The 2015 Matthew Freeman Social Justice Lecture and Awards at
Roosevelt University in Chicago were given and presented this year on March 26,
2015. The
lecture was given by Carlos Javier Ortiz.
Mr. Ortiz is a highly-honored photographer and photojournalist, and his
presentation was therefore much more visual than many previous lectures. Based on the photographs from his book and
gallery display “We All We Got”,
the images and accompanying talk focused upon the lives of poor people of color
in Chicago, particularly those of families of young people who had been killed,
often as incidental victims. Ortiz developed long-lasting relationships with
some of these families, and his photographs document that, even with these
losses, life goes on.
But it does not go on smoothly or easily. Affixed to the back
cover of his book is a fold-out list, by year, from 2007 to 2014, of the hundreds and hundreds of Chicago Public
School students who have been victims of gunshots and stabbing deaths. In his
talk, Ortiz notes that in more affluent suburban communities, such premature
deaths are rare and often kept from young people, while on the south and west
sides of Chicago grammar school classes may be taken to the funerals and wakes,
such as that of Siretha White in 2006 pictured below. Diane Latiker and her
husband are building a memorial, brick by brick, to young people lost to
violence. Begun in 2007, it has more than 370 stones, and Ortiz tell us, is
behind by more than 200.
We who are not part of these communities may see them as
apart; indeed one mural depicts downtown Chicago as separated from their
neighborhood by almost-impassable mountains (there are, in case you wondered,
no mountains in Chicago). Our news media nationally cover tragedies involving
the death of white young people as at Columbine and Sandy Hook; local news may
cover the accidental killings of young Black girls such as Siretha White, but
the deaths of young Black men, who may have been linked to gangs, is not news.
But their families, and communities, suffer, as does our whole society which
affords them no future.
This theme is tied to
that noted by Richard E. Wallace,
one of the amazing Roosevelt students to receive the Matthew Freeman Award.
Wallace, who is a father and labor organizer while maintaining a straight-A average,
works with day laborers. These people awake at 4am every day to be in line to
be picked up so they can work for minimum wage doing tasks from backbreaking physical
labor to shipping your Amazon packages so that they can provide at least
minimal housing, food, and water for their families. With this life of constant
work for barely subsistence wage, they have no hope of getting out or
advancing, recalling the lives of ante-bellum slaves in the South. He is one of
the founding members of the Stop Mass Incarceration Network at Roosevelt, and
the professor who nominated him said “I have probably learned as much, if not
more, from Richard Wallace as he has learned from me. I think he is one of the brightest and best
embodiments of the university’s mission that we have seen.”
Danielle Cooperstock,
the other reward recipient, is also amazing. She “is majoring in Social Justice
Studies with a minor in Women’s and Gender Studies. In 2012, Danielle connected
with PIRG through a transformational learning course on educational and
economic inequality issues. She continues to work with this community
organization and many others to this day. For the past two years, Danielle has
worked as a student disability and peer mentor at the Academic Success Center.
Additionally, she is a crucial leader of two Roosevelt activist groups, RISE
and RU Proud, both of which motivate other Roosevelt students toward social
justice goals.”
These are two incredible young people, and I had a
desperately-needed sense of hope and optimism on meeting them and hearing what
they have done. And I thank Roosevelt
University for its explicit social justice mission and its nurturance and
support of students like these two. Should you have the capability, it is
certainly worthy of your support.
