tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-73179091320130006552024-03-21T14:57:37.683-05:00John W. FountainAward-Winning Columnist, Author, Journalist & ProfessorUnknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger75125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7317909132013000655.post-65966614264284725732023-06-13T16:38:00.003-05:002023-06-13T16:38:24.867-05:00Father's Day Special - Buy "Dear Dad"<form action="https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr" method="post" target="_top">
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7317909132013000655.post-35575031091509674752023-01-13T16:23:00.002-06:002023-01-13T16:30:19.387-06:00Please Follow John Fountain on Substack<div style="text-align: center;"><iframe frameborder="0" height="420" scrolling="no" src="https://johnwfountain.substack.com/embed" style="background: white; border: 1px solid #EEE;" width="750"></iframe></div><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7317909132013000655.post-76470959877174222002022-12-06T16:33:00.002-06:002022-12-06T16:33:56.383-06:00My last Sun-Times Column Not in The Sun-Times — “50 Cent a Word: Diary of A Freed Black Journalist”<p><span style="font-size: medium;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjZOtDI-gChog50v2_BJfQlon2GU1jREKr0033KsA76yqBol-waX7owciyRo9PFgm2h2Mzno58JrP-uHBXLVKaGfuAvvzBWP6cMsBHwVKtQHvZ0Ru3pLFmnVOcwlnnfP5q15Hbs65BCH75eTQ9TfWpbopjudlAdYHBWW64KGbXdxD6xtP3AQfM-CsujYg/s1579/Collage.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1579" data-original-width="1467" height="762" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjZOtDI-gChog50v2_BJfQlon2GU1jREKr0033KsA76yqBol-waX7owciyRo9PFgm2h2Mzno58JrP-uHBXLVKaGfuAvvzBWP6cMsBHwVKtQHvZ0Ru3pLFmnVOcwlnnfP5q15Hbs65BCH75eTQ9TfWpbopjudlAdYHBWW64KGbXdxD6xtP3AQfM-CsujYg/w708-h762/Collage.jpg" width="708" /></a></span></div><p></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>The Backstory:</b></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span><i>On Nov. 25, John Fountain resigned as a columnist after Sun-Times Executive Editor Jennifer Kho </i></span><em class="markup--em markup--p-em" style="text-align: left;">told him in a telephone conversation that </em><i>she would not run a column he had written after he did not agree to one of her two revisions or revise that column in the way she had suggested. The editor's revised versions included restructuring of Fountain’s original column as well as revised sentences and the insertion of the editor’s own words. Fountain subsequently published that column, a tribute to the life and memory of a former journalism student Aaron Lee, on Fountain’s website.</i></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><i>Days after resigning verbally, Fountain sent two other Sun-Times editors a letter on Nov. 29 about the exchange with Sun-Times Executive Editor Kho. One of those editors followed up with Fountain by telephone, saying that Fountain, who has written a column as a freelance journalist for the Sun-Times since January 2010, would be allowed to write a final farewell column. After Fountain submitted that column Friday, Dec. 2, that editor called again to inform Fountain that the executive editor had made the decision to not run it. </i></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><i>The column, as Fountain wrote it, with a few minor insertions, appears below. The print in italics represents excerpts from the aforementioned letter Fountain wrote to Sun-Times editors after resigning.<span></span></i></span></p><a name='more'></a><span style="font-size: medium;"><i> </i></span><b style="font-size: large;">By John W. Fountain</b><p></p><p><span style="font-size: x-large;"><b>T</b></span><span style="font-size: medium;">his is the post-mortem of a Black Chicago newspaper columnist and a page in \the diary of a free Black journalist. I am gone, for real this time. Having succumbed to a 37-year career of Reporting and Writing While Black but having been finally liberated by the last insult, indignity or innuendo, and finally made free. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">The challenge was always to try and be authentically me in a predominantly white journalism world that challenges, rejects, or else seeks to modify our words, voice or perspective. A world in which even some “Black” journalists have, at times, seemed more foe than friend. At least not supportive, or a defender, if not co-conspirators in my tumult and ultimate newspaper journalism demise. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">And yet, I am free. At last.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Freer than when I typed my first byline nearly four decades ago, publishing in a mainstream American newspaper. In an industry that has long loathed, rejected or else tolerated, then dispensed of the likes of me, or relegated us to lesser positions while purporting that it cannot find “qualified” Black journalists.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"></span></p><p class="graf graf--p" name="7733" style="text-align: justify;"><em class="markup--em markup--p-em"><span style="font-size: large;"><b></b></span></em></p><blockquote><blockquote><em class="markup--em markup--p-em"><span style="font-size: large;"><b>"In a journalism career of nearly 40 years, I have rarely felt as disrespected as my encounter with Jen last Friday. And it signals to me not an end but a new beginning."</b></span></em></blockquote></blockquote><p></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">“Never Internalize Their Disrespect.” </span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">They were the words of another Black journalist early on when I contemplated leaving newspapers for a job as a letter carrier. I printed and tacked them to my cubicle in defiance. And also these words from a Pulitzer Prize-winning Black photojournalist: </span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">“You Can’t Argue With Excellence: Be excellent.”</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">That was always my endeavor. Even when I was overlooked as a reporter, underpaid, or passed over for national or foreign correspondent positions.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Even when I was maligned in newsrooms, treated like a second-class citizen and more like the resident Black man who conjured hate or fear because I fit, in living color, a stereotypical portrait of the big scary, dark-skinned, sullen and angry Black man--no matter how softly I spoke or tried to shrink myself.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Even when as a journalist who--no matter our education, experience or demonstrated talent and commitment--was always “incompetent” until proven competent, a status that always soon evaporated.</span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>* * * *</b></span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;">It was a simple story, a tribute to my former student who died at age 34.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgOqJAiXmDj8ojJr6Yx-zNDZ9pPitQtyqMpFlWL-cLs-8hcaAwFNXyLnANCFlHHYEByZjAaoj2v1GdkKOQuGuVvd-qceIL5Od6uWdtJZ8rYjNjhWQ2c0pz5GYpJzGYDUMPMzOPtFkvERg9B9_UM_-iL99aUUWTzss0FbeBw2AwPlGhfekcQKybHraTc4w/s508/Photo5.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="438" data-original-width="508" height="276" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgOqJAiXmDj8ojJr6Yx-zNDZ9pPitQtyqMpFlWL-cLs-8hcaAwFNXyLnANCFlHHYEByZjAaoj2v1GdkKOQuGuVvd-qceIL5Od6uWdtJZ8rYjNjhWQ2c0pz5GYpJzGYDUMPMzOPtFkvERg9B9_UM_-iL99aUUWTzss0FbeBw2AwPlGhfekcQKybHraTc4w/s320/Photo5.jpeg" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Trebuchet, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 10.56px;">Aaron Timothy Lee, director and producer of</span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Trebuchet, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 10.56px;">Dream Chaser, <br />which began airing at the end of November </span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Trebuchet, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 10.56px;">on Marquee Sports Network.</span></td></tr></tbody></table></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><i>I received a call from Jen at 2:46 p.m. Friday, Nov. 25. She said she had sent two edited versions of my column to my email, which I opened and reviewed briefly as she spoke to me about why she thought the column needed revising. Essentially, she said she thought it moved too slow, was confusing, and did not get to the news of Aaron Lee’s documentary airing. </i></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><i>I explained that I had been deliberate in structuring the column and intentional in my decision to delay revealing to the reader Aaron’s “big news.” That this as a column was different from a hard news story or a feature. And that as a columnist, my words and the way I choose to tell the story are essential to my voice and perspective.</i></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><i>I was always respectful, never raised my voice and several times prefaced my responses to Jen with the words, “with all due respect and humility,” even as her voice and tenor grew terser and more irritated, if not angry, and even as she said things to me that were presumptuous and also disrespectful. She told me, in fact, that I think my writing is too perfect to need an editor (a near direct quote). I explained that I did not and that indeed I tell my students that every writer needs an editor. I always have needed an editor and always will.</i></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><i>She said several times she was “looking out for the readers” and thought the piece as written “confused” readers or would cause some not to read the column. She said she had edited other writers at the Huffington Post and The Guardian.</i></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><i>I argued that some readers perhaps might not read my column as I wrote it but that there are many who tune in to read my column. That I had constructed the story intentionally as a narrative to not give the end away and to draw the reader. I said that I essentially had earned the respect of readers, colleagues and outside judges for numerous journalism awards over many years, including the Lisagor and others. I also said that I had been writing a column for the Sun-Times for 13 years and had never experienced this kind of revision or editing.</i></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><i>I explained to Jen that good “editing” does not necessarily mean making wholesale changes. That punctuation, grammar, and fact checking are also a part of editing but that in column writing, maintaining the writer’s voice and choice—notwithstanding any factual errors—of how to tell a particular story are critical. In hindsight, it was clear to me that Jen had decided that my column would be changed in the way she saw fit to tell it. </i></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><i>Our conversation lasted 20 minutes 6 seconds.</i></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><i>Ultimately, Jen said that I could choose one of the two revisions she had suggested. Or, she said, I could take another stab at the column. I told her that I would not agree to either. She said: Well I’m not going to run it. I responded with two words: “I resign.” She hung up. So did I. My wife, who sat nearby listening all the while to the conversation, which I placed on speaker phone, shook her head. So did I.</i></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><i>For the record, I’ve had two really great editors at the Sun-Times: Tom McNamee and Paul Saltzman. They were editors who questioned, tightened and helped make my work better. The greatest gift of these two editors, even if we did not necessarily always agree, was that they trusted and respected my voice and writing, right down to the way I told my stories. </i></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><i>In a journalism career of nearly 40 years, I have rarely felt as disrespected as my encounter with Jen last Friday. And it signals to me not an end but a new beginning.</i></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><i>I am grateful for the opportunity to have written a column for the Sun-Times for nearly the last decade and a half (well over 600 columns and stories), and to have written for the readers of Chicago for decades more. To have been among the Sun-Times’s most decorated columnists in that time…</i></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><i>And, for the record, having been born and bred here in Chicago and growing up reading the Sun-Times and other Chicago newspapers, I think that maybe that qualifies me as maybe, just maybe, knowing a little bit about Chicago readers and how to give to them stories that matter. That certainly has always been my endeavor. And I will continue, although on a different forum.</i></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><i>I did, however, misspeak when I said, “I resign.” Truth is, I was never hired. It would have been more appropriate to say, “Fountain out.”</i></span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>* * * *</b></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><b><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj2wEAcZ8lbZrB4Dn44LESW4al0i3iLf7N2dpZ4ubCHhUcI4vUgy_rOfVe6_Pyaogo2AsCRFH6Tjbf8R2nDgzjG0e1OuazmAwUl8d7WWfynWloQPUI6C98c-RcB_kbv_bUHJKdv3kQq5LsybFQD75jBgLXfbOSqbQi0g4ycausKhHOkM_bE3Ywr1_4EcA/s1331/Resized_20220323_142342(2).jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1331" height="520" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj2wEAcZ8lbZrB4Dn44LESW4al0i3iLf7N2dpZ4ubCHhUcI4vUgy_rOfVe6_Pyaogo2AsCRFH6Tjbf8R2nDgzjG0e1OuazmAwUl8d7WWfynWloQPUI6C98c-RcB_kbv_bUHJKdv3kQq5LsybFQD75jBgLXfbOSqbQi0g4ycausKhHOkM_bE3Ywr1_4EcA/w640-h520/Resized_20220323_142342(2).jpeg" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">John W. Fountain as a reporter at the Chicago Tribune circa early 1990's where he was once that newspaper's chief crime reporter before moving on to the Washington Post, where he was a staff writer then to the New York Times, where he was a national correspondent. A former Knight Wallace Fellow at the University of Michigan, Fountain is a tenured full professor at Roosevelt University and a 2021–2022 U.S. Fulbright Scholar to Ghana.</span></td></tr></tbody></table></b></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span><b><span><span style="font-size: x-large;">I</span><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></span></b><span style="font-size: large;">have always sought to be excellent, to be true to the story and to myself as a writer. Even when my heart was broken and my psyche and confidence seized by the constant bombardment, both inside and outside the newsroom, from those who contended that I could not write, did not belong or deserve to occupy that space as a journalistic storyteller at a major big-city daily. </span></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">I decided to persevere. To hold onto Journalism. Not the industry. But the ideal. The belief that the pen is mightier than the sword. Still. That journalism is pure and true. That at its core it seeks truth, shines light, yields hope and possibility. </span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Is not corrupted by human frailty, incompetence, favoritism and racial prejudice, which have calcified within its institutions that have left many a Black journalist battered and bruised and too often prematurely exiting this dream they once loved. </span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">I endured. For the love of journalism, for the love of storytelling, for the love of humanity. Because of my belief in the shining light that is journalism. </span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">And, frankly, because I was too stubborn to quit and unwilling to let anybody make me abandon my first love.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">And yet, the time has come to say farewell. To the Sun-Times, which has hosted my column for the last nearly decade and a half. I must say farewell ultimately because my feelings, thoughts, and every word I write must always be my own. And I believe that is no longer possible for me in this newspaper. </span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Thank you, dear readers. For reading me, for believing in me, and even for challenging me. Your faith in me has meant more than the numerous awards my column has won.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">I say farewell. Not because I don’t have anything left to say. But because I do. </span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">So while I say farewell, I also say, “hello” as my demise in these pages has given birth to journalistic storytelling in a new venture, I call FountainWorks NFP. And I will write. No longer a participant in volunteer slavery, but as a Black journalist at last set free. </span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Free to tell whatever stories I choose exactly the way I choose to tell them. Free at last.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><i>#JusticeforJelaniDay</i></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>Editor’s Note—John W. Fountain: </b></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">I will continue to write my column as part of my launch of FountainWorks NFP, a not-for-profit focused on telling the untold stories of marginalized or underrepresented people like the stories of <a href="https://chicago.suntimes.com/columnists/2021/10/15/22728816/jelani-day-peru-illinois-john-fountain">Jelani Day</a>; the <a href="https://www.unforgotten51.com/">Unforgotten 51</a>; <a href="https://www.hearafricacalling.com/">Hear Africa Calling</a>; <a href="https://www.invasionoffaith.com/">Invasion of Faith</a>; <a href="https://express.adobe.com/page/dFyuYUyLFNwiC/">People of Accra</a>; and many other <a href="http://thasweetseason.blogspot.com/">stories</a> and forthcoming independent journalism projects in digital print, multimedia and film as well as essays and columns by others in the FountainWorks team. </span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span>FountainWorks also includes a literacy and mentoring arm through the <a href="https://abc7chicago.com/real-men-read-chicago-matteson-elementary-school-john-fountain/5573508/">Real Mean Read</a> program in 2016 at Matteson Elementary School and The Richard R. Siska Scholarship established for college-bound young men at Southland College Preparatory High School in Richton Park, Illinois, who </span><span style="text-align: left;">volunteer in the program, reading with adult male participant</span>s to schoolchildren on Thursday mornings: community writing and multimedia storytelling workshops; a media literacy and arts program that will take urban youths to Ghana for an immersive transformative experience. </span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span>You may assist John Fountain’s efforts by making a contribution to </span><span>FountainWorks directly by sending contributions to: </span><span>FountainWorks, </span><span>P.O. Box 485, </span><span>Matteson, IL, 60443</span></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span>Thank you kindly in advance.</span></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span>Sincerely,</span></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: Dancing Script;">JOHN</span></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><a href="https://www.author.johnwfountain.com/" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="936" data-original-width="2174" height="314" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiLFwMtsap1uYcZLL3buUga7qIVm0rhIFaJi-yr-0nRc6YsPIqAC84uvcFTPMiQ4yyMmSVRrzB9dsLcjV8l7ZO5R_3wzJdxNMIpJcSs3V3Xgdov7rZG4j6iay8EHu1WE81LRJOM7a2EoK2KZOHBtM9bgdcd_Is6PlVwHbZYL6zhHGSz5nDGCbUpMnC9Vw/w728-h314/Screenshot%202022-12-06%20at%204.21.56%20PM.png" width="728" /></a></span></div><p></p><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7317909132013000655.post-22156763718058606632022-11-25T16:36:00.004-06:002022-11-25T17:18:12.516-06:00Aaron T. Lee: A Life and A Dream Fulfilled<div style="text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-size: medium;"></span></b></div><p></p><p></p><div><b><span style="font-size: medium;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi6TBZNQSdiav5Ol2mX6U1Xrtn_kVrMFXYBOKV0CTIxeS0t1Rsbr0uqouxPsUaWWk5D13WqKdkASHHBrvclYgXr1u1Br-8dbC1T7beabVASCG3RxOf2u54-OzQQjF_IYKQfzLv2heQnn9EubPPjS4iHttXpDwriLkSNsFMU9v1oQB3vmUwtYASMhEnqbA/s7200/Photo%201.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="7200" data-original-width="5400" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi6TBZNQSdiav5Ol2mX6U1Xrtn_kVrMFXYBOKV0CTIxeS0t1Rsbr0uqouxPsUaWWk5D13WqKdkASHHBrvclYgXr1u1Br-8dbC1T7beabVASCG3RxOf2u54-OzQQjF_IYKQfzLv2heQnn9EubPPjS4iHttXpDwriLkSNsFMU9v1oQB3vmUwtYASMhEnqbA/w480-h640/Photo%201.jpg" width="480" /></a></div><div><b><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></b></div>By John W. Fountain</span></b></div><div><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjFUwUU_fvERmfXE7M7rLYLA3MlwqsqY7Kilt9YSR5OhXuHXYN5FAIsNOGa03K86sV1vYp52c_CCDiLHdvAxzS1fOR3GBtiEaLdcJVSYVEPVw7bmB8s3esZqqpyMhbyvXlh01pxFQMzd0dkSHETJnhqFKfJ-nUMEF3Mh8mX0EKQNGbFyUv8HiGIHO4J0A/s508/Photo5.jpeg" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="438" data-original-width="508" height="276" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjFUwUU_fvERmfXE7M7rLYLA3MlwqsqY7Kilt9YSR5OhXuHXYN5FAIsNOGa03K86sV1vYp52c_CCDiLHdvAxzS1fOR3GBtiEaLdcJVSYVEPVw7bmB8s3esZqqpyMhbyvXlh01pxFQMzd0dkSHETJnhqFKfJ-nUMEF3Mh8mX0EKQNGbFyUv8HiGIHO4J0A/w296-h276/Photo5.jpeg" width="296" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Aaron Timothy Lee, director and producer of <br />Dream Chaser, which airs this weekend <br />on Marquee Sports Network, starting <br />Friday, Nov. 25, at 7 p.m. CST</td></tr></tbody></table><p></p><p style="text-align: justify;"></p><div style="text-align: justify;"><span><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><i><b><span style="font-size: x-large;">“I</span><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></b></i><span style="font-size: medium;"><i>got you. Don’t worry, Professor Fountain. I got you.” </i>I can still hear his words. “Thee Aaron Lee.” </span></div><div style="font-size: large; font-style: italic; text-align: left;"><span style="text-align: justify;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">That’s what I called him. For that is how Aaron often referred to himself, almost in third-person while beaming and flashing his big white toothy smile, his eyes shining with the delight of a schoolboy who dreamt of someday becoming a professional sports reporter in this his hometown.</span></span></div></span></div><p></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">I first glimpsed that smile in what now seems like a lifetime ago, and after countless emails, texts and letters, office chats and telephone conversations shared between professor and student, mentor and mentee. Still hear the excitement in his voice, always detectable even when Aaron tried to bury the lead while delivering the latest news of some new job, journalism project or award. </span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Aaron has some really big news this week. And I know he would call or text or email so that I could shout it from the rafters, celebrate. If he could... </span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">We both knew this day would come. That time waits for no man. It is a truth that Aaron arrived at in life much earlier than I did.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">He was always young at heart. A dream chaser. <span></span></span></p><a name='more'></a><p></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="font-size: large; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEisljVPw12qY3kKBmXnYVSZcE-mlPJQtB4At5ngx3SAAwyk2CbD1_MrBuoOP4P0_83HDcEAUcEq_7SjEboFV4eOeko4mV3BXRirkc3CrKSjp68zdlTTqhL6sqyCXkPEs0YFmzjPZjaD0JiroDsRI-bFZTgZJKCpYUkDgUOWLDDgf9j-G52BiUIOrjXCcw/s750/Photo%204.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="422" data-original-width="750" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEisljVPw12qY3kKBmXnYVSZcE-mlPJQtB4At5ngx3SAAwyk2CbD1_MrBuoOP4P0_83HDcEAUcEq_7SjEboFV4eOeko4mV3BXRirkc3CrKSjp68zdlTTqhL6sqyCXkPEs0YFmzjPZjaD0JiroDsRI-bFZTgZJKCpYUkDgUOWLDDgf9j-G52BiUIOrjXCcw/w640-h360/Photo%204.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Aaron Lee, speaking as the December 2014 student commencement speaker<br /> at Roosevelt University.</td></tr></tbody></table><p style="text-align: justify;"><b><span style="font-size: x-large;">W</span></b><span style="font-size: medium;">hen we first met in 2013, he was my student at Roosevelt University. Aaron had big journalism dreams. He dreamt of writing stories rich in culture and wrapped in narrative triumph and humanity--untold stories.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">He dreamt of landing bylines, the way some young men dream of slam-dunking. Of landing a journalism internship the way some young men in the hardscrabble, too often violent streets of the South Side where he grew up, dream of playing in the pros. </span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;"></span></p><blockquote style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><i>'Aaron taught me that prognoses can neither deny nor define one’s dream. That the human spirit is greater.'</i></span></blockquote><p></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Aaron dreamt of NABJ (the National Association of Black Journalists), the way some young men dream of the NBA. Of landing awards and acclaim for doing good hard journalism work. He was a “baller” of a different kind, a newsman and aspiring documentarian whose passion was covering sports and unearthing the relevant human story therein.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">I wrote back in 2014 in a column about Aaron:</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Aaron’s “passion for journalism” and his hope to someday make a difference, “shone like the gloss of a freshly buffed hardwood gymnasium floor.” He dreamed “of becoming the first in his family to graduate college and stand as a symbol for his family and also his community of what is indeed possible when you work, plan, build, dream.” </span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Even when there are obstacles.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Even when life happens along the journey and it knocks you down and drains the hope and days and mortal time from your body, blood and bones but not your heart and soul. Aaron, my student, taught me, the professor, that. </span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Even when he was robbed at gunpoint of his belongings and computer while a student. Even when he was discouraged, funds low, and the dream elusive. Aaron never quit.</span></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhav8LO6aOCLd4d8uN_grsSM5SbVgXeJbJv8SJ1-NE0hrShSwJLU3CJ1AOAIFAcnuwDgZ65eanWthVhVHjY2pG-XLAxDNoG4owCOJ8xUzkUu-3F7ZJnwKpBo2Q8lHToTBmnKXFSMyO4j7s9cImzFPsgwUJ7ON7wYVej-PpHetGa3IUAGVNnW6CfXlFNjw/s4032/Photo%203.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3024" data-original-width="4032" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhav8LO6aOCLd4d8uN_grsSM5SbVgXeJbJv8SJ1-NE0hrShSwJLU3CJ1AOAIFAcnuwDgZ65eanWthVhVHjY2pG-XLAxDNoG4owCOJ8xUzkUu-3F7ZJnwKpBo2Q8lHToTBmnKXFSMyO4j7s9cImzFPsgwUJ7ON7wYVej-PpHetGa3IUAGVNnW6CfXlFNjw/w640-h480/Photo%203.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Director/ Producer Aaron T. Lee interviews Carl Montgomery at the Calumet Park Recreation Center.</td></tr></tbody></table><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><i>“I got you, Professor Fountain.” </i></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;"></span></div><span style="font-size: medium;"><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgfrlWWXMRup0yU8WA471DGDRY-4FtNXpKapDNydV1kBShMOT5YHD1H4wGWdnEFqlxfssy1HSMbmuPAEuW9HDsl4aO7IP3JNFBUTIyrvhkzuiHljyg_exXMczD1KKlS3kI39opXVSJKONUUuyyXOpbK2xnG1qfA1Pvzi0OVWT7HTT0kEEcMHumpx5eInA/s2452/Aaron%20Lee%20and%20John%20Fountain.jpeg" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1713" data-original-width="2452" height="224" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgfrlWWXMRup0yU8WA471DGDRY-4FtNXpKapDNydV1kBShMOT5YHD1H4wGWdnEFqlxfssy1HSMbmuPAEuW9HDsl4aO7IP3JNFBUTIyrvhkzuiHljyg_exXMczD1KKlS3kI39opXVSJKONUUuyyXOpbK2xnG1qfA1Pvzi0OVWT7HTT0kEEcMHumpx5eInA/w320-h224/Aaron%20Lee%20and%20John%20Fountain.jpeg" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Aaron Lee and John Fountain met as student at professor<br />in 2013 at Roosevelt University.</td></tr></tbody></table><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">I can still hear him assuring me about promises to deliver assignments and his final journalism project on time, which he always did. Or about promises to follow up, show up and deliver. </span>Aaron taught me that prognoses can neither deny nor define one’s dream. That the human spirit is greater. </div></span><p></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">That we are all on the clock and that our eventual expiration date is set in stone. That time is always shorter than we think, so don’t waste it complaining or feeling sorry for yourself. Instead wring all the days of your life--sun-drenched or ominously cloudy—of every last drop. And leave it all on the court. Until your heart stops.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Early on, I used to tell Aaron who always exuded a sense of palpable haste to slow down. He would respond, “Professor, I don’t know how much time I got.” Then he would share matter of factly--and always with a measured laugh--the latest harrowing episode in his battle with Crohn’s Disease. How he wasn’t sure that time whether he would come home from the hospital. </span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">I stopped telling Aaron to slow down. He never did.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">After earning his undergraduate degree in 2014 in print journalism at Roosevelt, he went on to earn a master’s in broadcast at DePaul University. He worked his way up the sports broadcast ladder after doing more internships than I can count, becoming a sports producer for a TV station in Texas and beginning work on a short-documentary film titled, “Dream Chaser”—the story of another South Side native and former teammate with hoop dreams.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Aaron scrounged, pinched and raised the money to fund the film he produced and directed. Then in May, he held a screening at a theater in Chicago, where he had also recently began working as a bureau producer at ESPN. His dreams were coming true. </span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">A month later, I received a message from his girlfriend Amber Brown: “Aaron passed away last night. I know you are really important to him and I wanted to let you know.”</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Aaron was really important to me. More than these words here can say.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Aaron Timothy Lee died June 20, at age 34, after a lengthy illness. But not his dream. Not his heart. Not his soul.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">And he’s got some really big news this week, even if he isn’t here to share it. His film, “Dream Chaser,” airs at 7 p.m. Friday and throughout the weekend on Marquee Sports Network—proof of a Chicago son’s indomitable spirit and the power of a dream.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><i>Don’t worry, Thee Aaron Lee, I got you, man. And I’m shouting from the rafters: ‘I’m so very proud of you!’ Well done, my brother, rest well. Love, Professor Fountain.”</i></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><i>#JusticeForJelaniDay</i></span></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg0zm7N_1sMlCMPNhMM3W9N-en3fN4MTHMOLxcGb1NH2Kb9L_NpR4R04YKNYEuu0OHgGak1nl-ByKi69URHbwQGGxnkaE552ZEaDnjy63Z8T9HRB5MYNe_Gsh__fOW54DqZ0r5pA3507HD7lD3YVb9uPWBvCZM045rkqvzNVwjVBJdwJ7otU3DVwcbXdw/s4032/Photo%202.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3024" data-original-width="4032" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg0zm7N_1sMlCMPNhMM3W9N-en3fN4MTHMOLxcGb1NH2Kb9L_NpR4R04YKNYEuu0OHgGak1nl-ByKi69URHbwQGGxnkaE552ZEaDnjy63Z8T9HRB5MYNe_Gsh__fOW54DqZ0r5pA3507HD7lD3YVb9uPWBvCZM045rkqvzNVwjVBJdwJ7otU3DVwcbXdw/w640-h480/Photo%202.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Director/Producer Aaron T. Lee interviewing Father Michael L. Pfleger, senior pastor of the Faith Community of St. Sabina.</td></tr></tbody></table><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><i><b>Schedule for Dream Chaser on Marquee Sports Network</b></i></span></div><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhROktWgm3XHXfrEXBnJWV04DvAs7V6WIgAfVMAR_GtITOiwhpUaPYMheGONjuf0wdU6pQAXyfWrJwOOeV5jAnoFY_7oSHI_nYe7gW7w76WcL7_Zw_G-iNSsQjgt7QxIC5kiT6x5TB0Kb1txboj_Gazw2zGnrpLIcC-irQi5CqHdxsh18-VILTIzokuEA/s977/Marquee.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="977" data-original-width="826" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhROktWgm3XHXfrEXBnJWV04DvAs7V6WIgAfVMAR_GtITOiwhpUaPYMheGONjuf0wdU6pQAXyfWrJwOOeV5jAnoFY_7oSHI_nYe7gW7w76WcL7_Zw_G-iNSsQjgt7QxIC5kiT6x5TB0Kb1txboj_Gazw2zGnrpLIcC-irQi5CqHdxsh18-VILTIzokuEA/w542-h640/Marquee.jpg" width="542" /></a></div><p></p><br /><div><br /></div></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7317909132013000655.post-72274950790318678682022-10-11T13:41:00.002-05:002022-10-11T14:46:09.339-05:00A River Runs Between Us, But It Doesn't Have To<div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgxX_E2yA1krUaK1DQiZvC1JbhCoabgE-ZzRWA9ih2nOBDTwCAPoXqbsaRF7hHz1w5NJny3JdLtV39btkanY1RN5sbFsMO4Eg6iLnhcHfozyoAytJr7HWjyMMHNjDk8a3-dzUJ0yKMGj-E33sKhCtBlgAa0XjER55dLpa5fSNzf1BpEnVN0N3Gf6e8-zQ/s2032/20220107_140956.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1960" data-original-width="2032" height="618" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgxX_E2yA1krUaK1DQiZvC1JbhCoabgE-ZzRWA9ih2nOBDTwCAPoXqbsaRF7hHz1w5NJny3JdLtV39btkanY1RN5sbFsMO4Eg6iLnhcHfozyoAytJr7HWjyMMHNjDk8a3-dzUJ0yKMGj-E33sKhCtBlgAa0XjER55dLpa5fSNzf1BpEnVN0N3Gf6e8-zQ/w640-h618/20220107_140956.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Ancestral Slave River in Assin Manso in Ghana is the historic site where shackled Africans <br />were forced to bathe before making the final journey to slave castles</td></tr></tbody></table></div><div><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhccEW11mhVarOmubCcB9_eIuIZbZLK5tGgS1dfN8KeHRF9C7Clo_FRIyRPTK2Olmej6V7nIuvbo4dNWi5_VYX7smO2ADEqCc3dTATGSrS6KPiyOEUXP4aZVsUa1Z-h7ZtCbjfjllVKsGf-2eKacrQsrUvFfeqFZKrXPlo7dnAbxtKORRQ3CZ6jKxcFQw/s3220/John%20Salve%20River.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3220" data-original-width="1960" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhccEW11mhVarOmubCcB9_eIuIZbZLK5tGgS1dfN8KeHRF9C7Clo_FRIyRPTK2Olmej6V7nIuvbo4dNWi5_VYX7smO2ADEqCc3dTATGSrS6KPiyOEUXP4aZVsUa1Z-h7ZtCbjfjllVKsGf-2eKacrQsrUvFfeqFZKrXPlo7dnAbxtKORRQ3CZ6jKxcFQw/w195-h320/John%20Salve%20River.jpg" width="195" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">John Fountain standing in Slave <br />River in Ghana.</td></tr></tbody></table><b style="font-size: large;">By John W. Fountain</b></div><div><span style="font-size: x-large;">I</span><span style="font-size: medium;"> see brother turn against brother, Black man against Black man. Witness this perennial crabs-in-a-bucket mentality in which we continually cannibalize each other here in America in the streets, in public pages, on social media in various venues--entertainment, political and otherwise. And my mind drifts back to Africa, where centuries ago brother sold brother into slavery to the European.</span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">I see us slaying each other today, by words and misdeeds, by the tongue and by gun, leaving a carnage of strange fruit in Urban streets. Divided by the self-hate rooted in Africa, where Africans slew Africans, instigated tribal wars to capture indigenous men, women and children in exchange for guns, ammunition, liquor, for trinkets and a semblance of power. </span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><span><a name='more'></a></span>That in their short-sightedness succumbed to a sinister trick of white colonizers that in reality led to Africans’ demise. That destroyed kingdoms and fueled the largest forced migration ever known to man.</span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">In Ghana I stood in Assin Manso’s Slave River, where African slaves bathed in gold-flake laden waters before the final bloody and agonizing leg of their journey to slave castles, where they were held in putrid, unbreathable dungeons filled with urine and feces above which rested the sacred Church of England.</span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjSsl_rij0i3rv86zWOLYOYd_ey1R-xAYbiwUqQftdIFXfG6HaKLOVtco4kXReW5QCi85NpyTAtMK9U64i8wql_ZVoe_wO8v2zlwHSRrJqERVtDQe_6e7pGKzYGCd8teAH8IJyY4qQLgLuOqgiA18Erc8Itr6EyUdhb-pWHiWw4mia8WxA6Xbxq4kf1Qg/s2596/20220110_112441.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1946" data-original-width="2596" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjSsl_rij0i3rv86zWOLYOYd_ey1R-xAYbiwUqQftdIFXfG6HaKLOVtco4kXReW5QCi85NpyTAtMK9U64i8wql_ZVoe_wO8v2zlwHSRrJqERVtDQe_6e7pGKzYGCd8teAH8IJyY4qQLgLuOqgiA18Erc8Itr6EyUdhb-pWHiWw4mia8WxA6Xbxq4kf1Qg/s320/20220110_112441.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>And what was clear to me inasmuch as the White man had come to Africa with a plan to export black human gold as slaves, the Black man—the African—all along was complicit, a willing participant, a co-conspirator.</span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">That does not absolve the white man of his evil. Nor does it require that I pretend to be blind to the truths of history no matter how uncomfortable the difficulty in wrestling with them. For it is written that you shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free. </span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">The truth is: the white man cannot kill us. But we can kill ourselves. And neither our fate nor our future have ever been irrevocably tied to our oppressor’s racial hate or his sense of superiority over the Black man. Both have always rested in our own hands. I inhale this truth as I reflect on the lingering divisions between us that only serve to destroy us.</span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhLHXRbhF0MFud6Rd-2mZPNz61HrQbjMjK8C0G_ZWLmAx-lXhrWxyc7oAlSKWSGoGCIndcWV0tjKW-4E2x4L7TFoUyjjniNHCbuKBiX609qpaUER2ZReAT7jt_rQFk2zEcIvsUxunMNqvNmQzqWcBbv7XF6h0BPlszLjcnm6zg5TfL9q7Xi6QcVc8huGQ/s2667/20220110_112504.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1960" data-original-width="2667" height="470" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhLHXRbhF0MFud6Rd-2mZPNz61HrQbjMjK8C0G_ZWLmAx-lXhrWxyc7oAlSKWSGoGCIndcWV0tjKW-4E2x4L7TFoUyjjniNHCbuKBiX609qpaUER2ZReAT7jt_rQFk2zEcIvsUxunMNqvNmQzqWcBbv7XF6h0BPlszLjcnm6zg5TfL9q7Xi6QcVc8huGQ/w640-h470/20220110_112504.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Ancestral Slave River in Assin Manso in Ghana is the historic site where shackled Africans <br />were forced to bathe before making the final journey to slave castles.</td></tr></tbody></table></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7317909132013000655.post-43007369395264484012022-09-07T20:56:00.003-05:002022-10-11T13:06:45.192-05:00Peace, Love & A Fragile Hope<p style="text-align: justify;"><b></b></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhjMGO6GQ5dTxwwjzIKlHV96D91M_DMwMSomyEWgeo-QOFoijBKHkbIrfRYURoFQT29fpCsoPqAwuhpnHiDxdqVVJVRMQ1UVtTDUDfaS-QyaPamsrxhJ8-dBOM7Cn4__6_9dfybEFjvMeTDoobOAPfh8KUtwnLWBS2VWiWqdyjImbuzST45kmo-A6WS2A/s1080/2%20Khalil%20White%2018.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="860" data-original-width="1080" height="510" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhjMGO6GQ5dTxwwjzIKlHV96D91M_DMwMSomyEWgeo-QOFoijBKHkbIrfRYURoFQT29fpCsoPqAwuhpnHiDxdqVVJVRMQ1UVtTDUDfaS-QyaPamsrxhJ8-dBOM7Cn4__6_9dfybEFjvMeTDoobOAPfh8KUtwnLWBS2VWiWqdyjImbuzST45kmo-A6WS2A/w640-h510/2%20Khalil%20White%2018.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: justify;">Khalil White-EL, 18, was previously a member of The Faith Community of St. Sabina’s Brave Youth Program and most recently in the church’s Strong Futures Mentoring Program, where he was a mentee. He had recently landed a new job and was sharing his excitement about it with mentors Friday (August 19, at St. Sabina’s back-to-school Block Party held at Renaissance Park, at 1300 W. 79th Street, near the church. According to police, Khalil was fatally shot four days later on August 23, in an alley in the 8700 block of South Wabash Avenue, about three miles from St. Sabina. (Photo: Provided)</td></tr></tbody></table><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><b></b></div><b><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></b><div><b><span style="font-size: medium;">By John W. Fountain</span></b><p></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span><b><span style="font-size: x-large;">P</span></b><span style="font-size: medium;">eace. Into the night, the children smile. Their voices rise above the steady whir of bouncy house fans and the deep incurable pain that is not as easily detectable here, though its presence too is undeniable. Like the water that ripples in soft waves at a nearby park fountain. </span></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Like the mothers of murdered sons and daughters who don “Purpose Over Pain” T-shirts--decades of grief shared between them. Like the enthusiasm of Khalil White-EL, 18, who bubbles with excitement over his new job--his future as bright as his infectious smile. </span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Peace. It flows here, on an August Friday night at Renaissance Park on West 79th Street. Drifting upon a premature autumn wind is a sense of the way life is supposed to be, even on this side of Chicago, where gunfire and murder confiscate childhood.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span></span></p><blockquote><span><b><span style="font-size: large;">"Don’t we all bleed the same? Doesn’t every human soul carry the same worth?"<span><a name='more'></a></span></span></b></span></blockquote><p></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;"></span></div><span style="font-size: medium;"><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjAvvmeMQmA27yOE3pLhnM3GBN9NoxvZTZOcGmkP34fqETyXCV6oH7-LVBYVyh81qlJK4-AW-4p66wssWBFQN4-1avtedvA50FHgx9AYP9KZiL7UuJAiPkLICWn7YljfzrjJ5dK_lGVZm7UaG_vVRRtD1Kixo9rnBAOkqjBV75aa91PxWgymrSj0V58FA/s960/1%20Khalil%20White%2018.jpg" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="960" data-original-width="709" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjAvvmeMQmA27yOE3pLhnM3GBN9NoxvZTZOcGmkP34fqETyXCV6oH7-LVBYVyh81qlJK4-AW-4p66wssWBFQN4-1avtedvA50FHgx9AYP9KZiL7UuJAiPkLICWn7YljfzrjJ5dK_lGVZm7UaG_vVRRtD1Kixo9rnBAOkqjBV75aa91PxWgymrSj0V58FA/s320/1%20Khalil%20White%2018.jpg" width="236" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Khalil White-EL (Photo: Provided)</td></tr></tbody></table>Here Black Lives Matter protestors are MIA when it comes to Black lives taken by Black killers. But here each summer the Faith Community of St. Sabina takes its vigil for peace to the streets.</span><p></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">A thousand people flocked to Renaissance Park for games, treats and backpacks at St. Sabina’s back-to-school Block Party, which is signals the church’s annual “Friday Night Peace Walks” led by Father Michael L. Pfleger, the church’s senior pastor soon will be ending. </span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">The summer marches snake through the streets, undeterred by the recalcitrance of violence and the toll on the psyche and souls of those who dwell in the valley of the shadow of death.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Around here, they live with the reality that Black lives in this city and nation still don’t matter as much as white lives. With the quantifiable truth that frequent mass shootings in Englewood, West Garfield, Austin or Auburn Gresham, Illinois, don’t garner the same headlines or sense of public urgency or loss as a single mass shooting in Highland Park, Illinois. </span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">What’s the difference? Don’t we all bleed the same? Doesn’t every human soul carry the same worth?</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Is the life of a Black child shot to death on the South or West Sides somehow made less valuable by her zip code or race? Does the prevalence of shootings in poor urban neighborhoods make the occurrence of violence there somehow more palpable, normal? </span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjjlqo2Nr89m9y807BZaFrAXmhxxB-T_aUHSUEAGblH0V2EDWODTdzeExv2UPCsUkDyGUfRda11SWXRSNzE_7OVG67SuNx8LK6eM9IOjrh2ZElVryFY5B6keps4SumbMOrTVOxd8O-fvaBfoHdHTgBn8aj52B72E_GMt74orZlFxpGHE9Jk4wKayI9j3g/s5704/4.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3840" data-original-width="5704" height="430" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjjlqo2Nr89m9y807BZaFrAXmhxxB-T_aUHSUEAGblH0V2EDWODTdzeExv2UPCsUkDyGUfRda11SWXRSNzE_7OVG67SuNx8LK6eM9IOjrh2ZElVryFY5B6keps4SumbMOrTVOxd8O-fvaBfoHdHTgBn8aj52B72E_GMt74orZlFxpGHE9Jk4wKayI9j3g/w640-h430/4.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Children play inside a bouncy house at Renaissance Park at St. Sabina’s back-to-school Block Party on Friday August 19. The event signals an end to the church’s annual “Friday Night Peace Walks” led by Father Michael L. Pfleger, the church’s senior pastor. (Photo: John W. Fountain)</td></tr></tbody></table><span style="font-size: medium;">On Chicago’s South and West Sides gun violence is a fact of life. So far, in 2022, Chicago has averaged about four mass shootings a month with all but three occurring on the South and West Sides, according to Gun Violence Archive, an online archive of gun violence incidents. </span><p></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">A total of 31 mass shootings in Chicago through August 20, with at least 130 people injured and 14 people killed, figures show. Two mass shootings this past weekend raise that figure to at least 140 people shot. But that’s not the whole story.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">According to Chicago Police records, there were 425 homicides in Chicago through August 22, and 1,828 shootings, compared to 519 homicides and 2,239 shootings (an 18 percent decrease in both) during the same period in 2021. But any impact of a dip in gun violence is hard to measure. Or feel.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">“We shouldn't feel good about a small decrease,” Pfleger told me. “Also, people do not feel safer. In fact, my take (is), they feel less safe.”</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Indeed the weekend turned out to be another deadly one with 38 people shot, four of them fatally, according to police.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;"></span></div><span style="font-size: medium;"><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhWzUXPtme80ugXb_-JM2ssm-hnutj6Q1gcbpjOYm6Zyz7hUZTa_pqyBQL73bX6x0EhjZDQbOwI-A3PVtq5dvxC1IAhUpJ3dqjsKEYunRaW0IEOI_pT_E6g8-9jBwgC24BzmHbhPOuVOWy5QtXQuLSJDvPr5II5sLj8Lqa5SBRyQLxY5ODANLEOMimSBg/s3486/A%20little%20girl%20at%20the%20back%20to%20school%20Block%20Party%20sponsored%20by%20St%20Sabina%20awaits%20a%20bag%20of%20freshly%20popped%20popcorn.jpg" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1960" data-original-width="3486" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhWzUXPtme80ugXb_-JM2ssm-hnutj6Q1gcbpjOYm6Zyz7hUZTa_pqyBQL73bX6x0EhjZDQbOwI-A3PVtq5dvxC1IAhUpJ3dqjsKEYunRaW0IEOI_pT_E6g8-9jBwgC24BzmHbhPOuVOWy5QtXQuLSJDvPr5II5sLj8Lqa5SBRyQLxY5ODANLEOMimSBg/s320/A%20little%20girl%20at%20the%20back%20to%20school%20Block%20Party%20sponsored%20by%20St%20Sabina%20awaits%20a%20bag%20of%20freshly%20popped%20popcorn.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">A little girl at the back-to-school Block Party sponsored <br />by St Sabina awaits a bag of freshly popped <br />buttered popcorn. (John W. Fountain)</td></tr></tbody></table>Peace is elusive. And yet, at Renaissance Park on Friday evening, a little girl stands in front of<br /> the glowing popcorn machine among scores of children--the white smoke of giant barbecue grills carrying the scent of burgers and hotdogs, and normalcy.</span><p></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Four days later, on Tuesday Khalil White-EL--who is Moorish American and a member of St. Sabina’s Strong Futures Mentoring Program who had shared his excitement over his new job at Friday’s block party--is fatally gunned down about three miles away, in a South Side alley. </span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Khalil was 18. His funeral services at St. Sabina are pending.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">The family was planning a balloon release at St. Sabina’s peace march this Friday evening. Balloons for Khalil. And prayers for peace.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">#JusticeForJelaniDay</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgrkMO4VLSmz1vPzkCHapN_MOIP49DEcS2DwV4BBbjXuyL3EmRM71TOs7YiC9kHxNOdJgMajhab-58ui-yquNlH6FsBNsHinmomVgnFzUd1TOpjw6QlCYEHTQgnr6UY5CuCrJmnPZWftYNVcn52-rh1lNcSSx4buM2JCh2HSNXI77_SOckr7lcTs9c-fQ/s5840/5.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3976" data-original-width="5840" height="436" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgrkMO4VLSmz1vPzkCHapN_MOIP49DEcS2DwV4BBbjXuyL3EmRM71TOs7YiC9kHxNOdJgMajhab-58ui-yquNlH6FsBNsHinmomVgnFzUd1TOpjw6QlCYEHTQgnr6UY5CuCrJmnPZWftYNVcn52-rh1lNcSSx4buM2JCh2HSNXI77_SOckr7lcTs9c-fQ/w640-h436/5.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Two women pray for another woman at Renaissance Park at St. Sabina’s <br />back-to-school Block Party on Friday August 19. (Photo: John W. Fountain)</td></tr></tbody></table><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7317909132013000655.post-25547850971351777272022-08-08T19:04:00.002-05:002022-08-08T19:04:59.937-05:00It's Time<p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgrU9xriCWgNY-kMAbUpdwlS3kVoQ64k3aTft3QXLouFz-Au6MTneiQIhDM4o3hCxTekbvXAmAWrTFp3EGC2SSMijeisLe5b3rgKVIPAXexy0a3Qu1HkG21_Q7ZZJzExtWdhXgCgCEF8aLl3QKzvqlLyYUZrO9N0bUo6IaTGncuCZmIvLqqyLOXofPH4Q/s1331/Resized_20220323_142342(2).jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1331" height="520" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgrU9xriCWgNY-kMAbUpdwlS3kVoQ64k3aTft3QXLouFz-Au6MTneiQIhDM4o3hCxTekbvXAmAWrTFp3EGC2SSMijeisLe5b3rgKVIPAXexy0a3Qu1HkG21_Q7ZZJzExtWdhXgCgCEF8aLl3QKzvqlLyYUZrO9N0bUo6IaTGncuCZmIvLqqyLOXofPH4Q/w640-h520/Resized_20220323_142342(2).jpeg" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">John W. Fountain as a Cubs reporter at the Chicaho Tribune circa 1991</td></tr></tbody></table></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">They say that "the people" appreciate my pen as a voice of Chicago. I pray this is true.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">It has been my joy and honor for the last nearly 13 years as a freelance columnist for the Chicago Sun-Times. I do not know where my pen will land. But know this: I will continue speaking truth with purpose and passion as I seek to tell "our" stories with all my heart--as I have for the last 30-plus years as a journalist at places like the New York Times, Washington Post and Chicago Tribune.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">But there comes a time when every writer/journalist must treat themselves with the respect their work and craft rendered deserves. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">I've always lived by: Never Internalize Their Disrespect.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">I now say: "Never Accept Their Disrespect"</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Thank you, everyone, for your support, love and even your criticisms over these years. This is not goodbye from my pen but the start of a new beginning, even if the road and destination are, for now, unclear. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">But God.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">A Google search will always find me or my website: www.johnwfountain.com</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">I will be writing. I pray you will keep reading.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">John W. Fountain</span></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7317909132013000655.post-72683534702873999982022-05-29T16:59:00.012-05:002022-05-31T11:42:19.982-05:00COMING SOON, "People of Accra" - ABOUT THE PROJECT<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEivrIQ_iQ5sYvK_Pksqc_YFR-R0bvSzgj312YG630tkqfdjzocMoLbMTrxN1PTIv0YLS5fTLldDUhjGjEN65KWWc_xSYfJuNX701bLS9s0dilADxMzCM23ph2W1GOP7n3b7k05r5vpKAayrbh9nzNDRqOyOopayWL335rf8MEmZ8CjrigRlfxpZH-j2iA/s740/Header%20finish%20draft%202%20refined%20for%20Blog%20Hed%202%20reduced.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><img border="0" data-original-height="404" data-original-width="740" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEivrIQ_iQ5sYvK_Pksqc_YFR-R0bvSzgj312YG630tkqfdjzocMoLbMTrxN1PTIv0YLS5fTLldDUhjGjEN65KWWc_xSYfJuNX701bLS9s0dilADxMzCM23ph2W1GOP7n3b7k05r5vpKAayrbh9nzNDRqOyOopayWL335rf8MEmZ8CjrigRlfxpZH-j2iA/s16000/Header%20finish%20draft%202%20refined%20for%20Blog%20Hed%202%20reduced.jpg" /></span></a></div><div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b>By John W. Fountain</b></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;">ACCRA. CAPITAL CITY. POPULATION 2.6 MILLION. Forty journalism students, one goal: To tell the stories of everyday people. From its bustling boisterous markets. To the relentless entrepreneurial merchants who hawk their wares in perilous streets that buzz with motorists and merciless motorbikes that dart recklessly between traffic. To the faithful “Kayaye”—the young women who work as head porters, carrying more than their weight on their heads and a small child tied in a cloth on their backs.</span></div><div><blockquote><blockquote><span style="font-size: x-large;"><blockquote style="text-align: justify;"><i>"The consensus around here is that whatever superlatives may be used to describe Ghana, one must also interject the word, 'hard.'"</i></blockquote></span></blockquote></blockquote></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;">This is their story. It is a story of the rhythms of life and in this time. The story of a people whose hardship alone is not enough to dissuade them from viewing life through the prism of possibility, even when sweat is dripping like raindrops from their brow, their backs aching from carrying their burdens in the heat of the day, their fingers stretched, their feet wearied and worn, and another day’s journey of toil for little pay awaiting at the light of each new sunrise. <span><a name='more'></a></span></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEibKHETSaZrEiEHTN-wqdS3QPkysryVhNtQzfVfAU1iDZgD9-Y2B-TjnyFqKowiuduzHzHwKh4OeoUPSst4cF8IgBpzYO-XDwxd0uv0LqM0zri1GnmlYTam0RGbBGyGrQxp-RtQWnV1beuwCcuIYPdb89LDs2iHuvihfljueipUORQa6dTjCQ22_DKlxg/s5978/4.jpg" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="5978" data-original-width="3222" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEibKHETSaZrEiEHTN-wqdS3QPkysryVhNtQzfVfAU1iDZgD9-Y2B-TjnyFqKowiuduzHzHwKh4OeoUPSst4cF8IgBpzYO-XDwxd0uv0LqM0zri1GnmlYTam0RGbBGyGrQxp-RtQWnV1beuwCcuIYPdb89LDs2iHuvihfljueipUORQa6dTjCQ22_DKlxg/w344-h640/4.jpg" width="344" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">A woman working as a head porter carries her load on <br />her head a child in a cloth attached to her back. <br />(Photo: John W. Fountain)</td></tr></tbody></table><span style="font-size: large;">This is their story. A story of life, love, laughter and faith, and of endurance in this capital West African metropolis, where the consensus around here is that whatever superlatives may be used to describe Ghana, one must also interject the word, “hard.” </span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;">There is another undeniable truth. It is as glaring as the inevitable suffocating traffic on the Spintex Road: That "freedom and justice," for many here in the humbling, hardscrabble streets of Accra, looks and feels a lot like, "freedom and just us." And it is apparent, they say, that no help is coming, at least no time soon.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;">“Ghana is hard,” they say. But the people of Accra are harder—more resilient than the poverty and lack that many face. Unbreakable in spirit and in determination. </span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;">This much is clear in their stories. Like the story of the young men who wander in search of scrap metal, lingering somewhere between homelessness and subsistence. The story of the mother who sells tomatoes in the market and ekes out a living for her family by her mastery. </span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;">The story of the young woman who has broken the unspoken barrier of becoming a lottery agent in a male-dominated world. The tale of the family for whom producing and selling kenkey is their pride and joy, like a daughter called Grace who leads the family charge.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;">"People of Accra" is a story in which it becomes apparent that perhaps some of the people in this world richest in faith and spirit are those poorest in substance. That socioeconomic circumstances cannot extinguish the joy, dignity and pride of a people. And that examining the world through the prism of everyday people, even the poor, is a worthwhile undertaking for both journalism's sake and democracy's.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;"><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgXXhtQEHdP8GD8vO4nk8k8i-uoJXN5fVZV4VDzacUDGg7H-jnF6bnhrE9BegVY0NNaZvrGFeubd7ThueOtXYgAyZgxD94jfQ8C3VfWwNuCCI6lufTw3WMEYH7HLh42FpN2SiX9S9SnOFI0PQzXLiVmpWbJ1rjbWkxy0S8Zw5GsI0pv-RVsa5ON-kBTPQ/s2672/Madam%20Salomey%20attending%20to%20a%20customer.jpg" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2672" data-original-width="2233" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgXXhtQEHdP8GD8vO4nk8k8i-uoJXN5fVZV4VDzacUDGg7H-jnF6bnhrE9BegVY0NNaZvrGFeubd7ThueOtXYgAyZgxD94jfQ8C3VfWwNuCCI6lufTw3WMEYH7HLh42FpN2SiX9S9SnOFI0PQzXLiVmpWbJ1rjbWkxy0S8Zw5GsI0pv-RVsa5ON-kBTPQ/s320/Madam%20Salomey%20attending%20to%20a%20customer.jpg" width="267" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Madam Salomey attending to a customer <br />at Madina Market in Accra, Ghana. <br />(Photo: Joanna Mawusi Dogbey)</td></tr></tbody></table>People of Accra is a collective human story of hope and also despair. A story of life and also hardship. A story that shines like the golden morning sun on this city’s brightest days. And that pales like a dark and stormy sky, threatening consuming rains to drench the streets, washing away whole communities by its floods, and with them, even the vulnerable kiosks of merchants and also their wares, plunging them deeper into the plight for daily survival.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;">People of Accra. This is their story. Told through the eyes and pens of Ghanaian students enrolled during spring 2022 in a journalism course at the University of Ghana-Legon. It is a human story. A story about Africa and Africans told, not by outsiders looking in, but by insiders with the insight, sensitivity and ability to tell those stories accurately and incisively.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;"> </span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;">People of Accra: A Portrait In Time. It is an important story. Our Story. A story we can all share.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;"><i><b>Project by journalism students at the University of Ghana-Legon and John W. Fountain. Project edited and produced by John W. Fountain</b></i></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEijMoCRY5uRxEPT-yIjl_SN3KKJRt--KLXGUrWrRMECj51D-Ik_fIj9HlXD9pzQ1hTkvpYHhYwhkdgoE5JOenZbn52VeDIggBKwYTK2on68pnoXDw-wMMV_j3sSqpjkXkUZ6z43uFPIb0v9AE-2N_J3ZwMD37n1o46LUxFWbrOQY9hpVugDoIAxOiSIbA/s1431/Evangelist%20Gladys%20receives%20donations%20from%20this%20pepper%20seller.%20She%20tells%20me%20these%20donations%20are%20what%20she%20relies%20on%20to%20help%20in%20transport%20and%20to%20keep%20body%20and%20soul%20together.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1073" data-original-width="1431" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEijMoCRY5uRxEPT-yIjl_SN3KKJRt--KLXGUrWrRMECj51D-Ik_fIj9HlXD9pzQ1hTkvpYHhYwhkdgoE5JOenZbn52VeDIggBKwYTK2on68pnoXDw-wMMV_j3sSqpjkXkUZ6z43uFPIb0v9AE-2N_J3ZwMD37n1o46LUxFWbrOQY9hpVugDoIAxOiSIbA/w640-h480/Evangelist%20Gladys%20receives%20donations%20from%20this%20pepper%20seller.%20She%20tells%20me%20these%20donations%20are%20what%20she%20relies%20on%20to%20help%20in%20transport%20and%20to%20keep%20body%20and%20soul%20together.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Evangelist Gladys Tetteh poses in front of a market stall with her last child asleep on her back. </span><span style="font-size: large;">(Photo: Michael Etrue)</span></div><br /></td></tr></tbody></table></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b>CONTRIBUTORS:</b></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;">Adelaide Ayeaku Birikorang; Dillon Owusu Brown; Dina Okyerebea; Elorm Kofi Deh; Emmanuel Ako-Gyima; Emmanuella Amoafo Asante; Enid Araba AsamoahErnest Boakye Duodu; Frank Asiedu; Gertrude Oforiwaa Brako; Gifty Aboagye-Mensah; Hope Kwabena Akpabli; Jacob Tetteh; Joanna Mawusi Dogbey; John Kofi Dorgbefu; John Yaw Asare; Josephine Awuku; Joy Sena Anku; Juliana Kwofie; Juliet Takyiwaa Nyamekye; Lucy Ackah; Maame Efua Yamoawah Essel; Michael Etrue; Michele Dede Quarcoo; Mildred Songsore Salia; Nana Ama Hayfron; Nana Boakyewa Frempong; Nihad Suhuyini Sayibu; Philip Edwin Ansah; Rees Oduro Hakeem; Reward Feehi Kpokli; Salma Gifty Braimah; Samuel Kofi Kilinfingh; Samuel Terkpeh Otoo;Samuella Naa Oyoe Quartey; Sarah Pomaah; Shafiulahi Ibrahim; Theodora Mawufemor Aku Agbodeka; Theophilus Degenu Smith </span></div><div><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgBXpFtxhT_h5dwZfcVjx46mQM9ofCJpxwc0m6KwKBiwmSiqPYxPjys1411BgR5lfEUhu9NaqWGNL5a18_8L3HfKMxkwXQDo2zCxMUDr9HwkFuoPBmLanNmjteHW4uD5Ai75Y3eeS2qonALz04T_tyF4LDp8gIg3iJIjDHvo8mYtXO0FlJd2Yuwpls6EA/s700/1%20reduced.jpg" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="306" data-original-width="700" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgBXpFtxhT_h5dwZfcVjx46mQM9ofCJpxwc0m6KwKBiwmSiqPYxPjys1411BgR5lfEUhu9NaqWGNL5a18_8L3HfKMxkwXQDo2zCxMUDr9HwkFuoPBmLanNmjteHW4uD5Ai75Y3eeS2qonALz04T_tyF4LDp8gIg3iJIjDHvo8mYtXO0FlJd2Yuwpls6EA/s16000/1%20reduced.jpg" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;">People in the Greater Accra Region go about their day. (Photo: John W. Founatin)</span></td></tr></tbody></table></div></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><p></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7317909132013000655.post-28308175389009783672022-05-09T09:38:00.000-05:002022-05-09T09:38:00.047-05:00Fountain Wins Top Honors in Chicago Headline Club LIsagor Awards<p><span style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, "system-ui", ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif; font-size: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEitKfQJtpgKxcAKJGm4nZA5OVIWyRTp4ZzSs8EQnysPySUrbffc60r0A-deJgnSdLsAvDOtvcD28y9BC-Mluvb78wlluyaOVoC0Z0-Ti8m7BTWkLmLiiKtcBR_GUNvn0Kf3UoXXjiSVfsSD46PmfZIyz9fCp75_lT4OEdIhcnRzd_hVleofc133ZQvYBg/s932/Lisagor%20CelebrationWon3%20new.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="932" data-original-width="700" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEitKfQJtpgKxcAKJGm4nZA5OVIWyRTp4ZzSs8EQnysPySUrbffc60r0A-deJgnSdLsAvDOtvcD28y9BC-Mluvb78wlluyaOVoC0Z0-Ti8m7BTWkLmLiiKtcBR_GUNvn0Kf3UoXXjiSVfsSD46PmfZIyz9fCp75_lT4OEdIhcnRzd_hVleofc133ZQvYBg/s16000/Lisagor%20CelebrationWon3%20new.jpg" /></a></div><p></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, "system-ui", ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span data-offset-key="drpg2-0-0" style="font-family: inherit;">WestSide</span></span><span data-offset-key="drpg2-1-0" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, "system-ui", ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span data-text="true" style="font-family: inherit;"> Press celebrates Chicago native son John W. Fountain, freelance columnist, named 1st Place Winner of this year’s Chicago Headline Club’s 45th Annual Peter Lisagor Awards for Best News Column, Editorial Writing or Commentary. Fountain won for his work on three selected columns: the Unforgotten 51 women, “Chicago Bleeds” and Jelani Day.<span></span></span></span></span></p><a name='more'></a><p></p><span style="font-size: large;"><div style="text-align: justify;"><b style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: inherit; white-space: pre-wrap;">Jelani Day:</b></div><span class="py34i1dx" style="background-color: white; color: var(--blue-link); font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, "system-ui", ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: var(--blue-link); font-family: inherit;">https://chicago.suntimes.com/news/2022/5/7/23060916/lisagor-awards-journalism-chicago-headline-club-spj-society-professional-journalists</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: var(--blue-link); font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div></span><span data-offset-key="drpg2-3-0" style="background-color: white;"><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: inherit; white-space: pre-wrap;"><b>Chicago Bleeds:</b></span></div></span><span class="py34i1dx" style="background-color: white; color: var(--blue-link); font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, "system-ui", ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: var(--blue-link); font-family: inherit;">https://chicago.suntimes.com/columnists/2021/9/17/22679209/chicago-tale-two-cities-crime-john-fountain</span></div></span><span data-offset-key="drpg2-5-0" style="background-color: white;"><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: #050505; font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, "system-ui", ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></div><span data-text="true" style="color: #050505; font-family: inherit; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><b>Unforgotten 51:</b></span></div></span></span><span class="py34i1dx" style="background-color: white; color: var(--blue-link); font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, "system-ui", ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: var(--blue-link); font-family: inherit;">https://chicago.suntimes.com/columnists/2021/3/12/22328323/chicago-unsolved-murders-black-women-unforgotten51-john-fountain</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJvIG7_CY2xKxWxgbKmhBDVjd_KoD6aOmfcsYQ_p8qsbcC17inA-cURveBbVBpcaX5bFL-tyfooSf0GyZWSOO4BhLFKToc_Xfo7oivSkKzjcew1lraeTpBD4uZMjYNCqexiMWQ5ZgwNbEuamz25ia9RMmdfu-R4eNY4UccD_QkYD6eM3zkRGTuSgI6Gw/s933/Blog%20Lisagor%20Celebrationnew.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="933" data-original-width="700" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJvIG7_CY2xKxWxgbKmhBDVjd_KoD6aOmfcsYQ_p8qsbcC17inA-cURveBbVBpcaX5bFL-tyfooSf0GyZWSOO4BhLFKToc_Xfo7oivSkKzjcew1lraeTpBD4uZMjYNCqexiMWQ5ZgwNbEuamz25ia9RMmdfu-R4eNY4UccD_QkYD6eM3zkRGTuSgI6Gw/s16000/Blog%20Lisagor%20Celebrationnew.jpg" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><br /><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><br /><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div></span></span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7317909132013000655.post-3166300134494046642022-05-08T10:19:00.025-05:002022-05-09T10:33:38.165-05:00Follow John Fountain's Fulbright Journey To Ghana<div style="text-align: center;"><b><span style="color: #0b5394; font-size: large;">Click Photo To Follow John Fountain's Journey</span></b></div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.hearafricacalling.com/" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1318" data-original-width="700" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjhx-8Y6pKlcFKLmIZn_PaynG34wtx3A58J5byQJQnREyH9kNbM4OTfg3_IeZu00KJIkkOTm64OIUlueJZIcC8d6VGi6oOoZOR2ootF3pWTwGviQXOF5foWwb2Wa3sE9ba2tlvJe4RbWLVNQO2XAqw7Jy1rIVCZrTlyVY4O2g6pOPR4_xDCaa2wn0_r_Q/s16000/Screenshot_20220509-144331_Chrome.jpg" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><br /><p><br /></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7317909132013000655.post-7409409943049570522022-01-27T09:36:00.005-06:002022-01-27T10:23:39.577-06:00"What Am I, Chopped Liver?"<p><span style="font-size: medium;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgYYD3hfWbuItRfMASU-zu-ySaO1p4QbSAm3cfNlpFqCpKw4ud2BER3a6ubUZUNVllLBZo2Voa42pzo4oB6in3X1haaQU8r3FAdTBVenYBzSeZuDi-4MgYYJqdiPjiJcKETuqxxqxfgvvyk4WJfe05JCstYq__TYQVEQmGchsUVXAqNsvO_EbL-vJVu-w=s1080" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="465" data-original-width="1080" height="276" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgYYD3hfWbuItRfMASU-zu-ySaO1p4QbSAm3cfNlpFqCpKw4ud2BER3a6ubUZUNVllLBZo2Voa42pzo4oB6in3X1haaQU8r3FAdTBVenYBzSeZuDi-4MgYYJqdiPjiJcKETuqxxqxfgvvyk4WJfe05JCstYq__TYQVEQmGchsUVXAqNsvO_EbL-vJVu-w=w640-h276" width="640" /></a></span></div><p></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>By John W. Fountain</b></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><b><span style="font-size: x-large;">M</span></b><span style="font-size: medium;">y wife was simmering with indignation, holding the newspaper she had just retrieved that morning a few years ago from our mailbox—the newspaper I had written for as a freelance columnist for the previous seven years. “Hmph, will you look at this…”</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">I looked at the front page, eager to see the object of her anger. There it was, an above the banner header. The faces of the newspaper’s top columnists: Eight white men, three white women, one black woman. No black men. No not one. </span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">No John Fountain. </span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">An all-star opinion writer’s line-up, it was anchored by the moniker: “The voices of Chicago. …They’ll get you talking.”</span></p><p></p><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Honestly, I stood silently in our bedroom, ingesting it all, not sure what to say. It stung, rekindling a familiar ache. But after a career in journalism, I have grown accustomed to the bumps and bruises and perceived slights that accompany “Reporting While Black.” I have come to understand that I can’t afford to be “too sensitive,” to be too in my feelings, less I become incapacitated for the mission.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><blockquote><span style="font-size: x-large;"><i>"The more I reported and wrote the more I could hear in my own writing the chorus of voices too often forgotten, neglected or ignored by the mainstream press..."</i></span></blockquote></div><span style="font-size: medium;"><span><a name='more'></a></span></span><p></p><p style="text-align: justify;"></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; font-size: large; margin-right: 1em; text-align: justify;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgZ0exQ20hgTkWAjLBovq3WY8nbkDZSqgzV7PfwQE1i0_oyc4zecBnd_X-IEDENJOQRjeOCjvORT0QW2m3IIi22MOCAMSq9iodch3obJshE9gIY2QIcB9z5stR76jCxOvr5y7R3Y6r2XaqV5JyE7Smis7HUTTSU9UVg0ukVsOKYNnN71eYGoD0q7Jp8zg=s2048" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1536" data-original-width="2048" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgZ0exQ20hgTkWAjLBovq3WY8nbkDZSqgzV7PfwQE1i0_oyc4zecBnd_X-IEDENJOQRjeOCjvORT0QW2m3IIi22MOCAMSq9iodch3obJshE9gIY2QIcB9z5stR76jCxOvr5y7R3Y6r2XaqV5JyE7Smis7HUTTSU9UVg0ukVsOKYNnN71eYGoD0q7Jp8zg=s320" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">John Fountain and former student Mario Parker<br />show off Lisagor Awards for journalism.</td></tr></tbody></table><span style="font-size: medium;"></span><p></p><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Instead I have come to embrace the concept from a former black journalist colleague that: “You can’t argue with excellence. So be excellent.” And also the golden words from another black journalist friend spoken to me many years ago and that I have carried with me throughout my career: “Never Internalize Their Disrespect.”</span></div><p></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">I explained to my wife—herself a journalist with a passionate pen—although to no complete satisfaction, that the columnists pictured were full-time staffers and I was a mere freelancer. She said she understood but wondered how, among the “voices of Chicago,” I would not also be counted among them—notwithstanding the fact that there are plenty of writing heavy-hitters in this city.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Indeed I am humbled to be among the opinion writers today in Mike Royko’s town, in this also the city of the late-, great, Studs Terkel whom I had the honor of meeting some years ago when we both read our essays for a local release event for National Public Radio’s “This I Believe” book. </span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">I grew up reading Royko in the Chicago Sun-Times, climbing aboard the CTA bus on the morning ride to school and turning to the sports pages first, then straight to Royko. He was blunt. He was funny. He made me laugh. He made me think. Made me feel.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEh1Bqv3tiL8HMgq-EVu3ffCJFH7Pyw7HF6r7zYV5FG9wajwTeTQNa2MDM9l4JQf_O4i8m5rqjq6pWfke22Us2KCO_kZf0qeqFGCR7v-mUz6Eogmkb3TzC55FZdFHTLuxbTFKNnyFoaGzLwbWiSZL31YOzTUqjt9thI27S74qDRVMj_vgeIStkKB2tHxIQ=s1316" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="640" data-original-width="1316" height="312" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEh1Bqv3tiL8HMgq-EVu3ffCJFH7Pyw7HF6r7zYV5FG9wajwTeTQNa2MDM9l4JQf_O4i8m5rqjq6pWfke22Us2KCO_kZf0qeqFGCR7v-mUz6Eogmkb3TzC55FZdFHTLuxbTFKNnyFoaGzLwbWiSZL31YOzTUqjt9thI27S74qDRVMj_vgeIStkKB2tHxIQ=w640-h312" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Chicago, John Fountain's hometown.</td></tr></tbody></table><p></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">I was drawn to commentary. To other voices: Lu Palmer. Warner Saunders. Vernon Jarrett. Unflinching, honest and insightful they were. Voices of Chicago? Even for these journalists—all of them black men—that would depend on which “Chicago” one was considering. </span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">But these particular voices spoke to my Chicago. In them, I heard—and I saw—myself. I felt anger. I felt justification. I felt recognized. I felt finally visible. </span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Years later, while in journalism school at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, where I earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees in journalism, I read Leanita McClain’s “A Foot in Each World.” The former Chicago Tribune columnist whose machine-gun precision and passion leapt from her writings ignited my writer’s soul. She made me cry. She made me applaud. I craved Leanita’s ability to be brutally honest as well as her lyrical expression of razor-blade truths that were a double-edged sword.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">For years as a reporter, I dabbled in commentary, writing a piece here and there, but mostly tucking away my private thoughts on matters public and private far from publishing view. As a young reporter at the Chicago Tribune, I often entertained the idea of becoming a columnist someday. But frankly, I was overwhelmed by the idea of regularly writing commentary and didn’t think at the time that I had that much to say. That I hadn’t yet lived enough life.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">I went on from the Tribune, where I honed the nuts and bolts of reporting as a night-side general assignment reporter, then to suburban beat reporter and later as the newspaper’s chief crime reporter. I went on cut my teeth as a reporter at the Washington Post and later at the New York Times. At the Post, for years I dug in as a reporter, drawn to stories about the victims of gun violence, to stories about poverty and the poor. Drawn to themes like social justice, fair housing, education, equality, race and hyper-segregation, even hopelessness and any story that allowed me to explore the human condition, to capture the story of our collective humanity regardless of race or class. </span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjzgDPLbM3dP1htSySUd1EvBKqlhiDLNunuJup7HztZLe0DPeFxlga6JzwAhETUpmVufUsDkpVVzGE1xLpOeGIclkoTQGJFH6ZQBBQ3hbia8ig89pX3p8mqyLwI0U9V2q__5j6HnEn-CL1eHnIloQtRKdNaotQq6Bh_rEWeoF1OAlRiasLl0EUY2hXnfA=s500" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="500" data-original-width="339" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjzgDPLbM3dP1htSySUd1EvBKqlhiDLNunuJup7HztZLe0DPeFxlga6JzwAhETUpmVufUsDkpVVzGE1xLpOeGIclkoTQGJFH6ZQBBQ3hbia8ig89pX3p8mqyLwI0U9V2q__5j6HnEn-CL1eHnIloQtRKdNaotQq6Bh_rEWeoF1OAlRiasLl0EUY2hXnfA=w434-h640" width="434" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The American Millstone ran initially as a series in the Chicago Tribune <br />in 1986 and focused on life in the West Side's North Lawndale. </td></tr></tbody></table><span style="font-size: large;"></span><p></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">The more I dug, the more funerals of children I covered, the more I spoke to mothers and fathers and grandparents about the pain and suffering of having lost someone to murder. The more time I spent reporting in Chicago’s housing projects—habitats, in some cases, not fit for animals let alone humans. The more I chronicled the stories of people who most often did not grace the pages of the newspapers I worked for over a 30-year career.</span></p><p></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">The more I reported and wrote the more I could hear in my own writing the chorus of voices too often forgotten, neglected or ignored by the mainstream press, unless they were too often being painted in broad strokes and harsh stereotypical tones that tend to do more harm than good. </span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">The Tribune’s “The American Millstone” series in 1986, on the West Side’s North Lawndale is a classic, though hardly unique, example.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> “A new class of people has taken root in America's cities, a lost society dwelling in enclaves of despair and chaos that infect and threaten the communities at large,” the commentary for the series begins. </span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">“…Its members don't share traditional values of work, money, education, home and perhaps even of life. This is a class of misfits best known to more fortunate Americans as either victim or perpetrator in crime statistics.”</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">They were “the millstone”—the weight of affliction draped around America’s neck. Except I was one of them. Born in North Lawndale, I was there—young, married, in my early 20’s, on welfare and struggling to survive and in college with a family—when the Tribune’s reporters came looking for the story. </span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">I could have told them a different story, shown them a different side. My sense has always been that that’s not what they were after. A few years after the series, when I entered the Trib’s newsroom as a full-time staff reporter, my very presence did prove a different side to the North Lawndale story. But I suspect they were still too blind to see—no room for perspectives that lie beyond the boundary of their jaded white-washed paradigm.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">My voice and my passion as a writer, my writer’s eye, have led me to seek to tell for a career now the stories of life on the other side of the tracks. Caused me to gravitate toward the “Cold Coast” instead of the Gold Coast, even as a columnist over what has now been the last 12 years.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhJnfGZfdpM9ivmRvn05zGebtSz98Tu8bv1xSh4UTIbVHMlze6hKJqlzRf4rdEejmgU1Yn957mQCIDL6O8Qu-CF_MyJAN6JoQgzmTT_0mNVws3g7YqZxa1pCkNPGJlKHDOvW_XEfSVsSVBVtLwr5RVcXBtjH2rIhqdp8i1NYiIeAQLnM9kZ5brFH9zwuw=s259" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="194" data-original-width="259" height="194" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhJnfGZfdpM9ivmRvn05zGebtSz98Tu8bv1xSh4UTIbVHMlze6hKJqlzRf4rdEejmgU1Yn957mQCIDL6O8Qu-CF_MyJAN6JoQgzmTT_0mNVws3g7YqZxa1pCkNPGJlKHDOvW_XEfSVsSVBVtLwr5RVcXBtjH2rIhqdp8i1NYiIeAQLnM9kZ5brFH9zwuw" width="259" /></a></span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">I have learned lessons along the way. Perhaps none greater than this: That in journalism—whether as independent objective observer or commentator—the story is never about you. That at the beginning or the end of the day, it really isn’t about winning awards, although awards are certainly nice. </span><p></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">That it isn’t about accolades or gaining journalism celebrity. Not even about whether my mug—rightly or wrongly—does not appear with other esteemed writers in this my hometown. Not about whether mine is ever deemed to be a “Voice of Chicago.”</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Truth is, that has never been my aim as a writer. I want to be a voice for the poor, for the downtrodden, for the invisible, for the forgotten. For the voiceless. </span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">For the black men who sometimes stop me on the street and say, “Thank you, brother. You speak for me.” For the mother of two murdered children who says that my voice has provided “comfort, inspiration, and empowerment.” For the elderly Black ladies who say they clip my columns and save them. Or those who say they post them on their refrigerator or note boards at work, or send them to out-of-state relatives.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">I explained all this to my wife. I explained that it still doesn’t diminish the sting. But that nothing compares to knowing that my words have made a difference. </span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">My pen, my words, my voice used to the glory of God, for the benefit of others, even the least of these. A Chicago voice—bred, born and raised right here in the Chi, in a place called K-Town. Facts.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">And it just doesn’t get any sweeter than that.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Email: <a href="mailto:Author@johnwfountain.com">Author@johnwfountain.com</a></span></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhNWXFUciHIFU3diX5orQ8n8eIcN6rAsGVYWQjQzcJhcYeb6x9wReaGT-u6gBQFwBBX-IaM_IARZykNO9nv8YhTIdHxDSYkYg1_dmggaFxJmp04529x7OOi3Uv0yzX4PVetzCIwbzinGdVLwtP1_HmasCj3q17OGU-Yo8_roww7L6LQeWsiCG4T5HHPjQ=s1600" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1237" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhNWXFUciHIFU3diX5orQ8n8eIcN6rAsGVYWQjQzcJhcYeb6x9wReaGT-u6gBQFwBBX-IaM_IARZykNO9nv8YhTIdHxDSYkYg1_dmggaFxJmp04529x7OOi3Uv0yzX4PVetzCIwbzinGdVLwtP1_HmasCj3q17OGU-Yo8_roww7L6LQeWsiCG4T5HHPjQ=w494-h640" width="494" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">A flyer from a presentation by John Fountain speaks to his philosophy on<br />journalism and the need for marginalized people to tell their own stories.</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><p style="text-align: justify;"><br /></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7317909132013000655.post-64921982835992605962022-01-05T11:39:00.007-06:002022-01-05T12:07:58.112-06:00Reporting While Black II <p style="text-align: justify;"></p><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: justify;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiO30iCmzIKok0WjM1okdUYD059_uZ2HtaGb89cLkowmyxzKSxs_tuJYFDiHLuGjb_NP41uctJsphgPxGRdj5VIFhsmFj-ZATZDC4kIT8CoMqAbT3wrO5dAM2HBnfqwtdJN4HTAPC54aP3fVXfdPeOHP_MwYTd4UOZu-7TO4JleXdT0-xjxwVglYeHVkg=s1400" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1054" data-original-width="1400" height="482" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiO30iCmzIKok0WjM1okdUYD059_uZ2HtaGb89cLkowmyxzKSxs_tuJYFDiHLuGjb_NP41uctJsphgPxGRdj5VIFhsmFj-ZATZDC4kIT8CoMqAbT3wrO5dAM2HBnfqwtdJN4HTAPC54aP3fVXfdPeOHP_MwYTd4UOZu-7TO4JleXdT0-xjxwVglYeHVkg=w640-h482" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: justify;">The West Side of Chicago burned in April 1968 after news of Dr. King's assassination. The Kerner Commission Report a month earlier concluded: "By and large, news organizations have failed to communicate to both their black and white audiences a sense of the problems America faces and the sources of potential solutions. The media report and write from the standpoint of a white man’s world." </td></tr></tbody></table><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: x-large; text-align: justify;"><b>By John W. Fountain</b></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: x-large; text-align: justify;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: large;">Guilty. I am guilty of driving, walking and breathing while black. And like many of my African-American journalism colleagues, I have also borne, in the heat of the night, the weight of “reporting while black.”</span></span></div><p></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: large;">I have carried that weight of the skin I am in. The awareness that there were those who believed that because I am Black I was somehow “less than,” not up to snuff, as a journalist.<span></span></span></p><a name='more'></a><p></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: large;">And yet, by the time most of my black colleagues and I arrived at our first big-city daily, we were college-degreed and interned to the hilt. I learned to persevere and extracted lessons for me. Lessons I share today with my journalism students.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"></p><blockquote><span style="font-family: times; font-size: x-large;"><b>“What white Americans have never fully understood but what the Negro can never forget--is that white society is deeply implicated in the ghetto. White institutions created it, white institutions maintain it, and white society condones it.” </b><b style="text-align: center;">—Kerner Commission Report, 1968</b></span></blockquote><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: large;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: large;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiQYAh8dNCPBMTPSE3rb3sZlFNlUhmhz6434huo-hxezwWz-zOCRsQ6EEMHz2gYFH7s3QKZTm8oTKcwM5xx0TU99tWZrmbEv1sxKCLP2tNPxDLQPTdzQ0yH-csCAC-2JOc0Yl9rAiZsrXGXmFKI_AGeBrQObdouEwUoyyLHo11r3MajpO9LDFNclNPSsw=s1368" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1368" data-original-width="880" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiQYAh8dNCPBMTPSE3rb3sZlFNlUhmhz6434huo-hxezwWz-zOCRsQ6EEMHz2gYFH7s3QKZTm8oTKcwM5xx0TU99tWZrmbEv1sxKCLP2tNPxDLQPTdzQ0yH-csCAC-2JOc0Yl9rAiZsrXGXmFKI_AGeBrQObdouEwUoyyLHo11r3MajpO9LDFNclNPSsw=s320" width="206" /></a></span></div><span style="font-family: times; font-size: large;">I also learned that to speak out in the newsroom as a black man about matters of race, or even to advocate on my own behalf, was to risk being labeled a whiner, a malcontent. To risk not receiving choice assignments and promotion. I chose: “To thine own self be true.”</span><p></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: large;">As a black journalist, I got the sense that my talents and voice, no matter how celebrated beyond the newsroom, were not as valued internally as my white counterparts’. The sense that as a black journalist I was always subject to the side-eye.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: times; font-size: large; text-align: justify;">“Some would say you’re an affirmative-action hire,” a white female colleague remarked casually to me once in the bureau, where I was then a national correspondent.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: large;">Hmmm … Years earlier, she was an intern at another newspaper when I was already a full-fledged reporter there. I had more degrees, more experience, had worked and interned at more newspapers, and had arrived at the bureau a year earlier. And yet, she was named “Bureau Chief.”</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: large;">But I was the “affirmative-action hire”? Puh-leeze …</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: large;">At another major newspaper once, I sat in a white editor’s office when she snarled: “You’re not as good as you think you are!” She then proceeded to tell me who she thought was better.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: large;">He wasn’t.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: large;">But in a subjective, too often vindictive world, promotion, opportunity and salary raises were determined by the eye of the beholder, or the hater.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: large;">Journalism, for me, has never been about accolades or awards but partly about that professional validation and sometimes-intangible reward called “respect” that often eludes black journalists working in a predominantly white news world. A world that — 50 years after the 1968 Kerner Report, which found American newsrooms severely wanting in the existence of blacks — remains “mostly white and male,” according to an American Society of Newspaper Editors 2017 survey.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: large;">I was 7 upon the Kerner Report’s release. Today I’m 61. The more things change, the more they don’t.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: large;">I have grown accustomed to the journalistic bumps, bruises and slights that accompany my inescapable blackness. And I have come to understand that I can’t afford to be “too sensitive.” That ultimately one’s work, effort, excellence in craft and the test of time will speak volumes.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: large;">That is what I tell my students at Roosevelt University. I tell them all that American journalism and American newsrooms need them and their unique perspectives.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: large;">I tell them to work. To stick. To embrace, like I did, the concept from a former journalism colleague — Pulitzer Prize-winning Ovie Carter.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: large;">“You can’t argue with excellence,” he once told me. “So be excellent.”</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: large;">I share with them the words from another black journalist and friend Don Terry, spoken to me many years ago. Words I carried with me throughout my career on a sign that still stands boldly in my university office: “Never Internalize Their Disrespect.”</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: large;">Never have. Never will. Though I must plead guilty to reporting while black.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: large;">Email: <a href="mailto:Author@jkohnwfountain.com">Author@johnwfountain.com</a></span></p><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7317909132013000655.post-72309939964479304242022-01-04T06:42:00.009-06:002022-01-04T07:15:08.615-06:00Reporting While Black: A Work in Progress<p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: times;"><b></b></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-size: x-large; font-style: italic; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: times;"><b><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjei6Z5AgCvK2ETGmY6-b-DxRz9S8gPtLNbS7NAxL-9H240su2I5FQ09KebmrZAla7kLMfy1uO4JoLIf0Z7a_r7bK5BPC77FDxIh7Suc4-ApbxpsEw5WXkym1ioBYa4rvI3FC0KkOuMG8FNqUaq1u5cQioodH4NBdnMhXkxQn8FlwqckEjg9As9wQ7JDw=s878" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="373" data-original-width="878" height="272" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjei6Z5AgCvK2ETGmY6-b-DxRz9S8gPtLNbS7NAxL-9H240su2I5FQ09KebmrZAla7kLMfy1uO4JoLIf0Z7a_r7bK5BPC77FDxIh7Suc4-ApbxpsEw5WXkym1ioBYa4rvI3FC0KkOuMG8FNqUaq1u5cQioodH4NBdnMhXkxQn8FlwqckEjg9As9wQ7JDw=w640-h272" width="640" /></a></b></span></div><span style="font-family: times;"><b><br /><span style="font-size: x-large;">"Reporting While Black"</span></b></span><p></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: large;">When I arrived at the Chicago Tribune in fall 1989, I soon discovered, that like myself, many Black reporters were degreed up and interned to the hilt. And yet, we were still deemed incompetent until proven competent. White reporters, some of them with no college degree at all, became national and foreign correspondents, ascended to the paper's top management positions.<span></span></span></p><a name='more'></a><p></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: large;">It should have come as no surprise. It hadn't been that long ago that the first Black was allowed into the Trib newsroom, a Black man named Joe Boyce during the late sixties. There was another before him, Boyce told me. A man who wrote the "Negro News" column but had to drop his column off at the guard desk because he was not allowed in the paper's newsroom.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: large;">Boyce, however, was not the first Black in the newsroom, he soon discovered upon his introduction, where he found another Black face: The newsroom's shoeshine man. </span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: large;">When I arrived in 1989, there was still a shoeshine man, walking through the Trib newsroom, dropping to his knees during deadline, giving white editors and reporters a good shine. I always imagined that is the position that many of our colleagues believed Black reporters deemed as unqualified incapable affirmative action hires who couldn't be their equal or superior were more suited.</span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: large;">* * * *</span></p><p><span style="font-family: times; font-size: large;">I vowed to never internalize their disrespect. To trust God and journalism. And to keep reporting while Black.</span></p><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #050505; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: large;">A N.Y. Times editor during my job interview once remarked, "You have some great feature stories here, but can you write hard news?"</span></span></p><div class="cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql o9v6fnle ii04i59q" style="background-color: white; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word;"><div dir="auto" style="color: #050505; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: large;">My response: "That's like asking a master chef whether he can scramble an egg."</span></div><div dir="auto" style="color: #050505; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div dir="auto" style="color: #050505; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Dancing Script; font-size: large;">-John W. Fountain</span></div><div dir="auto" style="color: #050505; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Dancing Script; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div dir="auto" style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: Dancing Script; font-size: x-large;"><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;">* * * *</span></span></div><div dir="auto"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; color: #050505; text-align: center; white-space: pre-wrap;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEi2tHEDudKia-iHqWqxkgmlOAIWbUjULLwgE11OUIv48EkbMgx_HONw0zbZOnOR9LaJYetXtem0uE08sgeVbzwOgw9orqOUdmSh6RfScwG5yUi0cg_RYpHgh3nMMY91fhQPMuKm73sDStr4dMkED8CXxE4AigGPnMcqHwuSR8xzAxvUJufUo18wURv61w=s1530" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="282" data-original-width="1530" height="116" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEi2tHEDudKia-iHqWqxkgmlOAIWbUjULLwgE11OUIv48EkbMgx_HONw0zbZOnOR9LaJYetXtem0uE08sgeVbzwOgw9orqOUdmSh6RfScwG5yUi0cg_RYpHgh3nMMY91fhQPMuKm73sDStr4dMkED8CXxE4AigGPnMcqHwuSR8xzAxvUJufUo18wURv61w=w640-h116" width="640" /></a></div><div dir="auto"><span style="color: #050505; font-size: large;"><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></span></div><div dir="auto"><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: #050505; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-size: xx-large; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgqFfVr-2di3ovfG5uiNNAA5hfXuVw-A7viAAQIJEDhb-mXOfmY-YKYkctwV-7BL7x8zjedAsrqg5CcMsDzYNWkoVePT9Qm2Eq0PxGTqLQ_HcJoNN-CM4qit0itcNEzdPn3RAwhqeXTzugh4RxagZnx21NQfGXfkR3hnDRwPDxIEF-XoMVvSXXADPKXpA=s259" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="194" data-original-width="259" height="194" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgqFfVr-2di3ovfG5uiNNAA5hfXuVw-A7viAAQIJEDhb-mXOfmY-YKYkctwV-7BL7x8zjedAsrqg5CcMsDzYNWkoVePT9Qm2Eq0PxGTqLQ_HcJoNN-CM4qit0itcNEzdPn3RAwhqeXTzugh4RxagZnx21NQfGXfkR3hnDRwPDxIEF-XoMVvSXXADPKXpA" width="259" /></a></div><span style="font-size: large;">As I sat at my desk in the newsroom of a big-city newspaper that fall afternoon in 1989, I could plainly see through the glass office the head of another black man bobbing up and down — up and down. </span></span><span style="color: #050505; font-size: large; white-space: pre-wrap;">I sat inside my cubicle, writing. I could see the frail, dark-skinned elderly gentleman doing something indiscernible from my cushy chair that yielded a partial view into the editor’s office.</span></div></div><div dir="auto"><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: #050505; font-size: x-large; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></div><span style="color: #050505; font-size: large;"><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;">“What in the hell?” I wondered.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></div></span></div><div dir="auto"><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: #050505; font-size: large; white-space: pre-wrap;">I couldn’t resist. I stood up to see. There it was. In plain view:</span></div><div style="color: #050505; text-align: justify; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div></div><div dir="auto"><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: #050505; font-size: large; white-space: pre-wrap;">The gray-haired black man was on his knees. The editor leaned back in his swivel chair, like a modern-day massa’, while the wiry black man, dressed in a blue custodial uniform, buffed out a shine.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: #050505; font-size: large; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></div><span style="color: #050505; font-size: large;"><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;">Nobody else in the newsroom seemed unusually stricken by the sight. When I inquired of a veteran black reporter, he shrugged and chuckled, explaining that it was part of the regular goings-on ’round here and that I should get used to it.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></div></span></div><div dir="auto"><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: #050505; font-size: large; white-space: pre-wrap;">It was my rude awakening to the American newsroom. And I was certain that I could never get used to it.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: #050505; font-size: large; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></div><span style="color: #050505; font-size: large;"><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;">Even after all these years, the memory is unsettling. “Al The-Shoeshine Man” meandered through the newsroom, offering reporters and editors a shine. He knelt in their cubicles, down on the carpeted floor.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></div></span></div><div dir="auto"><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: #050505; font-size: large; white-space: pre-wrap;">Al was as much a newsroom regular as the Polish and black women, wearing purplish-blue smocks, who showed up every night to clean the bathrooms, empty the trash and dust off our desks.</span></div><span style="color: #050505; font-size: large;"><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;">Amid the sound of fingers pecking on keyboards at deadline, Al dropped to his knees to shine. A few black women gave Al their shoes to polish outside the newsroom. But Al’s clients were mostly white reporters </span><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;">an</span><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;">d editors.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></div></span></div><div dir="auto"><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: #050505; font-size: large; white-space: pre-wrap;">The sight of a brother giving shines in the newsroom troubled me. I confess, however, that I never complained to editors. What disturbed me and some other black colleagues was not that Al shined shoes. It is an honest living. And I’ve always figured a man’s legal trade to be his own business.</span></div><span style="color: #050505;"><span style="font-size: large; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></span></div><div dir="auto"><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: #050505; font-size: large; white-space: pre-wrap;">It was the image of subservience it conjured — of white men sitting high on their thrones while chocolate shoeshine boys knelt at their feet. It was that my editors either had no sensitivity to the notion that some black folks in the newsroom might find the whole affair offensive, or perhaps they didn’t care.</span></div><div style="color: #050505; text-align: justify; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div></div><div dir="auto"><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: #050505; font-size: large; white-space: pre-wrap;">Either way, I suspected that some in the newsroom saw shining shoes as the kind of trade for which we black folks — even reporters — were best suited. I felt like just another slave on the plantation.</span></div><div style="color: #050505; text-align: justify; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div></div><div dir="auto" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: #050505;"><span style="font-size: large; white-space: pre-wrap;">Maybe that would help explain it. Why as a black journalist I always sensed that I was seen as “incompetent” until proven “competent.” Why some whites in the newsroom assumed the only reason I was hired was because I was black. Why we were seen as “quotas.” Not colleagues.</span></span></div><div dir="auto"><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: #050505; font-size: large; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></div><span style="color: #050505;"><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large; white-space: pre-wrap;">Why I got the feeling that black journalists couldn’t be trusted to cover with fairness and balance stories about race, or civil rights, or the black community.</span></div></span></div><div dir="auto"><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: #050505; font-size: large; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></div><span style="color: #050505; font-size: large;"><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;">Why some editors sometimes sent white reporters behind us on assignments. Why black reporters sometimes experienced “big footing” — the confiscation of our assigned news beats whenever big stories broke. Then “trusted” white reporters were assigned the lead in a story that was rightly ours.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></div></span></div><div dir="auto"><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: #050505; font-size: large; white-space: pre-wrap;">Maybe it explains why our numbers in American newsrooms, after all these years, are still paltry. Why American journalism still does not fully value or respect our voices and perspectives.</span></div><div style="color: #050505; text-align: justify; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div></div><div dir="auto" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: #050505;"><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-size: large;">Why those newsrooms today, while absent of shoeshine men, are also absent of John Fountains. Why I still can’t shake the image of Al.</span></span></span></div><div dir="auto" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: #050505;"><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></span></span></div><div dir="auto" style="text-align: justify;"><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-family: "Dancing Script"; font-size: xx-large; white-space: pre-wrap;">* * * *</span></div></div></div><div dir="auto" style="color: #050505; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Dancing Script; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div dir="auto" style="color: #050505; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjdA2KTxaZgRkqt_kN-W7Dw8x0fMqEkMTSBcw70iv3e7a_lKqTLamgUpeMYvcrEHAum_9GFn8qXOgaV9jUg8DfenYUBlj_pZjnPfW4-H1XU4PS3_EgJRolLdpjI6IJBi0BBrtI8VX0tXPdMkNLgvZbD_WTMnhTNLoK4pMd_OHxOm_Hd1Jfecf9cW-mlCQ=s2518" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1232" data-original-width="2518" height="314" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjdA2KTxaZgRkqt_kN-W7Dw8x0fMqEkMTSBcw70iv3e7a_lKqTLamgUpeMYvcrEHAum_9GFn8qXOgaV9jUg8DfenYUBlj_pZjnPfW4-H1XU4PS3_EgJRolLdpjI6IJBi0BBrtI8VX0tXPdMkNLgvZbD_WTMnhTNLoK4pMd_OHxOm_Hd1Jfecf9cW-mlCQ=w640-h314" width="640" /></a></div><br /><span style="font-family: Dancing Script; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7317909132013000655.post-23307913141498317402021-12-15T06:21:00.005-06:002022-01-01T08:01:49.631-06:00Follow John Fountain's Fulbright Journey in Ghana<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.hearafricacalling.com/" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="972" data-original-width="2000" height="312" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhDNsdNB8QuW9kdycSePyyw-pvqI2rcu2y46KQqVvJMfM75ruHejn8VfK1OU-5umu1YilEaVBzMK7hYOH15njleMDzDSce3xO5ySEAB2btxrF_4TI8n5sG8wQFZxpcKX2vWYg14LkOuIGm2nQMIzcZkEfuejWyZgufhebfF-HZbpdonlRyNDFovntkQQw=w640-h312" width="640" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><a href="https://www.hearafricacalling.com/">Follow John Fountain's Fulbright Journey in Ghana by Clicking Here</a></span></div><br /><p></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7317909132013000655.post-43613767194478044482021-12-08T07:15:00.004-06:002021-12-08T07:19:11.214-06:00Fountain Wins 2021 NABJ Award for Sun-Times Column<p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: inherit; white-space: pre-wrap;">A submission of three of John W. Fountain's columns won the 1st Place NABJ "Salute To Excellence" Award for column, newspapers under 100,000. One of them was a nostalgic piece about my beloved K-Town neighbor, Mr. Newell.</span></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: inherit; white-space: pre-wrap;">Many thanks to editor Paul Saltzman for submitting Fountain's work. He is humbled for the National Association of Black Journalists bestowing upon him this honor.</span></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjL6IU2Lyoz_W_uPTO7xxXY-Z86kBrJGfDCRdfX2M-TKF_crH2lTpysYjfo_JdOsuCoKZ3e_YILTukh-eLEluWHIaS0OtThd235eQLSdUVBjeDQYVQ9ExoKrnXwv0WuZVI0I33q7uUoa0mm/" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img data-original-height="21" data-original-width="432" height="20" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjL6IU2Lyoz_W_uPTO7xxXY-Z86kBrJGfDCRdfX2M-TKF_crH2lTpysYjfo_JdOsuCoKZ3e_YILTukh-eLEluWHIaS0OtThd235eQLSdUVBjeDQYVQ9ExoKrnXwv0WuZVI0I33q7uUoa0mm/w400-h20/image.png" width="400" /></a><span></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEh2QgfrkN3TQpc2Bfe2Un9bNfpyP5sM-srBcxxXiMdHjqIL_Y3vwS1nqByoT_60-dlykAYAtgwHuFDk9hXpsjpTTVjn9tSqosp6GKY--mUEoFIwwU9F8x0O2Sc7-LFEGQzJjBicsOCGUA5zGAgLlXPA_Ay-EIooiPLw9ZxlYKYNjcGSa0CLz_oqJzfzog=s2048" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="2024" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEh2QgfrkN3TQpc2Bfe2Un9bNfpyP5sM-srBcxxXiMdHjqIL_Y3vwS1nqByoT_60-dlykAYAtgwHuFDk9hXpsjpTTVjn9tSqosp6GKY--mUEoFIwwU9F8x0O2Sc7-LFEGQzJjBicsOCGUA5zGAgLlXPA_Ay-EIooiPLw9ZxlYKYNjcGSa0CLz_oqJzfzog=w632-h640" width="632" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjL6IU2Lyoz_W_uPTO7xxXY-Z86kBrJGfDCRdfX2M-TKF_crH2lTpysYjfo_JdOsuCoKZ3e_YILTukh-eLEluWHIaS0OtThd235eQLSdUVBjeDQYVQ9ExoKrnXwv0WuZVI0I33q7uUoa0mm/" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img data-original-height="21" data-original-width="432" height="20" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjL6IU2Lyoz_W_uPTO7xxXY-Z86kBrJGfDCRdfX2M-TKF_crH2lTpysYjfo_JdOsuCoKZ3e_YILTukh-eLEluWHIaS0OtThd235eQLSdUVBjeDQYVQ9ExoKrnXwv0WuZVI0I33q7uUoa0mm/w400-h20/image.png" width="400" /></a><span><a name='more'></a></span></td></tr></tbody></table><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjb7BrDijeKTjKrbjDGPodxuHT2sD5VSlqIXrhiBTI1uJ1BzCjqceKH2qxlpJgoQlSnHQQL5cdoGClLl2c0Bawp209KmZp9lGLuIsIn0qw_5bVWLUbcYGFytGalhELLscumTHn4YMQzX70gYOjwuCOwfzBYBziiyjJ2iQ2P7RhKiSZtuIw9BxEIN17A5g=s2048" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="2024" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjb7BrDijeKTjKrbjDGPodxuHT2sD5VSlqIXrhiBTI1uJ1BzCjqceKH2qxlpJgoQlSnHQQL5cdoGClLl2c0Bawp209KmZp9lGLuIsIn0qw_5bVWLUbcYGFytGalhELLscumTHn4YMQzX70gYOjwuCOwfzBYBziiyjJ2iQ2P7RhKiSZtuIw9BxEIN17A5g=w632-h640" width="632" /></a></span><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjL6IU2Lyoz_W_uPTO7xxXY-Z86kBrJGfDCRdfX2M-TKF_crH2lTpysYjfo_JdOsuCoKZ3e_YILTukh-eLEluWHIaS0OtThd235eQLSdUVBjeDQYVQ9ExoKrnXwv0WuZVI0I33q7uUoa0mm/" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img data-original-height="21" data-original-width="432" height="20" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjL6IU2Lyoz_W_uPTO7xxXY-Z86kBrJGfDCRdfX2M-TKF_crH2lTpysYjfo_JdOsuCoKZ3e_YILTukh-eLEluWHIaS0OtThd235eQLSdUVBjeDQYVQ9ExoKrnXwv0WuZVI0I33q7uUoa0mm/w400-h20/image.png" width="400" /></a></div><span style="font-size: large;"><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjyn23UAXlhJh-MKe5DJDd0s0PVnMJzC91W8C33yYAOyXhBFj8vTQ1MUyF7BITIg56ubEzXud9_7OLR9Q_euZ3F1hrlwlXUkDpg-LBkk4ygvsfztierG7ULFkGeTr8KGPWrd6Nfvdyq3tHPdBD4A5eRYdmT02T6s3hKrc6YjXUztNwzk3zciUDZcWOGhw=s2048" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="2025" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjyn23UAXlhJh-MKe5DJDd0s0PVnMJzC91W8C33yYAOyXhBFj8vTQ1MUyF7BITIg56ubEzXud9_7OLR9Q_euZ3F1hrlwlXUkDpg-LBkk4ygvsfztierG7ULFkGeTr8KGPWrd6Nfvdyq3tHPdBD4A5eRYdmT02T6s3hKrc6YjXUztNwzk3zciUDZcWOGhw=w632-h640" width="632" /></a></div><br /><span style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: inherit; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></span><p></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7317909132013000655.post-79176336700039535042021-12-04T11:11:00.002-06:002021-12-04T11:11:31.085-06:00A Fulbright Scholar's Journey: Dispatches From The Motherland<div style="text-align: center;"><iframe allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="385" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/Rs9BzYAQuUA?controls=0" title="YouTube video player" width="640"></iframe></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7317909132013000655.post-15707874299781242822021-11-17T14:55:00.006-06:002021-11-17T14:55:54.891-06:00Beautiful Ghana<div style="text-align: center;"><iframe allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="385" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/u6BYKYXDSRo" title="YouTube video player" width="640"></iframe></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7317909132013000655.post-41621054279852395082021-11-17T14:40:00.002-06:002021-11-17T14:40:34.029-06:00Imagine... From Cape Coast Caste in Ghana to the Middle Passage<div style="text-align: center;"><iframe allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="385" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/jNN1mxAbWeU" title="YouTube video player" width="640"></iframe></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7317909132013000655.post-5686510017748946252021-09-20T18:50:00.005-05:002021-09-20T19:22:44.077-05:00What About All Of America's Daughters?<p style="text-align: justify;"></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgVgPEUjRNvWtDQ7mMEVaV0IJr_GrQlJR-sxVIkmMouYsOy-LySCEVXXZosdc4Nriz0izcI_joAEGwSSF4l2PGj8r__X03-Os1LGm9xhHEuMbAa1GUqTlSe-wZoPCklpun_yAnw0b5IG-VE/s700/Gabby+Petito.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="700" data-original-width="700" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgVgPEUjRNvWtDQ7mMEVaV0IJr_GrQlJR-sxVIkmMouYsOy-LySCEVXXZosdc4Nriz0izcI_joAEGwSSF4l2PGj8r__X03-Os1LGm9xhHEuMbAa1GUqTlSe-wZoPCklpun_yAnw0b5IG-VE/w640-h640/Gabby+Petito.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><div style="text-align: left;">Gabby Petito, 22, was reported missing on Sept. 11, while traveling across the US. with her fiancé.</div><div style="text-align: left;">Her remains were discovered Sept. 19, in Wyoming.</div></td></tr></tbody></table><p></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><b><span style="font-size: large;">By John W. Fountain</span></b></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">The disappearance and death of Gabby Petito, 22, is a great tragedy and loss, and my heart goes out to her and her family. We should all mourn for Gabby. For this is an American tragedy.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">But we should equally mourn for Reo-Renee Holyfield. For Gwendolyn Williams, Nancie Walker, and the mostly 51 African-American women in Chicago slain from 2001 to 2018, and discarded like trash, set on fire or mutilated and whose murders remain mostly unsolved. </span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Theirs is equally an American tragedy. Like the stories of thousands of missing and murdered women across America whose stories don't get the national—or local—press' attention the way stories of missing or murdered white women do.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">It is a glaring tale of great disparity, one in which the American press, which purports to be fair and equal and a purveyor of truth, fairness and democracy ignores the stories of so many of America's daughters slain, missing, stolen... Missing are the stories of America’s daughters of color.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">That much is clear even in the story of the Unforgotten 51, and untold thousands of missing women of color nationwide.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><b><span style="font-size: large;"><i></i></span></b></p><blockquote><blockquote><b><span style="font-size: large;"><i>This story keeps cropping up. Every time a white woman or girl goes missing. Then the disparity glares—at least for those of us in communities of color... </i></span></b></blockquote></blockquote><p></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Theirs is an American tragedy in Black and white. It is revealing with glaring clarity—a tale of the disparity in the media’s coverage of cases of murdered of missing Black women and other women of color. A real-life tale of the gaping divide in how law enforcement and society at large views and treats their cases, which far exceed the rate of violent crime against white women.</span></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgc1HaGUqVvFJBHKIS5MGW3NmCrmmAt0jEssCp417e7L4ydb-3AHyVkUKAYMgZ3mfHtds-SVKtnrbfLhKEEPqLHsKxf0-TuDID50Vz1lObBbumM6G3Ca2TI9mqXoE3M0i1My6bhvqCnayQl/s1500/Unforgotten+Graphic+website.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="945" data-original-width="1500" height="404" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgc1HaGUqVvFJBHKIS5MGW3NmCrmmAt0jEssCp417e7L4ydb-3AHyVkUKAYMgZ3mfHtds-SVKtnrbfLhKEEPqLHsKxf0-TuDID50Vz1lObBbumM6G3Ca2TI9mqXoE3M0i1My6bhvqCnayQl/w640-h404/Unforgotten+Graphic+website.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The Unforgotten 51 is a project undertaken by John Fountain and his students at Roosevelt University and examined the case of 51 mostly African-American women slain in Chicago from 2001 to 2018.<span><a name='more'></a></span></td></tr></tbody></table><p></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">The facts don’t lie. Black women are murdered at twice the rate of women of other races in the United States. Indeed, according to the Centers for Disease Control, an analysis of female homicide statistics between 2003 and 2014, Black and indigenous women were killed as a result of homicide at rates more than double women of other races. Moreover, a 2010 CDC report found that Black and indigenous women also experienced rape, stalking and/or physical violence at rates 20 to 50 percent higher than those experienced by Hispanic, non-Hispanic white, Asian or Pacific Islander women.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">The American news media are not color blind. </span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">They do not tell with the same ferocity, depth or intention the stories of Black and brown women, and other women of color. This is a fact well documented and well known by me, a reporter for more than 30 years.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"></p><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; font-size: large; text-align: justify;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhe0HgEbxEiWG6NAcZcA-ad42w0KVFl8X_gQ25Sp8a1efX6zEgQyKS6zXxqNQPwVR6_cueA9N4-QbMaLEkHUjEtXEYkh2gEbEgoTcXistjL12Ffh1NMUY0qO1lhO3cAq4uR1uK7c-WQHHQ-/s1000/alexis-patterson.jpg" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="730" data-original-width="1000" height="234" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhe0HgEbxEiWG6NAcZcA-ad42w0KVFl8X_gQ25Sp8a1efX6zEgQyKS6zXxqNQPwVR6_cueA9N4-QbMaLEkHUjEtXEYkh2gEbEgoTcXistjL12Ffh1NMUY0qO1lhO3cAq4uR1uK7c-WQHHQ-/s320/alexis-patterson.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Alexis Patterson, 7.</td></tr></tbody></table><span style="font-size: medium;"></span><p></p><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Once a national correspondent at the New York Times, I remember calling my editor and proposing a story about Alexis Patterson, a missing 7-year-old Black girl who vanished May 3, 2002, in Milwaukee from her school playground. I mentioned in the same breath the story of Diamond and Tionda Bradley, two little Black Chicago girls ages 10 and 3 when they vanished months earlier on July 6, 2001. </span></div><p></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;">I remember with sobering clearness my white editor quickly dismissing the idea of that story with no room for discussion.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">That was, until questions and criticisms swirled about the lack of national coverage over Alexis’ story while a national media frenzy and firestorm ensued over the kidnapping in Salt Lake City, Utah, on June5, 2002, of Elizabeth Smart, 14, who was white. Nine months later, she was found and her abductors arrested.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">The constant barrage of news coverage kept her story front and center. Black girls and women and other females of color are not so lucky. Under public scrutiny—and after a Times’ spokesperson had assured an inquiring outside reporter about its lack of coverage in Patterson’s case, I was suddenly some days later, dispatched to write Alexis’ story. </span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Whether the news media are guilty of a sin of omission in their blackout when it comes to covering these kinds of cases, what is clear in my mind as a journalist for more than 30 years is that they/we ought to know better by now. And if we know better, we ought to do better. Otherwise, such disparity in news coverage is a sin of commission.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">I would rather believe that is not the case. For if it is, it speaks to something more insidious, perhaps even of the news media’s inability or unwillingness to see Black and brown women’s and girls’ lives and deaths as valuable as white ones. </span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">This much I also know: This story keeps cropping up. Every time a white woman or girl goes missing. Then the disparity glares—at least for those of us in communities of color, where the absence of stories of our missing and murdered daughters in the national press is as stark as their unsolved cases. </span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhI3vm6yrA2SLQs9uI7CPPLBsR_NY8Pi2_-czikDGMJEhf0mG4g7ijoTmS7oGRBSaENLc5ji-opBa3RgNaJI1TfCCdF9T78co07UN5fCJ3pCAn1pDFn8q4ZG3ORPoLLelmQpp6ZAewYWzvu/s862/gwendolyn+williams.png" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="862" data-original-width="796" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhI3vm6yrA2SLQs9uI7CPPLBsR_NY8Pi2_-czikDGMJEhf0mG4g7ijoTmS7oGRBSaENLc5ji-opBa3RgNaJI1TfCCdF9T78co07UN5fCJ3pCAn1pDFn8q4ZG3ORPoLLelmQpp6ZAewYWzvu/w590-h640/gwendolyn+williams.png" width="590" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Gwendolyn Williams is among Chicago's Unforgotten 51</td></tr></tbody></table><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span><p></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">It is a dilemma with which I have wrestled as a reporter in some of America’s most storied newsrooms, where I too often have found myself trying to convince white editors that stories about Black lives mattered. </span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">I remember in 1989, when as a cub reporter at the Chicago Tribune I wrote an enterprise story about the shootings and murders of Black children who were victims of violent crime—most of them shot. Among them was 6-month-old Rashonda Flowers, fatally shot in the head as her mother pushed her in a baby stroller. </span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">I remember a white female editor emerging from the final news meeting that day before publication and saying that while she had lobbied for the story to be on page one, editors ultimately had decided to place my story in Metro instead. The headline of the story they chose over one about dead Black or wounded children on Monday Sept. 3, 1990 read: “Snake Dance Ritual Fuels Clash of Hopi Values”</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">The editor encouraged me for my efforts. “Keep writing these stories… They’ll come around,” I remember her saying.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">I have never forgotten. Nor have I forgotten my inability to convince my editors at the Times to allow me to write a story about Rodney McAllister, 10, a St. Louis boy mauled to death in early March 2001, his body gnawed on by dogs. </span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">“We’ve already got a dog story,” an editor explained the rationale for their disinterest. </span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">“A dog story?” I thought then. “A damn dog story?” It was a story about a little boy.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Thirty years after the Tribune editor’s encouragement, I’m still not so sure that the national news media will ever come around. But this much I have resolved: Their stories, our stories, matter. And we must tell them. Whether the mainstream press ever comes around or not. </span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">For there is power in storytelling. There is power, great possibility and promise in those journalistic storytellers who choose to be colorblind and also sensitive to the stories of missing and murdered Black women and girls—and males—and other women and girls of color.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">And even in my greatest disappointment and anger over the mainstream news media’s failure in this regard, my hope has been anchored in the power of journalism. In the belief that the ability to affect change through storytelling extends far beyond America’s newsrooms. In the belief that if we tell human stories of power and truth, of loss, life and tragedy with skill, craft, persistence, consistency and relentlessness, we can ultimately help usher in change. And we don't need the mainstream press to do that, only our pens, hearts and commitment.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Now, 20 years since their disappearance, Diamond and Tionda would be 30 and 23 respectively. Alexis would be 26. They are still missing. There are no stories about them, blaring on national broadcasts. Nor any about the Unforgotten 51.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">And yet, all of our daughters' lives must matter:</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Gabby. Nancie. Gwendolyn. Reo. </span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">All of them. Every single one.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Email: <a href="mailto:Author@Johnwfountain.com">Author@Johnwfountain.com</a></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">To read about the "Unforgotten 51" project led by John Fountain and his students at Roosevelt University visit the website: <a href="http://www.unforgotten51.com">www.unforgotten51.com</a></span></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgGVtm6JZQA8XNfp9ndOSyfBW7mYR0fZda_k1oKUeEBpA5Ih-18ax1nQSM4pDIo3jkVOvn7n6F_h_euLEQsgnxorydSr6eDTEwLKARBi0qkcEcYFJrWfDn77fJ3Acq1fVAVPwlltV60fdRL/s1116/Nancie+B%2526W+Headshot+edit.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1116" height="620" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgGVtm6JZQA8XNfp9ndOSyfBW7mYR0fZda_k1oKUeEBpA5Ih-18ax1nQSM4pDIo3jkVOvn7n6F_h_euLEQsgnxorydSr6eDTEwLKARBi0qkcEcYFJrWfDn77fJ3Acq1fVAVPwlltV60fdRL/w640-h620/Nancie+B%2526W+Headshot+edit.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Nancie walker is among Chicago's Unforgotten 51</td></tr></tbody></table><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7317909132013000655.post-28738519975086539172021-07-05T12:51:00.001-05:002021-07-05T12:51:05.958-05:00They Walked For The Unforgotten 51 & Other Black Women Murdered or Missing<p> </p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjVQNhsEJSo417r27y-6f0DXiyEWkTzrJv7eF1z8EuEgNFDaS7C5fjsaPZ5FJ2oU1fBtUbbPksy33ZZK0gDeb7RVJYFAKjoAEniBPZ19bwdqqBUGYIXotR42vWv89NoaoCPMHHWsFHJpAae/s6000/2.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4000" data-original-width="6000" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjVQNhsEJSo417r27y-6f0DXiyEWkTzrJv7eF1z8EuEgNFDaS7C5fjsaPZ5FJ2oU1fBtUbbPksy33ZZK0gDeb7RVJYFAKjoAEniBPZ19bwdqqBUGYIXotR42vWv89NoaoCPMHHWsFHJpAae/w640-h426/2.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><p class="p1" style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Cambria; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: start;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">Protestors lead the way with a banner in the “We Walk for Her March” march held Tuesday, June 22.</span></p></td></tr></tbody></table><br /><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>By John W. Fountain</b></span><p></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><b><span style="font-size: x-large;">S</span></b><span style="font-size: medium;">he walked for her--this palpable trail of humanity and collective tears flowing down South King Drive, their chants rising in unison from here and the grave into the warm summer air in remembrance of those Black girls and women no longer able to speak for themselves.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Their voices resounded with a call for closure. For justice. For answers, and ultimately for an end to the slaying of young Black women and girls strangled, suffocated, shot or mangled, their bodies discarded like yesterday’s trash. </span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">They spoke. For those Black girls and women abducted or who suddenly vanished without a trace, like a vapor.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">For the dead, they walked. For those whose innocent blood still cries from premature graves.<span></span></span></p><a name='more'></a><p></p><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiiAeLGA6eYBbxL393lVtDdf8DYwIF1wlgugTyUuWrswGg9ilnNZpqdXip675dDbjFkJl9dkXPhBEvpd2vD_Ik_RQvIV7ppJT636v1Vt3B_r0xTd-WotqrnpCfQCYcaDmyZlIxvzBzUBPjo/s2048/4.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1825" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiiAeLGA6eYBbxL393lVtDdf8DYwIF1wlgugTyUuWrswGg9ilnNZpqdXip675dDbjFkJl9dkXPhBEvpd2vD_Ik_RQvIV7ppJT636v1Vt3B_r0xTd-WotqrnpCfQCYcaDmyZlIxvzBzUBPjo/w285-h320/4.jpg" width="285" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Zaid Shah, 38, with his son and daughter attend <br />the fourth annual "We Walk For Her March"</td></tr></tbody></table><span style="font-size: medium;"><div style="text-align: justify;">They walked purposefully. For recognition of the humanity of Black women, despite brutalities suffered amid the perpetual American disparity in how their lives and deaths and disappearances are treated compared to white women in America, even animals.</div></span><p></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">They spoke. And they marched--each step symbolic of their earnest hope that some day there would be no need. </span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">They marched and lifted up their voices for the <a href="https://www.unforgotten51.com/">“Unforgotten 51”</a>: For Nancie Walker. For Gwendolyn Williams. For Reo Renee Holyfield and also for other African-American women murdered or missing in Chicago.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">The event, held Tuesday evening, was sponsored by a coalition of community groups, including the Kenwood Oakwood Community Organization (KOCO), H.E.R. Chicago, and Mothers Opposed to Violence Everywhere (MOVE). They also called for policy change by law enforcement to “prevent more murders.”</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">The marchers advanced with solemnity and vigor, escorted by uniformed Chicago police officers on bikes and in blue-flashing squad cars as they headed south for blocks along King Drive from 35th Street.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Some in the estimated more than 100 marchers carried placards or banners. Many wore white T-shirts emblazoned with the emblem of a young woman wearing twin Afro puffs, and the words, “We Walk for Her IV,” in honor of the fourth annual march. Aziah Roberts, a KOCO youth leader, age 13 at the time, initiated the walk in 2018. </span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">In her estimation, nothing was being done about missing or murdered Black girls and women. As a Black girl, she wanted to do something. So she did.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">This week, protestors echoed each line bellowed from a loudspeaker as young Black women led the way. Many young Black men also took part. Among the march’s chief messages: “Her life matters.”</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;"></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgoplDlAL_CUpCnA40YKAUqr-UDmoZQuuO4LqvpiiV0tc8eDVoFXXNLULWmOVS_rVnLkGeJh4t7a9qhr9bT_D8SPGoeNxjey_hzK-24RMWI-mi1tp320o3MWtUekxKbpXG5qq9SM7YgeF0N/s2048/3.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1639" data-original-width="2048" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgoplDlAL_CUpCnA40YKAUqr-UDmoZQuuO4LqvpiiV0tc8eDVoFXXNLULWmOVS_rVnLkGeJh4t7a9qhr9bT_D8SPGoeNxjey_hzK-24RMWI-mi1tp320o3MWtUekxKbpXG5qq9SM7YgeF0N/s320/3.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">A A young woman leads protestors in chants on<br />South King Drive in the “We Walk for Her March.”</td></tr></tbody></table>“The war on missing girls, especially Black women and children, has been plaguing</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">communities and cities for years,” said Tanisha Williams, a KOCO youth organizer, speaking to the media moments before the march kicked off.</span></div><p></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">“As a mother, I couldn’t begin to imagine the nightmare that comes with the lack of investment, lack of accountability and concern from CPD, elected officials and the mayor of our great city of Chicago. I couldn't imagine having to fight for closure for one of my loved ones…”</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">I can. </span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">I have heard the devastating stories, not only as a journalist for over 30 years, but more recently in leading my students at Roosevelt University to cover the case of 51 mostly African-American women murdered in Chicago since 2001.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Indeed I have seen the tears. Heard the unforgettable cries of families for justice and peace. I have witnessed their pleas for police to find the killers in cases now ice cold and unsolved. I have felt their anguish over the disparity in media coverage of the murder and disappearance of Black women and girls. </span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">And I can think of no march more noble.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Until there is no longer a need, may this whole damn city walk for her.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Email: <a href="mailto:Author@johnwfountain.com">Author@johnwfountain.com</a> </span></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjdZZHIw5oFYlx3_SMirsM-Uz0d87gvycKi1ti-MPOIJJulQJtsGnfEYtA86TC1_rpQJoejoGBXufNQv8Gakd4U4GOThnJInTRv8IG-dN71BymAlBP6kntwqZU9LvzpQek24C8yxjAzNJKj/s6000/1.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4000" data-original-width="6000" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjdZZHIw5oFYlx3_SMirsM-Uz0d87gvycKi1ti-MPOIJJulQJtsGnfEYtA86TC1_rpQJoejoGBXufNQv8Gakd4U4GOThnJInTRv8IG-dN71BymAlBP6kntwqZU9LvzpQek24C8yxjAzNJKj/w640-h426/1.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Young Black women marched south on King Drive, starting at 35th Street to call attention to mussing<br />and murdered Black girls and women, and demanding policy change from law enforcement.</td></tr></tbody></table>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7317909132013000655.post-46619777746294840312021-02-21T10:29:00.004-06:002021-02-21T11:32:00.333-06:00Why I Stand with Father Pfleger<p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><i></i></span></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiR1DqLtNUdV8EtEtjAq9daZFOmPj2cPZHCp8jdIh_9JlR_vP1I-n_pNwbD53O2XiH8Ms4PBszN5dp6ZmmZcFOEXFgaPlS2T3qmrIPPCgO6txub0vs-GD7ShrBT_m_0zCeQoizEvf0_Hirl/s6000/DSC_0233.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4000" data-original-width="6000" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiR1DqLtNUdV8EtEtjAq9daZFOmPj2cPZHCp8jdIh_9JlR_vP1I-n_pNwbD53O2XiH8Ms4PBszN5dp6ZmmZcFOEXFgaPlS2T3qmrIPPCgO6txub0vs-GD7ShrBT_m_0zCeQoizEvf0_Hirl/w640-h426/DSC_0233.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Father Michael L. Pfleger stands during a march last year to protest the killing of George Floyd and the continuation of systemic racism. (Photo credit: John W. Fountain)</td></tr></tbody></table><span style="font-size: medium;"><i>This is an extended version of a column that appears in Sunday's Chicago Sun-Times newspaper </i></span><p></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>By John W. Fountain</b></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">I stand with Father Pfleger.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Oh, I hear you, dear Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Chicago, in purporting to be on the side of justice and transparency in your silencing and removing of the nationally renowned, longtime pastor of the Faith Community of St. Sabina while officials conduct a probe into allegations of sexual abuse of a minor more than 40 years ago.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Indeed I am among the multitude that believes that truth and justice--no matter how long delayed--must prevail. That we must, at all costs, protect the least of these: Our children.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">I hear you, trust me, I do. Even as I stand painfully aware of the Catholic church’s well-documented ferrying of known pedophile priests from parish to parish while paying incalculable sums in settlements to sex abuse victims--including a reported more than $200 million by the Chicago Archdiocese.</span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #2b00fe;">_________________________________________</span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #2b00fe;">_________________________________________</span></p><p> </p><blockquote style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><i>"How often does the church’s hierarchy venture beyond its majestic gothic headquarters to touch the untouchable in Englewood?"</i> </span></blockquote><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #2b00fe;">_________________________________________</span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #2b00fe;">_________________________________________</span></p><p></p><a name='more'></a><p></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgtjySFaoDAO9dVbIKttL9greEWvnRRsZpbawAV3N9M77gCbzTxHs3Onk9nUVUfXMTTNuzTnT1iRzP30gUB-Y5nuk-NqFrUFujMICJux_i4168EaBMiaJ-oagx4sKpmOAodDG0oS5Zbj-dG/s2048/202-21-2020+Why+I+stand+with+Father+Pfleger.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1341" data-original-width="2048" height="421" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgtjySFaoDAO9dVbIKttL9greEWvnRRsZpbawAV3N9M77gCbzTxHs3Onk9nUVUfXMTTNuzTnT1iRzP30gUB-Y5nuk-NqFrUFujMICJux_i4168EaBMiaJ-oagx4sKpmOAodDG0oS5Zbj-dG/w640-h421/202-21-2020+Why+I+stand+with+Father+Pfleger.jpg" width="640" /></a></span></div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br />I get it--the renewed vow of commitment after decades of the Catholic Church’s failure to shield the little children. To at last, in the 21st century, finally get it right.</span><p></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">I hear you. I just don’t trust you. I trust Father Pfleger.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">I stand with Father Michael L. Pfleger.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">For decades now, he has been a living, breathing, walking epistle of the love of Christ and his compassion for the least of these. He has embodied the prophetic voice and zeal of Dr. Martin Luther King and embraced a transformative social Gospel that has the power to renew, restore and revive lives and communities.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjkoWLmVCZmHhing1EXIvRKqsB0z-b81tdaaZHNsutGVVPCLqaa6zqPUkHkXUZfrz_6ZfwehfU4D5YFBxuPhvPI9AmfmzrIWfP7MD0lcY8gQ_QeVuQMkeVMNHiG8jYjEcH-zJU-c_dOjsZF/s720/Pfleger.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="480" data-original-width="720" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjkoWLmVCZmHhing1EXIvRKqsB0z-b81tdaaZHNsutGVVPCLqaa6zqPUkHkXUZfrz_6ZfwehfU4D5YFBxuPhvPI9AmfmzrIWfP7MD0lcY8gQ_QeVuQMkeVMNHiG8jYjEcH-zJU-c_dOjsZF/s320/Pfleger.jpg" width="320" /></a></span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">Indeed Pfleger has dwelled among us. We have witnessed him walk without wavering through the valley of the shadow of death, speak truth to power, fight against violence and racism that seeks to choke Chicago’s Black communities. </span><p></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">We have witnessed his commitment to educating Black children. Witnessed him stand as a beacon of hope in the hood, even as the Archdiocese closes schools and churches. </span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">In January, it announced the planned closing of <a href="https://www.stelizabethchicago.org/">St. Elizabeth in Bronzeville</a>, which merged with St. Monica Parish in 1924--Chicago’s first Black Catholic church whose development was led by Father John Augustus Tolton, born a slave and the first “universally recognized” Black Catholic priest in the U.S.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Is St. Elizabeth not worth saving? What about a good man’s name, established by more than 40 years of faithful selfless service to a community forsaken by a church that stands aloof?</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">When our children lay shot and bleeding in the street, it isn't archdiocesan officials who come to comfort our grieving mothers and fathers. </span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">How often does the church’s hierarchy venture beyond its majestic gothic headquarters to touch the untouchable in Englewood? Does it comfort the afflicted on 79th Street? Speak to us face-to-face, with love and reassurance--as friend, brother and ambassador of the blessed hope?</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Father Pfleger does.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">This is the man we know. A vessel of humanity, humility and hope, he has helped restore my faith in the Catholic Church.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">More than 40 years ago, I lost faith at 17, when then Cardinal John Patrick Cody visited <a href="https://psmnow.com/our-history/#">Providence-St. Mel School</a> in my senior year to declare the archdiocese had summarily decided to shut it down and withdraw its financial support. And no matter how much we marched, begged, protested, the Archdiocese never budged—deserted poor Black kids on the other side of the tracks, where this small Catholic school was our lifeline, our refuge, our bridge to a better life. </span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">My class was supposed to be my school's last. But St. Mel survived, without the church, by the heart of a man named Paul J. Adams III, and has every year since 1978, sent 100 percent of its graduates to colleges and universities.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">I have often wondered how much the church was paying then to settle lawsuits involving victims of abuse.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">And yet, we’re supposed to trust the church now? Trust even that it will conduct its investigation of the allegations against Pfleger expeditiously, to treat Father Pfleger fairly, to be transparent and forthcoming in the status of the case and their findings? </span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">A church that itself still, after all these years, has not yet come fully clean?</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">I stand with Father Pfleger. Because Father Pfleger stands for us.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Email: <a href="mailto:Author@johnwfountain.com">Author@johnwfountain.com</a></span></p><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7317909132013000655.post-84049466949765897262021-02-08T01:01:00.003-06:002021-02-08T04:30:25.299-06:00My Visit To Ghana: Remembrance of Black History Long Before Slavery<p style="text-align: justify;"></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj5lWOABP4CReifyZAkqflI7I2Ux7nLfu_f_alMMVbRlnD3A2H597ovXcpqvIVL4qBrUUjskZ6dHQjluMouUEjyJWWTG-FKY3Blba_McR820EWG8aGTYBKnLsNRMYiUqrc-9J0GDRbahQge/s2048/John+Fountain+standing+on+the+grounds+of+Cape+Coast+Castle+in+Ghana+in+2007.+He+has+been+a+2021-22+Fulbright+Scholar+to+Ghana.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1536" data-original-width="2048" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj5lWOABP4CReifyZAkqflI7I2Ux7nLfu_f_alMMVbRlnD3A2H597ovXcpqvIVL4qBrUUjskZ6dHQjluMouUEjyJWWTG-FKY3Blba_McR820EWG8aGTYBKnLsNRMYiUqrc-9J0GDRbahQge/w640-h480/John+Fountain+standing+on+the+grounds+of+Cape+Coast+Castle+in+Ghana+in+2007.+He+has+been+a+2021-22+Fulbright+Scholar+to+Ghana.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><div style="text-align: center;">John W. Fountain stands at Cape Coast Castle in Ghana, overlooking the Atlantic Ocean. </div><div style="text-align: center;">He visited Ghana in 2007 and will return this August as a Fulbright Scholar where he will teach </div><div style="text-align: center;">at the University of Ghana in Accra and conduct a research project titled,</div><div style="text-align: center;">"Africa Calling: Portraits of Black Americans Drawn To The Motherland."</div><div style="text-align: center;">He is a professor of journalism at Roosevelt University.</div></td></tr></tbody></table><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>By John W. Fountain</b></span><p></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><i><span style="font-size: medium;">Imagine. If the ocean could cry. If the walls did cry. If the sands could speak. If the cells here in Cape Coast would try to tell the tale of blood lost, of tears shed. Of souls dead. Imagine…</span></i></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">These were the words I penned shortly after visiting the former slave castle in Cape Coast, Ghana, in 2007--a hauntingly majestic white stone fortress overlooking the Atlantic Ocean. </span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span>Standing on that side of the Atlantic upon this castle, where my ancestors began their shackled journey to North America, staring into waves that lapped at its shores, I was awash in Black history. </span><span style="text-align: center;">Moved in ways I had not been before by our story as African Americans, by our journey, which did not begin in 1619.</span></span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-size: medium;"><b>__________________________</b></span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-size: medium;"><b>__________________________</b></span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><br /></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large; text-align: center;"></span><iframe allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="360" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/ZjEPAS_VUBg?rel=0" width="640"></iframe></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-size: medium;"><b>__________________________</b></span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #2b00fe; font-size: medium;"><b>__________________________</b></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span></span></span></p><a name='more'></a><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="text-align: justify;"><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjGO39cpUbuwzZATEZk_SK9koIFsDxiOcbQvTZwoXgqwUQJgwdbP1OOcy47iHXDhIfGuzlvoK8HTWyhMUOjFDPxcrHENFZnWuPEUTwV1WwGF5wvUdoG690YYugQpHDGHXRDPkBnXzFXBbfW/s448/1.JPG" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="336" data-original-width="448" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjGO39cpUbuwzZATEZk_SK9koIFsDxiOcbQvTZwoXgqwUQJgwdbP1OOcy47iHXDhIfGuzlvoK8HTWyhMUOjFDPxcrHENFZnWuPEUTwV1WwGF5wvUdoG690YYugQpHDGHXRDPkBnXzFXBbfW/s320/1.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Cape Coast Castle, Ghana</td></tr></tbody></table><div style="text-align: justify;">In the humid dungeon, I could feel the human carnage, the volume of perished souls. I was staggered by the depth of darkness, by visions of Black bodies stacked, and imaginations of the thinness of the air, mixed with sweat, urine and feces. I could hear their cries.</div></span></span></div><p></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Black history gripped my body and soul. And it left me almost breathless, certainly temporarily tearless. I felt lost, stunned silent, as I wandered through the belly of hell inside Cape Coast Castle. </span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">The docent’s words were like static amid my own internal conversations within my psyche and soul, which found both solace and searing torture in this place. Not lost were his words that above the dungeon’s hell stood “the church.” </span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Then walking up from the slave pen, I encountered the “Door of No Return.” My heart stopped as my eyes met the rolling seas, and I imagined slave ships awaiting to carry us into the Middle Passage.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Cape Coast Castle was only part of my experience in Ghana. Simply breathing the air as I walked through its streets, into its markets, and otherwise encountered a sea of beautiful deep dark Black people, I felt, for the first time in my life, free among a people for whom my skin is not a sin. </span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">I was not a Black man but simply a man. I was home.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;"></span></p><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh0g2_Lu95EYsbwt1eBzlz-t6RTURdfhwGaL95q08yZyTMq6I6bJ5cnmxKr3XOnpXThUnWdLivlFWPnzjfolgv95uNTj_YURJ3wqOg6lD-zahwtOz3UDOVO_KEijVMr289b5k251i_Pmuru/s2048/A+Ghanaian+man+pours+libation+in+the+slave+dungeon+at+Cape+Coast+Castle.JPG" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1536" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh0g2_Lu95EYsbwt1eBzlz-t6RTURdfhwGaL95q08yZyTMq6I6bJ5cnmxKr3XOnpXThUnWdLivlFWPnzjfolgv95uNTj_YURJ3wqOg6lD-zahwtOz3UDOVO_KEijVMr289b5k251i_Pmuru/s320/A+Ghanaian+man+pours+libation+in+the+slave+dungeon+at+Cape+Coast+Castle.JPG" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">A Ghanaian man pours libation in the<br />dungeon of Cape Coast Castle.</td></tr></tbody></table><span style="font-size: medium;">I inhaled the beauty of Ghana. Its splendor. Its pride. And it reminded me, spoke clearly to me, of our existence long before slavery. </span><span style="font-size: large;">Of the time when we were kings and queens upon the continent from whose soil emerged the beginning of man.</span><p></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Not lost on me was that Ghana, in 1957, became the first sub-Saharan nation to gain its freedom from colonial rule, or that W.E.B. Du Bois is buried there, or that Ghana has been dubbed the mecca of the Black liberation movement and Pan-Africanism. </span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">This much I vowed to myself while there: I would return to Ghana someday and bring my family with me. For I am convinced that every African American--even if not seeking to repatriate--must make pilgrimage to the Motherland. I hear her calling my soul.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">This August I will make good on that promise to myself as a 2021-22 Fulbright Scholar to the University of Ghana in Accra, where I will teach and also undertake a research project: “Africa Calling: Portraits of Black Americans Drawn To The Motherland.” </span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">My work will chronicle, in part, the story of thousands of African Americans living as expatriates in Ghana, many seeking to escape the racial animus and discrimination of America.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">I have no illusions. Ghana is not “Wakanda.” But imagine. </span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><i>Imagine if I stood where my fathers cried. Where my people died. Where slavery tried to steal our souls. And Mother pride. Imagine what I'd feel inside.</i></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><i>Land where we once reigned as kings and queens. The land where my soul at last felt free. Imagine...</i></span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><i>Imagine</i></span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><i>The huddled masses</i></span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><i>Sardined and wearied soul</i></span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><i>Sweat, blood and urine flow</i></span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><i>Like rivers of tears swollen</i></span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><i>And the children of Africa knowin'</i></span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><i>That the ship's a comin'</i></span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><i>That that old ship's a comin'</i></span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><i>And the children of Africa know</i></span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><i>It soon will be time to go</i></span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><i>Imagine ...</i></span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><i>Imagine a musty cell--</i></span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><i>Disease infested, hatred ingested--</i></span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><i>Salt-air from the sea sifting</i></span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><i>through slits for vents</i></span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><i>where sunlight barely shows</i></span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><i>Like dim-lit rainbows,</i></span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><i>though in these holes,</i></span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><i>the reflections in the dark</i></span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><i>show no reflections of the dark ones here</i></span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><i>who huddle in fear</i></span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><i>as the end draws near.</i></span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><i>Imagine...</i></span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><i><br /></i></span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><i>Imagine the terror</i></span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><i>The shameful error</i></span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><i>of those who</i></span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><i>knowingly sold their brothers and sisters</i></span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><i>into a slavery so cruel</i></span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><i>So brutal</i></span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><i>So lewd</i></span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><i>So without human rules</i></span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><i>Imagine...</i></span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><i><br /></i></span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><i>Imagine the door</i></span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><i>The Point of No Return</i></span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><i>The wail from hell</i></span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><i>Where the Children of Africa fell</i></span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><i>Oh, the hell!</i></span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><i>I can smell the hell</i></span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><i>Sense the hell</i></span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><i>Feel the hell:</i></span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><i>Seagulls crying</i></span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><i>Buzzards flying</i></span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><i>Sharks lying await</i></span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><i>White men filled up with hate</i></span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><i>Black folks beat down by hate</i></span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><i>Black folks in shackles of hate</i></span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><i>That old slave ship sealed up with hate</i></span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><i>That old slave ship setting sail in winds of hate</i></span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><i>And this old slave castle the birthplace of my fate.</i></span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><i>Imagine...</i></span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><i><br /></i></span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><i>Imagine</i></span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><i>If I stood where my fathers cried</i></span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><i>Where my people died</i></span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><i>Where slavery tried to steal our souls</i></span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><i>And Mother pride</i></span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><i>Imagine what I'd feel inside.</i></span></p><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;"><iframe allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="360" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/jNN1mxAbWeU?rel=0" width="640"></iframe></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7317909132013000655.post-50527865467085420392021-01-22T17:24:00.004-06:002021-01-24T05:32:18.484-06:00In City of 'Silence,' Never A Greater Need to 'Say Something'<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg4gxNWeYFV0MvzmzG1G9hsRsC1uQwjY3gJ0TByhzGQKe5x7UFQgASMs_FEx3kv3CYW2czZNEhUfuGoXp0YTIVBKa1e6aPt1mSBSMMCHvVjB32jep0ry6Wwb6PoKaDanlrHUA5xQK7wPilS/s2048/1.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1489" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg4gxNWeYFV0MvzmzG1G9hsRsC1uQwjY3gJ0TByhzGQKe5x7UFQgASMs_FEx3kv3CYW2czZNEhUfuGoXp0YTIVBKa1e6aPt1mSBSMMCHvVjB32jep0ry6Wwb6PoKaDanlrHUA5xQK7wPilS/w464-h640/1.jpg" width="464" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Father Michael L. Pfleger, senior pastor of the Faith Community of St. Sabina</td></tr></tbody></table><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>By John W. Fountain</b></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Silence</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Hear the silence</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;">The sound of nothingness, </span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;">crashing</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;">like waves </span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;">upon this star-kissed city's shore, </span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;">in the face of injustice </span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;">and poverty</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;">that roar</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Silence...</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Deafening </span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Amid burgeoning malevolence </span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Merciless greed</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;">That leaves</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Black lives scattered</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Black lives shattered</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Listless</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;">In the bitter night cold</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Frozen</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;">In drifting now</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Souls frostbitten</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;">By Hatred</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;">So cold</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;">So bold</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Old schemes </span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;">In "The White City"</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Where Black dreams </span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Remain elusive</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Privilege exclusive</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;">And voices that challenge </span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;">The status quo</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;">So few and far </span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Between</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;">That silence </span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;">now screams!</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiukzqP8eS1Wgn954nt8LxeRvVGvw_IsWXCDb3hvLZbwAsWRvRg7yP1Vlm-3HoxGaI3c-HZSMrVL3cOgBchCNbaTySRi1hoW98vCRbMjkAAV3J9BBRtBFKVhp9j1ZLBkxgcd-Ke15xroP-W/s1080/Screenshot_20210124-044930_Drive.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="673" data-original-width="1080" height="396" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiukzqP8eS1Wgn954nt8LxeRvVGvw_IsWXCDb3hvLZbwAsWRvRg7yP1Vlm-3HoxGaI3c-HZSMrVL3cOgBchCNbaTySRi1hoW98vCRbMjkAAV3J9BBRtBFKVhp9j1ZLBkxgcd-Ke15xroP-W/w640-h396/Screenshot_20210124-044930_Drive.jpg" width="640" /></a></div></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span><a name='more'></a></span></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;">But I can still </span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;">hear</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Pfleger</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Father Pfleger </span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Cryin'</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;">In the wilderness </span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Of dreams</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Defyin'</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Cataclysmic schemes </span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;">No matter how silent</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Chicago now seems</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Without him</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Silence… </span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Silence</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Feel the void, </span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;">A familiar </span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Oppressive noise</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Rising violently </span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Capsizing</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Sinking beneath</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Relentless stormy seas </span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Fragile New Hope's</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Old Dreams</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Gasping </span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Amid Silence</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;">That drowns </span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;">The cries</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;">That abound</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Of those </span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Who die</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;">With the mucus </span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Of poverty </span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Dripping </span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;">From their lonely eyes</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;">The deafening sound</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Of piercing lies</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;">That soar miles high</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Toward forbidden, powder blue skies</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;">With invisible glass</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Ceilings</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Repressed feelings</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;">And PTSD</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;">In this American </span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;">city of Du Sable </span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Where the Negro</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Still</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Is </span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Not </span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Free</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Who is unafraid</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;">To speak for me?</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;">To fight for we?</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;">For us </span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;">In frequencies</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Decipherable by </span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Even the least of these </span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;">But reviled by</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Powers that be</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;">A voice</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Unrelenting </span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Uncompromised</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;">And yet despised.</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;">"The Enemy"</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;">To them who lie</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;">But Champion </span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;">In our brown eyes</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;">For decades now</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Unto this hour:</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Pfleger</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Father Pfleger </span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;">No.1 Instigator </span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;">No.1 Agitator</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Chief Drum Major</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;">For Justice </span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Both here</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;">And beyond</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;">A city </span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;">I find</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Most fond</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Of silence</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Silence...</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;">O, great city</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Now absent </span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Of that rolling </span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Thunder</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;">That cries aloud, </span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;">"Justice!"</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;">When it just is</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Just us</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;">For whom</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Justice is still denied</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;">O, City that does not</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Hear our cries</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;">"16 shots"</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Crooked cops</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Baby-killing goons </span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Hittas on the block</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Hopelessness running </span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Like deep rivers of snot</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Homelessness not subsiding</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;">The lonely & brokenhearted dying</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;">The elderly barely surviving</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;">And the whole hood realizing</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;">“We're all we got”</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Amid woeful neglect</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Cast aside</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;">And disrespect</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Promises made </span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;">But not promises kept </span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Liars on the right</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Haters on the left</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Pfleger in the middle</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Except now </span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;">we're left</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;">With silence...</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Silence</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;">As cold winds blow</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;">And this city </span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;">On the verge</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Of losing her soul</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Chicago</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Stone cold emptiness, </span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Chicago</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Icy old hollowness</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Chicago</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;">From the Gold Cost </span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;">To the Cold Coast</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Chicago</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Where your twinkling skyscrapers & Ferris wheel</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;">And your shimmering midnight shore</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Shield the truths</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;">That lie just beyond your front door</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Of how you absolutely abhor</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Those who would shine the light</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Upon your cancerous sores</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Upon your history </span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;">of those whom your bullets have claimed</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Or of accusations</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;">That like hollow points</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Murder a name </span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Is not a man </span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;">"presumed innocent?"</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Let truth & justice reign</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;">This much is plain</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Pfleger</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Father Pfleger</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Has marched into the fiery hell </span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;">of city streets </span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Waged a holy war </span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;">For the least of these</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Did not abandon ship </span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;">In stormy seas</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Sought not politicians</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Or preachers to please</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Cried aloud</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;">And spared not</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;">In the face of hate</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;">That he might help alter</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;">This city's fate</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Declaring with crystal clear clarity</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;">In the key of Charity</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;">The way things are</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;">But the way things ought to be</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;">His light shinning </span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Redefining “church”</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Bringing healing to hurt</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Not a savior</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;">But a man</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Who has lifted his voice</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;">For a righteous plan</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Stood as a good shepherd </span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;">In defense of lambs </span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;">When so many so-called leaders</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Didn't give a damn</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Pfleger...</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;">As constant</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;">As the morning sunrise</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Even when wearied</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;">And with tears in his eyes </span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Even when facing </span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Adversaries & haters </span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;">And fellow clergy </span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Who were nothing more than fakers</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Even when with animus, some of these declared,</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;">"Here he comes that</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Pfleger"</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;">"Who does he think he is?"</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Pfleger</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;">"Speaking truth to power"</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Pfleger </span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;">"Feeding poor Black kids"</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Pfleger </span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;">"Shutting down liquor stores in the hood"</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Pfleger</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;">"Like he's so good"</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Pfleger</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;">“That white activist Catholic priest” </span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Waging war in the belly of the beast</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Pfleger</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;">"Sit him down"</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Pfleger</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;">"Shut him up"</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Pfleger</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;">"Shut him down"</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Pfleger</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;">"Stop all that damn marching"</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Pfleger </span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;">"We've had enough"</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Pfleger</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Silence!</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Pfleger </span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Silence</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;">The river of tears flowin'</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Down the Magnificent Mile</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;">No more shutting down the Dan Ryan</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;">No more complaints to file</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;">No more declarations </span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Of the hypocrisy </span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Of American Democracy</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Of deferred dreams</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;">In a land of disenfranchising schemes</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Of back-room political conspiracies</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Of racist religious sanctimony</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Of the master plan to keep Black folks bound </span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Adrift in illiteracy’s sea</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;">In a perpetual state of economic impotency</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;">And centuries of social insufficiency</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Silence...</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Except </span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;">I still hear Pfleger</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;">And the witness of </span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;">His light </span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;">After all these years </span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Compels me </span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Now & Here</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Loud & Clear</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;">To </span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Say something:</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;">To hell with Silence. </span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Until justice rolls down like waters</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;">And righteousness like a mighty stream</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Until from Englewood to North Lawndale </span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Life more resembles Dr. King's Dream</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Than a nightmare </span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;">on Elm Street</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;">And all God's children </span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Can say, "I'm free"</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Until Black Lives Matter</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;">And the excuse-filled political chatter </span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Ceases to be</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Like this lingering tale of two cities:</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;">One ugly </span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;">One pretty</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;">One where the cold wind</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Always blows colder</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;">And the other that always</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Shines golden</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;">A city where Silence </span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Is emboldened </span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Without someone like Pfleger</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;">But what if </span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Amid this Silence</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;">There arose </span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;">A thousand agitators</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;">A thousand Irritators</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;">A thousand Instigators</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;">A thousand Justice Drum majors</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Ignited </span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;">By his shining light </span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;">And decades' guidance</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;">On the side of right?</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;">No </span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;">more </span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;">silence</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiIFZq6U7hUf2bxGjYdf17WWx1NnJW9yONdg6O37RWDrKXnXif8f1IOciY-U1KfjsPfBqy97zF_ncMX-3NSm1SBjQCO6pLvc7fQ7fWZKMYKjOvhTY6IyjmLmicZjyhv4OSS7ulsb3TMfRTc/s2048/3.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1072" data-original-width="2048" height="334" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiIFZq6U7hUf2bxGjYdf17WWx1NnJW9yONdg6O37RWDrKXnXif8f1IOciY-U1KfjsPfBqy97zF_ncMX-3NSm1SBjQCO6pLvc7fQ7fWZKMYKjOvhTY6IyjmLmicZjyhv4OSS7ulsb3TMfRTc/w640-h334/3.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Father Pfleger being interviewed by students in fall 2019 before boarding leaving on a caravan of buses headed to Washington, D.C., for the "March to End Gin Violence"</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi4UxVn8niW2Kd97rlLfXCYPo5C-rwmw_RGdjcQORUbKa0zSC4yb4ALCrLOlquPkM1tI57ZgdNFYOiLdV20mHN4ezhXoU0RXZWh_al41OMuZogDAH0OZO8cjwbeNEs2-1HA5EO4jypWL24W/s1806/2.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1410" data-original-width="1806" height="500" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi4UxVn8niW2Kd97rlLfXCYPo5C-rwmw_RGdjcQORUbKa0zSC4yb4ALCrLOlquPkM1tI57ZgdNFYOiLdV20mHN4ezhXoU0RXZWh_al41OMuZogDAH0OZO8cjwbeNEs2-1HA5EO4jypWL24W/w640-h500/2.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">A column written by John Fountain whose students were embedded as reporters on the trip to Washington, D.C., for the "March to End Gun Violence."</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;"><iframe allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="360" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/CUkX1RrCYP8?rel=0" width="640"></iframe></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7317909132013000655.post-49083624388747821702020-12-24T14:20:00.020-06:002021-03-15T14:22:02.042-05:00Aunt Mary's Triple-Decker German Chocolate Cake Recipe<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhBuOOgZSjp1RmHpL81vSAx3u13Z9QMFxUXnpJOFx7xfEK6tkYwEm6c9t-lKMmvgJCftuMlafqv0NwzjIuTPMWbItIkRTwhCH0HIxqI2RP-OLdJVWURpL9jzR4Ouia55xgqKwGy1BATWu9N/s2048/Cake+1.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1506" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhBuOOgZSjp1RmHpL81vSAx3u13Z9QMFxUXnpJOFx7xfEK6tkYwEm6c9t-lKMmvgJCftuMlafqv0NwzjIuTPMWbItIkRTwhCH0HIxqI2RP-OLdJVWURpL9jzR4Ouia55xgqKwGy1BATWu9N/w471-h640/Cake+1.jpg" width="471" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">"I tried it, mission accomplished!" -John Fountain on baking Aunt Mary's German chocolate cake shown here.</td></tr></tbody></table><p><span style="text-align: justify;"></span></p><blockquote><span style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">“You almost need to Zoom it, at least the steps and what you do or its not going to come out good...” -Aunt Mary, 82 </span></span></blockquote><p></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Well, I won't Zoom it, but I’ve included pictures from my own foray into baking Aunt Mary’s German Chocolate Cake, which turned out splendid. Here’s the recipe and detailed instructions.</span></p><p></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgK81_HmLFGD64dFhytPZDGdiLyNNxdnwUaqHjJnwoGsQ1HjKAJWom0Jwt0FcOBTPGMoWSs8-LJjGYExXgxWBPBBWu2JJ421K7-mYkvV-9GhJWT-KckuHcna_b2LeJm0IToDvrcj2AF49Gr/s2048/Cake+3.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1279" data-original-width="2048" height="250" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgK81_HmLFGD64dFhytPZDGdiLyNNxdnwUaqHjJnwoGsQ1HjKAJWom0Jwt0FcOBTPGMoWSs8-LJjGYExXgxWBPBBWu2JJ421K7-mYkvV-9GhJWT-KckuHcna_b2LeJm0IToDvrcj2AF49Gr/w400-h250/Cake+3.jpg" width="400" /></a></span></div><span style="font-size: medium;"><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: #b45f06;"><b>Ingredients for Cake:</b> </span>Four egg yolks; one bar of Baker’s German Sweet Chocolate; two cups of sugar; two sticks of unsalted butter; two cups of cake flour (or sifted, if ordinary flour. Aunt Mary sifts her flour about five times); one cup of buttermilk; one teaspoon of vanilla extract; one teaspoon of baking soda, 1 teaspoon of salt. (Three 8-inch pans greased with Crisco Regular Shortening and sprinkled with flour (shake off all excess flour.))</div></span><p></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><b><span style="color: #b45f06;">Ingredients for Icing:</span><span style="color: #e69138;"> </span></b>For icing: One stick of unsalted butter; one can of evaporated milk, one cup of sugar, one teaspoon of vanilla extract; Three egg yolks, one medium bag of pecan pieces; 1 medium bag of coconut.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="color: #b45f06;"><b>Cake Instructions:</b> </span>Make sure your ingredients are at room temperature before you start. Aunt Mary says she sets them out eight hours before she bakes. As you get started, separate seven egg whites from yolks; beat seven egg whites, and set egg yolks to the side (four for the cake, and three for the icing). Aunt Mary says, “I usually put all the egg whites together and beat them and set them to the side...”<span></span></span></p><a name='more'></a><p></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">In main mixing bowl, beat two sticks butter about a minute, adding sugar slowly. Continue to beat that until it’s completely mixed (John’s hints: Definitely use an electric mixer. I can’t imagine doing this by hand); Add German’s chocolate that has been melted about half an hour before time to use it… (Beforehand put chocolate into 1/4 cup of hot water in a pan or small bowl and let it melt and pour off the water.) </span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Add four egg yolks. Add teaspoon of extract. Add two cups of flour (Aunt Mary says, to add the flour one tablespoon at a time, though you can add more. The point is: Take your time, don’t dump the flour in because if you do, you're going to get a different texture.) Add buttermilk (The process is: A little buttermilk, a little flour, a little buttermilk a little flour.) Add teaspoon of soda and 1 teaspoon salt. (Hint from John: If you use self-rising flour, don’t add baking soda. I used Swans Down Cake Flour (sifted 27 times, according to its maker) and followed Aunt Mary’s recipe to perfection.)</span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjUedK0K9YLlpmx83r0lVtbFVb-xHkq43q1uiqgxOw-42dC21EvkRfzFy2hPWOLKrQPBPCiwqx4SknXM9AAe4tvjJENQFsg3vKL3SBiaIPmOtDVnocC65x5lLVRsHgiNqjCFU0nGWbquR_R/s2543/Cake+2.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1236" data-original-width="2543" height="195" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjUedK0K9YLlpmx83r0lVtbFVb-xHkq43q1uiqgxOw-42dC21EvkRfzFy2hPWOLKrQPBPCiwqx4SknXM9AAe4tvjJENQFsg3vKL3SBiaIPmOtDVnocC65x5lLVRsHgiNqjCFU0nGWbquR_R/w400-h195/Cake+2.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><p></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Fold in all egg whites that have been beaten with a mixer until stiff (Seven that have been beaten.) Fold until it’s all one color and entire batter is lighter in texture. “Then you’re ready to bake,” Aunt Mary says.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Bake at 350 degrees for 30 to 35 minutes. Insert a toothpick. If it comes out dry, the cake is done. Remove and let them cool for at 10 to 30 minutes.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><b><span style="color: #b45f06;">Icing Instructions: </span></b>In a medium pot, stir one can of evaporated milk, one stick of butter, and the remaining three egg yolks and one cup of sugar at medium heat and stirring consistently. Cook for about 10 minutes at medium heat and it will bubble up and you will know it’s done. Remove pot from stove. Add pecans and (Baker’s) coconut. Spread on first layer of icing then add each layer separately with icing, No icing on the side. In the end, top with pecan halves in a pattern of your choosing.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">“Oh yeah, you can make it pretty if you wanna,” Aunt Mary says. “It would be really pretty.”</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><i><b>-Aunt Mary & John W. Fountain</b></i></span></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQKD9TqHHAdSWxCvHx639waPxLMy7cITou8EQYo2Js3uDpagVJOvlgg9lZyl5MOppJz_QUu7U9BxkrH1qAZf8Cri_oxw6W4fSRajeJEdhFD5I1XSQWSXxUPau2zBZpso8IfHqAW-KirdHa/s2543/Cake+4.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1236" data-original-width="2543" height="312" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQKD9TqHHAdSWxCvHx639waPxLMy7cITou8EQYo2Js3uDpagVJOvlgg9lZyl5MOppJz_QUu7U9BxkrH1qAZf8Cri_oxw6W4fSRajeJEdhFD5I1XSQWSXxUPau2zBZpso8IfHqAW-KirdHa/w640-h312/Cake+4.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">John Fountain lays out the ingredients in preparation to bake Aunt Mary's German chocolate cake.</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b>The Recipe:</b></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjlJTGbhmEdZ-rzu5evdm0ryh6fyGtCquJljGSe1ApUcZCgzIvMJ3CpWqmmzfUgXqcH6bb_Fy61P1Y0BApxM6KdOBH6wIkA245-kUYjKUzSNHIwB3N3cvfapvgvE3793Ja1wDmtdJv5sH_k/s2048/1+Aunt+Mary%2527s+Triple-Decker+German+Chocolate+Cake+Recipe+By+John+W.+Fountain_Page_1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1583" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjlJTGbhmEdZ-rzu5evdm0ryh6fyGtCquJljGSe1ApUcZCgzIvMJ3CpWqmmzfUgXqcH6bb_Fy61P1Y0BApxM6KdOBH6wIkA245-kUYjKUzSNHIwB3N3cvfapvgvE3793Ja1wDmtdJv5sH_k/w494-h640/1+Aunt+Mary%2527s+Triple-Decker+German+Chocolate+Cake+Recipe+By+John+W.+Fountain_Page_1.jpg" width="494" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh7i4jWtQZjGexyqrfYnF591sio5Ajpf-zI2Lqp56loyqsuq5MmhgKN74FvVJh_yueR7G-zPBmkH1OuLxmV7R80Y6mhVxVeCYekExyAIYBElwiOVz8iUQRgxycUInU_pQoTBXNeQRJRVV2C/s2048/2+Aunt+Mary%2527s+Triple-Decker+German+Chocolate+Cake+Recipe+By+John+W.+Fountain_Page_2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1583" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh7i4jWtQZjGexyqrfYnF591sio5Ajpf-zI2Lqp56loyqsuq5MmhgKN74FvVJh_yueR7G-zPBmkH1OuLxmV7R80Y6mhVxVeCYekExyAIYBElwiOVz8iUQRgxycUInU_pQoTBXNeQRJRVV2C/w494-h640/2+Aunt+Mary%2527s+Triple-Decker+German+Chocolate+Cake+Recipe+By+John+W.+Fountain_Page_2.jpg" width="494" /></a></div><br /><b><br /></b></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj6rRUPGGPs-EcUSgSJfgTGEBvAooj0PXgiqK5nWg76cg5AphoJBLcP83BpsiEsfFY1IJTi-kuKTzQN_iLCTJIw6IZBJMAx4ONlB0Uk7eRgqeBS2wuWJOHoOMBjHwakgIvAIh7XF-6E0Dea/s1080/Screenshot_20201213-013119_Write+on+PDF.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="688" data-original-width="1080" height="408" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj6rRUPGGPs-EcUSgSJfgTGEBvAooj0PXgiqK5nWg76cg5AphoJBLcP83BpsiEsfFY1IJTi-kuKTzQN_iLCTJIw6IZBJMAx4ONlB0Uk7eRgqeBS2wuWJOHoOMBjHwakgIvAIh7XF-6E0Dea/w640-h408/Screenshot_20201213-013119_Write+on+PDF.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br /><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgxI2o4imLvL5zZfZH180aUq6AMlzJaOTYq2EYgQBzD6FWy3z_rbyRh5EIBcRQ_AETotPu2pFNiPUeNPtD8BePdALNPpa265LzF4VYNs3iEnA8BFaWO4OFkzI4xa9SWZeHpJh9UjboKiFBa/s1080/Screenshot_20201129-022900_Write+on+PDF.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="589" data-original-width="1080" height="350" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgxI2o4imLvL5zZfZH180aUq6AMlzJaOTYq2EYgQBzD6FWy3z_rbyRh5EIBcRQ_AETotPu2pFNiPUeNPtD8BePdALNPpa265LzF4VYNs3iEnA8BFaWO4OFkzI4xa9SWZeHpJh9UjboKiFBa/w640-h350/Screenshot_20201129-022900_Write+on+PDF.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br /><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7317909132013000655.post-80965744927038220812020-12-21T13:39:00.003-06:002020-12-21T13:39:49.487-06:00America doesn’t have a murder problem. America—black and white America—has a heart problem. A son of Oakland, Victor McElhaney was slain. He was an American son. He is not forgotten. Say his name.<p> </p>
<script charset="utf-8" data-zindex="1000000" id="asp-embed-script" src="https://spark.adobe.com/page-embed.js" type="text/javascript"></script><a class="asp-embed-link" href="https://spark.adobe.com/page/kUhMjQpbSH3aQ/" target="_blank"><img alt="Say His Name" border="0" src="https://spark.adobe.com/page/kUhMjQpbSH3aQ/embed.jpg?buster=1608579203498" style="width: 150%;" /></a>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com