Today we went to see the "Robert Taylor" housing projects, starting on 35th and State...and going on for about 20 blocks.
taking this tour to what used to be one of the biggest housing project in the COUNTRY was an experience that i will definitely remember for the rest of my life.
It was a great experience because i learned about the history of the Chicago housing projects and i finally understood the prospective of the people who lived in them and the people who did not.
I would like to start by giving my own opinion...On this housing projects, the people who lived in them never got to say what they wanted or how they felt or if anything was wrong...and that is one big part of what caused this huge problem...people were never given the chance to speak up. Often the ones who were making decisions on the changes and everything that had to do with the housing projects, was people who never lived in one and did not know anything.
The reason why so many from the South moved to Chicago was because there was a lot of poverty in the South...this does not only mean blacks moved to Chicago from the south, with the African American many white poor people also moved to the Midwest...the only difference between blacks and whites was that once they all moved into this housing projects...poor white were able to get a better education..they were given the opportunity to receive better jobs and eventually move out from this housing projects and move up in life and society...blacks however were not given the same opportunities to succeed just because of their skin color...in a way they were the only ones who were kept in the housing projects...you can see it as a net and they were the only ones filtered in who could never find a way out.
The projects were designed for people who could not afford a home..they were mainly used by black G.Is who were coming back from world war 2...something that i found extremely wrong was that the white G.I's who were coming back from WW2 were given the help to go to college and find a home to live in...on the other hand blacks were not...i found this very sad and in a way something that our government should be ashamed of. The fact that men and women went to war and risked their lives for not just blacks, both black and whites..to come back to their home country and be treated like second class citizens..in some cases even worse..and to be segregated, after everything they sacrificed for their country... personally i think its a disgusting act of the people and the government that allowed it to happen.
Moving on...Something that was mentioned in the tour and i found very interesting was that some of the buildings on the UIC campus were modeled after public housing buildings.
I also learned that the housing projects or "Super block buildings" were built in a U shape and they were pretty much duplicated over and over again.
As many of us know...the city of Chicago is connected by the grid system, which makes it easy to get around if you know it...One thing that i found so so interesting and i had never heard of is that the Public housing buildings that were built were NOT connected in any way to the grid system.. I found this amazing because in a way it's like they were throwing all of the African Americans in some buildings..making them think they were being helped..when in fact they were being segregated and being kept away from the rest of the city.
The Robert Taylor housing projects is located a few blocks from the "Bridgeport" community...between the Taylor projects and Bridgeport, the Dan Ryan highway was built..when you look at it from the outside like i did..its not oft much importance why it was built there.
These are things that might seem very irrelevant, but when you go deeper into it..you see that there is a reason why this highway was built between Bridgeport and the housing projects..and the reason is that they wanted to separate African Americans from getting into Bridgeport..which was a predominantly white neighborhood. By building an 8 lane highway in between, you can imagine not a lot of people would try to get across with cars moving up to 60 mph.
An interesting fact that i learned today during this tour was that the "gold coast" used to be the "slum".
Today, no Robert Taylor public housing buildings are still standing...they have all been demolished and scheduled for reconstruction under the "plan for transformation" plan.
The plan for transformation is the idea to create new houses on the area were the housing projects once stood...the new homes will be small homes, town homes or apartments..
only one third of the people who were in the housing projects will be allowed to move back to this new homes.
(This is a video with a slide show that shows what the Robert Taylor Public housing buildings used to look like)
As we passed through some of the few remaining public housing buildings that are still standing..i got a feeling of almost sadness as i saw some of the buildings with the torn down "playgrounds". I could imagine the kids that had to grow up there had to go through and how rough their childhood probably was because they were being segregated..i guess just in a more "modern" way.
(this are pictures i took today on our tour of the playground)
when i saw the playground i was so blank...i thought about all of the beautiful parks my city has to offer...and when i compared them to this old beat up playgrounds i could not find an explanation as to why this kids had to play with old rusty...swings without swings..and slides that were cut in half...i could not understand why they had to play in areas were the grass was growing from the concrete and garbage was laying all over the floor...and the only explanation i could come up with was that..sadly...there is still a lot a WHOLE LOT of discrimination towards African Americans...
Today made me realize that in those old projects buildings thousands of life's went to waste...people who could have been doctors...engineers..people who could have made a change...were not given a chance...all because the system managed to work a way to contain them all in an area were they could stay..just because of their skin color...they were not given the chance to be someone in society who could have had a better life.
Below are some pictures of the few remaining standing project buildings, a picture of the "plan for transformation" new homes that have been built on the land were the project buildings once stood, and pictures of vacant grassland space that was left after the buildings were demolished.
This is an excellent post. It's evident from what you've shared here that you experienced a deep emotional reaction to Chicago's dark history of racism and oppression that found expression through public policy. What I find particularly impressive about this post is how you've built upon what we saw on the tour, and what you already know about Chicago, to formulate your own ideas and conclusions about what was and is happening in Chicago. You are right--Chicago is far from over its racist past. Thanks for such an earnest and sincere post!
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