When I was young, Englewood had been a rough neighborhood but not
necessarily as deadly as it was now. In junior high, I’d traveled to Englewood for
weekly biology labs at a community college there. Now, years later, as my
motorcade made its way past strips of neglected bungalows and shuttered
storefronts, past vacant lots and burned-out buildings, it looked to me as if the
only thriving businesses left were the liquor stores.
I thought back to my own childhood and my own neighborhood, and how
the word “ghetto” got thrown around like a threat. The mere suggestion of it, I
understood now, caused stable, middle-class families to bail preemptively for the
suburbs, worried their property values would drop. “Ghetto” signaled that a place
was both black and hopeless. It was a label that foretold failure and then hastened
its arrival. It closed corner groceries and gas stations and undermined schools and
educators trying to instill self-worth in neighborhood kids. It was a word
everyone tried to run from, but it could rear up on a community quick.
In the middle of West Englewood sat Harper High School, a large sand-
brick building with multiple wings. I met the school’s principal, Leonetta
Sanders, a quick-moving African American woman who’d been at the school for
six years, and two school social workers who immersed themselves in the lives of
the 510 kids enrolled at Harper, most of them from low-income families. One of
the social workers, Crystal Smith, could often be found pacing Harper’s hallways
between classes, peppering students with positivity, communicating her high
regard for them by calling out, “I’m so proud of you!” and “I see you trying
hard!” She’d shout, “I appreciate you in advance!” for every good choice she
trusted those students would make.
In the school library that day, I joined a circle of twenty-two Harper
students—all African American, mostly juniors and seniors—who were seated in
chairs and on couches, dressed in khakis and collared shirts. Most were eager to
talk. They described a daily, even hourly, fear of gangs and violence. Some
explained that they had absent or addicted parents; a couple had spent time in
juvenile detention centers. A junior named Thomas had witnessed a good friend
—a sixteen-year-old girl—get shot and killed the previous summer. He’d also
been there when his older brother, who had been partially paralyzed due to a
gunshot injury, was shot and wounded in the same incident while sitting outside
in his wheelchair. Nearly every kid there that day had lost someone—a friend,
relative, neighbor—to a bullet. Few, meanwhile, had ever been downtown to see
the lakefront or visit Navy Pier.