights downtown, with
all the resources and all the things that make it beautiful and
you’re in the same city and it’s almost, kinda like, in a different
world—the haves and the have-nots.
I mean, everything in Chicago is divided. The
educational resources are divided; that’s the reason why you see
the schools in one area better than the schools in another area.
The police resources are divided; that’s why you see higher crime
in one area than you do in other areas. The economic resources are
divided; that’s the reason why you have an unemployment rate double
in one area what it is in another area.23 Obviously, there is still
systemic racism. I don’t think we can argue against it.
But before I came up here, I used to be
really dogmatic about how government ought to do something. You
know? Government, government, government. I still think government
ought to do its part. But after getting away and thinking and
reading, I realize that government can change laws, but they can’t
change hearts. It’s always easier to change a law, but as we see
even when they change the laws, nothing really changes around here.
So changing hearts takes longer; it’s harder work; it’s a tougher
task; it’s more daunting. But when you change a heart, it lasts for
eternity. So my thing now is to help change people’s hearts.
There have been times when I get depressed,
and I feel like it’s taking too long to raise the money. I don’t
know if I blame it on God or on people or on circumstances. This is
probably the first time I’ve ever said how I feel about it, but I
sometimes think that if I were on the North Side and if I weren’t
black, I would have been on this roof a night at the most before
somebody would have rushed to my aid.
But if I didn’t have hope, I would not still
be on this roof, that’s for sure. Not after 87 days up here. If I
didn’t believe that things could get better, and if I didn’t
believe that I could help them to be better, I would definitely be
on a beach in Miami or Jamaica or somewhere, enjoying myself. I
hope and pray that I never get to a point to where I have a sense
of hopelessness—because I think when you reach a sense of
hopelessness, the next step is destruction, is doom.
A lot of times, people say they’re gonna do
things to make our community better, and they never end up doing
it. And as a consequence, people lose a lot of hope. They get
frustrated and disappointed and have broken dreams. That’s why I
want this place to be the Taj Mahal of community centers. I dream
about it all the time. I dream about what I want it to look like. I
dream about the programs we’ll have there. I dream about the people
that are gonna be there.
I see a facility that is cutting-edge, that
is state-of-the-art and that is the prettiest building on the South
Side of Chicago. I see a community and economic development center
with entrepreneurial spaces for businesses to help create jobs so
that people can sustain their families and take care of their
children. I see a full recreation facility, a full theatrical
facility and a full technology center. I see facilities where
people can get counseling, do conflict resolution, develop life
skills.
This motel—it was all about taking people’s
lives and destroying them. But the building that we’re going to
construct in its place is all about giving people life.
There’s certain laws in the universe that
apply to everybody: When you try to do good, you get good back. And
in the end, I think that’s what really happened, you know? I spent
94 days on the roof, and I then one morning I got a $100,000 gift
from Tyler Perry.24 I came off the roof that same day. It just
happened so quick. There were so many emotions going on, it’s hard
to describe.
When I came off the roof that night, it was
just people everywhere. Cameras, people, screaming, hollering. It
was amazing. It was almost like a ghetto-MTV-type thing. I don’t
know what you call it. It was like an awards show, only we weren’t
in L.A. We weren’t in Beverly Hills. We were on the South Side; we
were in the ’hood. To be a part of something that had so much
energy and excitement, and to see all the people in the streets,
all different races, was amazing.
And when I got on the lift, I turned around
and said, “Goodbye, tent.”
And then we started going down.
It was a celebrative moment, but it was also
a preparation moment, a check for myself to let me know: This is
awesome, but this is not it; this is not the end.
It’s not over.
Epilogue: After buying and tearing down
the old motel, Pastor Brooks still needed another $15 million to
build the community center. So in the summer of 2012, he walked all
the way across the U.S. from New York to Los Angeles. He raised
almost $500,000 on the trip, but as he puts it, “We still have a
long way to go.”
—
Interviewed by Miles Harvey
Endnotes
18 West Point Missionary Baptist Church was
founded in 1917. Brooks was pastor there from 1997 until 2000. See
http://www.wpmbc.org/church-history/.
19 Bronzeville was a cultural hub for
African-Americans who came to the South Side of Chicago during the
Great Migration in the early 20th century.
20 The motel sits in what was once an
overcrowded area known as the Black Belt. Most African-Americans in
Chicago lived in this area until the mid-20th
century, when legal restrictions that had kept them from moving to
other
neighborhoods were lifted.
21 On Dec. 27, 2011, Jawan Ross, 16, was shot
and killed at a Church’s Chicken on 66th and Halsted in the
Englewood neighborhood. Dantril Brown, 17, was also killed in the
shooting. Five others were wounded. See Tina Sfondeles, “Charges in
Deadly Church’s Shooting,” Chicago Sun-Times, Dec. 31, 2011.
22 The second funeral was for Deontae Malone,
15, who was found shot to death just three blocks from his home in
Marquette Park on the Southwest Side. See Brian Slodysko, “Boy’s
Fatal Shooting Called Part of ‘Crisis’: Student is Second from Same
School Killed This Year,” Chicago Tribune, Dec. 30, 2011.
23 In 2011, unemployment among
African-Americans in Chicago was 21.4
percent. The city’s average was 8.6 percent. See Mary Mitchell,
“The Making
of the ‘Other’ Chicago,” online site of The American Prospect,
March 18, 2013,
http://prospect.org/article/making-other-chicago.
24 See Ryan Haggerty and Cynthia Dizikes,
“Rooftop Vigil ‘a Victory’: 3-Month Stay Raises Nearly $500,000 to
Buy Old Motel,” Chicago Tribune, Feb. 25, 2012.
DON’T TRUST NOBODY
ORA THOMPSON
Ora Thompson—who requested a pseudonym—is a
17-year-old high school senior from North Lawndale. Once
prosperous, North Lawndale boasted over 140,000 residents in the
1960s. Its population drastically declined soon after, however,
when its primarily white residents fled from an influx of black
newcomers from Southern states and other parts of Chicago. Local
industries eventually moved elsewhere, resulting in unemployment
and poverty that still haunt the area today.
As Ora talks, her expressive eyes dart
around, conspicuous behind
thick-framed glasses. A textured bob frames her heart-shaped face.
She shares stories with ease, gesturing frequently and fully with
her head, hands and long, thin arms. Shifting in her chair often,
she speaks quickly and uses emphatic repetition.
Months from graduation from North Lawndale
Preparatory Charter School, Ora plans to study dance and theater at
Illinois College in the small town of Jacksonville, Illinois.25 In
her free time, she participates in the Steppenwolf Theatre Young
Adult Council, a selective, yearlong after-school program
introducing teens to professional theater. She is the only council
member from North Lawndale. Ora lives there with her mother and her
three sisters.
North Lawndale. Something good? I’ve been
living over there for 16 years, and I really can’t say something
good about it. It’s mostly apartment buildings. There’s not really
a lot of houses. Most of the buildings are abandoned. You can tell
a lot of people moved out of that area. It’s a lot of vacant lots.
Three or four buildings on the block just got rebuilt. They tore
them down and rebuilt them again; I guess trying to attract new
people to the neighborhood. If they’re there for long, they’re not
gonna like it. They’re not gonna like it. You don’t want to live
somewhere where there’s drug dealers selling drugs right outside
your house.
The route I take to school, there’s drug
dealers and crackheads on the block. I leave out the back door, and
it leads straight to my gate and then the alley. There’s garbage
dumpsters right there, and I always see poor people—I don’t know if
they’re crackheads or not—but poor people digging in the garbage,
looking for food, clothes or whatever. And when I start turning the
corner, the same drug dealers are right there, early in the
morning
. Like, I be going to school at seven, and they be
out there, standing there. I just don’t understand that. Then
there’s crackheads and hypes25 walking past, getting the drugs from
them. I just look and keep walking. I usually see people I went to
grammar school with selling drugs too. I just don’t understand
that. Half of them were smart as ever. But down the block, it’s
basically that. Just drug dealers. And when I turn, it’s my school
right there.
There’s a lot of drugs floating around North
Lawndale. It’s getting
bad
. There’s so many crackheads on
the block. I don’t know if that’s the right term I should use, but
that’s the only term I use when I’m in my community. I
hate
crackheads. I feel so much hatred towards them because I don’t feel
there’s anything in life that can get you as low as starting crack.
There’s nothing. I mean, people gonna die regardless, you gonna
lose your job, your house may go in foreclosure, but nothing can
get as low as, “Yeah, I’m gonna start crack because of this. I’m
gonna start crack because I’m depressed.” Maybe I take that
personally and I have anger towards them, ‘cause once you start
crack, you
end
your life to me. You end your life.
I know they would do anything for money, so I
protect myself. When I go to and from school, I always carry a
pocketknife because I don’t feel
safe
around there. It don’t
matter where I’m at, but mainly around my area where I live, I’m
always on guard. I carry a knife with me, even if I’m just going to
the store. It’s not sharp or nothing, and it’s small enough, so if
I pull it out, people wouldn’t be like, “Oh my gosh, she got a
knife!” They wouldn’t see it until it’s close up on them. I’m so
serious! I carry it in my hand sometimes, and I put it in my sleeve
so I’ll be ready. If somebody’s walking behind me, I reach in my
pocket and hold it.
I will never forget the day I started
carrying knives. I was still in grammar school. I think I was in
eighth grade, and my sister was in fourth. We were walking to the
store, and there was this man. He looked like he was in his late
30s. And he looked drunk. You know how people wear old clothes and
stink? He looked like he was in that category. Out of nowhere, he
just ran up to my little sister, grabbed her and picked her up.
Then he was like, “I’m taking you home with me.” I was
so
scared. I didn’t know what to do. You don’t joke with no kids like
that, especially kids you don’t know. And I just went up to him and
started hitting him. I was like, “Put her down! Put her down!” When
she got down, she was still shocked. She didn’t know what was going
on. So we didn’t even go to the store; we just ran back to the
house. I was scared to come out. For some weeks, I didn’t even come
out of the house.
Even though I know people in North Lawndale,
and my mother knows people, I don’t trust nobody in that community.
There’s been so many times where on the news the people that you’re
closest to hurt you, and I just don’t trust nobody. I might laugh
and talk to you, but I don’t trust you.
I stay isolated because I don’t like
violence. It’s to the point where people in my neighborhood fight
over anything: boys, clothes, a seat, if you look at them a certain
way. Our last house was right next to the projects, and there were
these ladies—all of them were grown, and they got into it over a
piece of gum. They actually fought over a piece of gum.
Certain people, they get excited off of
violence. Fighting makes them happy. They fight just ‘cause it’s
like a
game
to them. They fight just for more violence. I
don’t understand that. I think it’s probably about personal
problems—problems back at home that can’t even be solved or anger
that they can’t take out on the people they wanna take it out on,
so they just do little stuff to get into a fight.