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Olalekan Jeyifous. Plant Seeds Grow Blessings. 2020. Photomontage. Courtesy of Olalekan Jeyifous. The Museum of Modern Art, New York.
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The exhibition “Reconstructions: Architecture and Blackness in America” opened at the Museum of Modern Art in New York on February 26 and runs through May. The museum commissioned 10 architects, designers, and artists to explore the relationship between architecture and the spaces of Black and African diaspora communities and to consider how dismantling racism depends on transforming the built environment. Architect-artists Amanda Williams and Olalekan Jeyifous, who are taking part in this monumental exhibition, have also been commissioned by NPHM to design a vibrant museum entrance. Museum staff got a thrilling sneak peek at the developing plans and the 925 Ada Street (NPHM’s future formal mailing address) portal is going to be phenomenal. We look forward to sharing the final drawings soon.
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Civic Love Goes on the Road
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NPHM’s 36 Questions for Civic Love project had a couple of hot dates with the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in San Francisco. On February 14, as part of the SF Urban Film Fest, Civic Love was live streamed (and recorded) on YouTube featuring San Francisco District Attorney Chesa Boudin and multimedia journalist Yesica Prado publicly taking on the questionnaire. Then, 30 participants were paired off in Zoom breakout rooms. A few days later, NPHM’s Lisa Lee and Tiff Beatty guided festival goers via another livestream YouTube event. The Museum worked with the SF Urban Film Fest to curate a set of 9 questions specifically for an installation at YBCA. Heartwarming feedback from participants included:
"Thanks for a genuine happy hour!
" and "Friendship! Love the sense of new friendship!
"
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Care Packages for Unhoused Residents
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As a part of our program with the SF Urban Film Fest, People Led Solutions, participants were given an opportunity to write a love note and assemble a Care Crate with essential items for unhoused residents in Chicago, Berkeley, and Oakland. NPHM is working with Red Line Service in Chicago to distribute 30 Care Crates to unhoused residents with resources supported by the Kresge Foundation.
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Tonika Lewis-Johnson Turns Her Lens On
Land Sale Contracts
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Image Courtesy of Tonika Lewis-Johnson.
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NPHM’s Artist as Instigator Tonika Lewis-Johnson will be spending the year examining the impact of Land Sale Contracts (LSC) on the Black community. LSCs, were an unscrupulous practice wherein would-be homebuyers, locked out of traditional mortgages by racist policies, were offered contracts that enforced excessive monthly payments without ever transferring ownership. According to a Duke University study, between 75-95% of homes sold to Black families during this period were sold via LSCs. “What happened during this crucial era, that of the making of America’s mass white middle class during the long postwar economic boom, was a systematic, legally sanctioned plunder of black wealth,” to the tune of over $3.2 billion.
Inequity for Sale is an artistic, critical exploration of this racist practice in Black neighborhoods, and how LSCs directly contributed to the wealth gap and community disinvestment we witness today. This phase of the project will comprise 10-15 life-sized land markers for LSC homes, a website documenting the stories of this period of plunder, and a walking tour via the Vamonde app that connects this history with present-day conditions in Greater Englewood. Museum interns from Roosevelt University’s Policy Research Collaborative will work with Tonika to engage Englewood residents and record oral histories.
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Upcoming Virtual Exhibition: Silent Voices Among Us
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In The Middle. Image Courtesy of Dr. Cranston Knight.
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Silent Voices Among Us: A Montage of Chicago’s West Side is a photojournalism series by Dr. Cranston Knight, a former public housing resident from the Henry Horner Homes. The photos were taken over a 2-month period in Austin and Garfield Park, neighboring communities on Chicago’s West Side. The photo series documents decades of systemic inequities put into place from unfair housing practices, which in turn have affected education quality, healthcare access, economic stability, and more. These issues have been magnified since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic that began in March of 2020, where these communities have been disproportionately affected by the virus. Through these photographs, Knight’s oral history, (which was recorded by the Museum’s Oral History Corps in 2017) and maps showing the disparate impact of the pandemic on these communities, viewers are able to engage with the history and the resilience of the people who live there.
“In essence, before it became fashionable to discuss underserved communities, I had recorded the conditions under which people lived who were most vulnerable to any epidemic,” says Knight. “My work defines “systemic marginality,” a lack of goods and services, unemployment, and means to acquire medical services.”
The virtual exhibition will premiere on March 15 at nphm.org.
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Out of the Archives!
Episode 11: Silent Voices Among Us: Stories from Chicago's Henry Horner Homes
March 5
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In tandem with our upcoming exhibition, the next episode of our ongoing oral history audio listening series Out of the Archives! will be released on March 5. "Silent Voices Among Us: Stories from Chicago's Henry Horner Homes." The episode shares stories from residents of the Henry Horner Homes, known to many of its residents as the Hornets, and includes narrators Crystal Palmer, Marina Pullom, Patricia Smith, John Pettiford, Sharon Leggitt, and Maria Moon. The episode will be available on our SoundCloud page and website.
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As a museum we adapt and change in these challenging times. We persevere—and we thrive because of you, and with you.
NPHM draws on the power of place and memory to preserve, promote and propel the right of all people to have a place to call home.
You can help sustain our work by making a donation today to support our programs and exhibits that educate, inspire, and spur people to action to create a more just future.
Thank you!
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San Francisco housing advocacy group YIMBY Action filed a lawsuit recently in Alameda County Superior Court asserting that the calculations the state used in projecting housing needs for the Bay Area underestimates the need for affordable housing.
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“The nation has a plague of housing instability that was festering long before Covid-19, and the pandemic’s economic toll has only made it worse,” states a report on the pandemic’s toll on renters.
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The New York Times ran an investigative article on Victor Rivera, the head of a network of shelters in New York, who is accused of abusing a system meant to help the most vulnerable. He has been fired and is facing a criminal inquiry.
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The Internal Revenue Service announced that there will be a public hearing on “proposed regulations setting forth guidance on the average income test for purposes of the low-income housing credit.” The public hearing will be on Wednesday, March 24 at noon (EST). Details for how to testify or observe are here.
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Donor Profile: Credell Walls
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Credell Walls
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Cre Walls has worked as the Program Coordinator for the Forest Preserves of Cook County for the past eight years where he specializes in youth outreach.The 46 year-old Chicago native grew up in the Robert Taylor Homes. When he was 19 years-old, his family scraped together all they could and bought a home in Englewood.
“I have strong ties to public housing because of where I lived,” said Cre. “When I first heard of the museum from an old friend, I wanted to support the museum in any way that I could.” Cre said he believes in the mission of the museum to tell the stories of people who have connections to public housing. For Cre, it is an opportunity to focus on the positive aspects of public housing. “You have great families here and you have people who are talented and smart and educated and who care about each other.”
Before working with the forest preserve, Cre worked at the Garfield Park Conservatory on the west side of Chicago. “That is where it was really confirmed for me that this was a field I needed to be in — it showed me how I could engage the young people in that community. It was the community garden at Robert Taylor Homes that also inspired Cre’s love of the outdoors. “That is the big passion for me — nature and youth.”
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Our story starts with a simple truth: That all people have the right to a home.
The Power of Place Capital Campaign will redevelop the last remaining building of the former Jane Addams Homes on Chicago’s Near West Side into a world-class civic and cultural institution. Visitors will encounter exhibits and historically significant objects, and engage with the provocative ideas of internationally renowned contemporary artists. The Museum will also be an African American Historic Site, and will be committed to telling an inclusive and diverse history. Join us and be a catalyst for change. You can invest in the future of NPHM by making your contribution today!
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 Free jazz drummer Milford Graves (1941 – 2021) died on February 12. The avant-garde jazz pioneer and renaissance man grew up in the South Jamaica Houses in Queens, New York. In 1970, he moved into his grandparent’s house nearby with Lois (his wife of 60 years until his death), and their five kids. The distinct facade of the house, with its mosaics of stone and mirror, is matched with a garden of healing plants and sculpture created by Graves. In the basement, Graves operated his non-profit organization, ICMSS (International Center for Medicinal and Scientific Studies) where he explored herbal medicine, acupuncture, martial arts, and the mind/body connection between the power of rhythm and the healthy heart.
Graves was studying heart beats since the 1960s, and received a Guggenheim Fellowship in 2000 for music composition. His source material were the recordings of sonic frequencies created by the human heart that he had collected from students and anyone who visited him over the years. He taught music healing and drumming classes at Bennington College in Vermont for almost 40 years and often said: "Throw away your metronome and listen to your heart.”
As a musician, Graves played with Cecil Taylor and Albert Ayler, and in more recent years Jason Moran, John Zorn, and Lou Reed. (Graves performed in Ayler’s quartet at John Coltrane’s funeral in 1967 — considered an iconic event in the history of jazz).
When Graves was diagnosed with amyloid cardiomyopathy a few years ago, he turned to all the remedies that he had developed. He said in an interview: “It’s like some higher power saying, ‘OK, buddy, you wanted to study this, here you go.’ Now the challenge is inside of me.”
If you are a present or former resident of public housing and you want to share your story, contact us at info@NPHM.org or leave a message at (773) 245-1621.
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 “You can murder a revolutionary, but you can’t murder a revolution." — Fred Hampton
The movie “Judas and the Black Messiah” (available streaming and in theaters) tells the story of Black Panther Party leader Fred Hampton (1948 – 1969) and his betrayal by FBI informant William O'Neal. Director Shaka King, who also co-wrote and co-produced the show, spoke with The Breakfast Club about the film industry and racism. Actor Daniel Kaluuya plays the charismatic activist who was killed in a coordinated raid by the FBI and Chicago Police in 1969. Jelani Cobb writes of the timeliness of the movie in The New Yorker: “Like so much of this nation’s traumatic racial history, the false equivalencies that Shaka King depicts in his movie have gained renewed salience.”
Recently, a fundraising effort to preserve Hampton’s childhood home in Maywood, Illinois raised more than enough to meet the first phase of their work. The nonprofit, Save the Hampton House, is seeking landmark status for the home with the goal of establishing a museum that will provide educational services and community gardens. Hampton, who was only 21 years-old when he was murdered. As chairman of the Illinois chapter of the Black Panther Party, he organized a number of community programs including five different breakfast programs for school children on the West Side of Chicago, a free medical clinic, and blood drives for the Cook County Hospital.
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