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Spertus in the News
Common Ground:
Lawndale’s Shared History
"I used to come here [JPI] everyday, over the summer from '56 to early 1960s. We used to put on plays here, have ice skating, I learned to swim here, we used to put on swim shows." Lorraine Byers Agbohlah, a former Lawndale resident, in an interview at Lawndale Community Academy, November 11, 2005.
By CINDY SHER
Associate Managing Editor
JUF News
If you look closely at almost any door to a home in the predominantly African-American Lawndale neighborhood on Chicago's West Side, you’ll notice two little holes on the doorframe. These holes, which once marked the presence of a mezuzah, are now a remnant of the Jewish past of Lawndale.
You can spot remnants of the once Jewish neighborhood all over Lawndale, such as in the many former synagogues that pepper the area, but now have been converted into Baptist churches. Looking at these houses of worship, you might detect, among the Christian symbols, Jewish emblems like Magen Davids (shields of David) and menorahs on the stained glass windows and on the buildings’ exteriors.
Most Jews moved away from Lawndale more than 50 years ago, and the majority of today’s residents are African-American. But whether in the past or present, these two peoples share this common space, and also share, in many ways, similar histories.
With these commonalities in mind, the Spertus Museum this year partnered with students from Lawndale Student Academy, a Chicago public school–under the guidance of school principal Jeannine Wolf to create the exhibit "Common Ground: Lawndale’s Shared History."
With funding for public school field trips to museums being slashed, according to Rhoda Rosen, director of Spertus Museum, she views "Common Ground" as a new opportunity to work with the schools. “To us, this is only the beginning. This is a pilot to see whether this can be a model of working with the Chicago Public Schools. We serve sometimes almost up to 300 students a day [touring Spertus Museum]," said Rosen, who once served as "Principal for a Day" at the Lawndale school. [But] we are looking for different models of sustaining community service in the schools.
Research for Common Ground was integrated into the seventh-grade curriculum, and with guidance from Spertus staff, the students curated the exhibit over the course of seven months. The exhibit, which displays archival and recent photos, artifacts, and interviews with former residents, kicked off in May with a celebration at the school for past and present Lawndale residents, with entertainment by Cantor Stewart Figa, of West Suburban Temple Har Zion, and Muntu Dance Theatre, a Chicago-based African-American theater company.
"It’s phenomenal," said Paulette Kallow, once a Jewish resident of Lawndale, who returned to the school after almost 60 years to deliver an oral history to the Lawndale students. "They were learning, they were polite, and they asked questions. I had nothing but the highest praise for the kids I met there."
"You never think that your school has a story, but we discovered a lot of information about it," said Corey Staten, a Lawndale seventh-grader, who added that he was born at Mount Sinai Hospital, a Jewish hospital affiliated with the Jewish United Fund/Jewish Federation of Metropolitan Chicago (JUF/JF)–where so many of the former Jewish residents of Lawndale were born many years ago.
"I was really excited because I wanted to know about my school," said Ashley Gillespie, another Lawndale seventh-grader and young curator of the exhibit. "I found out that Jews used to have a party every Saturday night on the school’s roof. The classrooms on the first floor were the women’s and men’s lounges. In the women’s lounge, they had nice furniture."
The students learned that their school once housed the Jewish People’s Institute (JPI), a thriving community center for Chicago Jewry in the heyday of Jewish Lawndale from the 1920s-1940s, when 40 percent of Chicago Jews lived in the neighborhood. JPI was affiliated with Jewish Charities, now JUF/JF, and is the precursor to the Jewish Community Centers of Chicago (JCC).
At different points in the 20th century, both ethnic groups settled in Lawndale for similar reasons, according to Amanda Friedeman, educator for Spertus Museum, who guided the students on the project. "The starting point for the commonalities between the communities starts with how Jews and African-Americans came to Lawndale," she said. "It was a very welcoming area for both communities. There was a sense of community and acceptance that neither group had experienced in prior circumstances."
Jews flocked to Lawndale beginning in the 1920s, after escaping the pogroms of Eastern Europe as well as the crowded one-room apartments on Maxwell Street in Chicago. Their move to Lawndale was a step up, a place where they could rent bigger flats to share with their families.
Similarly, in the 1940s and '50s, African-Americans arrived in Lawndale to escape oppression of their own in the Southern states as well as conditions on the more impoverished South Side of Chicago. African-American and Jewish residency overlapped in the 1940s, a time when black and Jewish students sat side by side in Lawndale classrooms.
And there are other connections between the two communities: Julius Rosenwald–the first president of the combined Jewish Charities of Chicago, the precursor to the Jewish Federation of Metropolitan Chicago, and leader of Sears, Roebuck and Company, headquartered in North Lawndale–donated money to build welcoming centers in the neighborhood for African-Americans new to Chicago.
Plus, the area grew into a hotbed of political activity for both Jews and African-Americans. The neighborhood was once home to prominent activists in both communities. Future Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir planted her roots as a Zionist at a young age, moving into Lawndale in 1910, and joining the Labor Zionists organization, headquartered there. And years later, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. moved into a rundown Lawndale flat in the 1960s to draw attention to unfair housing practices.
In the 1940s, Jewish GIs returned from war and secured government loans to leave Lawndale and buy single-family homes elsewhere in the Chicago metropolitan area. But African-Americans living in Lawndale today haven’t been as fortunate. Gentrification and redevelopment have displaced many residents in the area. So far this year, families of 15 Lawndale Commmunity Academy students have been forced out of the community after their homes were slated for redevelopment.
Yet, Principal Wolf is hopeful about the future of Lawndale, and sees Common Ground" as broadening her students’ horizons. Wolf, who began teaching in the Lawndale neighborhood 37 years ago, had always dreamed of a project highlighting the common bond between African-Americans and Jews. “Many of the kids in Lawndale don’t go further than a square city block away from this area," she said.
Unless there is a field trip, they don’t see anyone of another color and they don’t understand other people’s cultures at all…this project has made a world of difference.
The "Common Ground: Lawndale’s Shared History" exhibit will re-open to the public at Lawndale Student Academy in the fall. For more information on the exhibit or for information on future Spertus programming initiatives, call (312) 322-1793 or visit www.spertus.edu.
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