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Spertus in the News
Lawndale's ties bind a diverse assemblage
Young residents learn about their West Side neighborhood's roots as a Jewish enclave
By Jon Anderson
Tribune staff reporter
Published June 1, 2006
Golda Meir lived there, working as a librarian at the Douglas Library.
So did Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., in an apartment at 1550 S. Hamlin Ave.
Those were two quick facts served up by "Common Ground: Lawndale's Shared History," an exhibition that opened to the public Wednesday in the main lobby of the Lawndale Community Academy, a public elementary school at 3500 W. Douglas Blvd.
But for many viewers, working their way through a dozen panels of pictures and text, the appeal was more personal.
"The roof garden," remembered Lillian Stein, who lived in the West Side neighborhood when it was home to 40 percent of Chicago's Jewish population. She was talking about the party area of the Jewish People's Institute, "where we would dance under the most gorgeous, gorgeous summer light."
"Everything you needed was on Roosevelt Road," said Lorraine Byers Agbohlah, speaking of the 1950s when a large wave of African-Americans began moving into the neighborhood, drawn by jobs at the nearby Sears factory and Kuppenheimer clothing company.
There were pictures of both places in the show, along with snaps of shops and stores, of tree-lined streets, of brick two-flats, of the splendors of the Douglas Park Lagoon and of the area's synagogues, many of which later, when the neighborhood changed, became Baptist churches.
Mounted by the Spertus Museum in collaboration with many of the academy's 7th graders, "Common Ground" was nine months in planning and shaping. It will run through June 15.
"A big part of what we're trying to do is to help students understand that there is much in this neighborhood to be proud of," said Rhoda Rosen, director of the museum, which is at 618 S. Michigan Ave. It was also a chance to teach "how a museum works, what the different departments do," she added.
As part of a 10-week program at the school last fall, Spertus staffers helped students brainstorm about what the displays should include and where sources of raw material might be found. Later, they also helped arrange for a dozen people who had lived in Lawndale years ago to address school assemblies.
That, noted Principal Jeannine Wolf, went over very well. "Our students really liked hearing their stories, how they met their spouses, what they learned--and where," she said. "We're trying to break down walls."
Opening ceremonies included a performance by Muntu Dance Theatre of Chicago, using 4th graders in a dance that reflected sankofa. In the West African language of Adinkra, said Muntu's program director Vaune Blalock, that means, "We must go back and reclaim our past so we can move forward, so we understand why and how we came to be who we are today."
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jsanderson@tribune.com
Copyright © 2006, Chicago Tribune
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