Chicago’s 24th Ward is regarded as an important place in Black Chicago history. In the 1960s, its present-day borders served as the stomping grounds for many Black liberation leaders. In 1966, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. chose an apartment on 15th Street and Hamlin Avenue in North Lawndale as the base to launch the northern campaign of the Civil Rights Movement, in which he planned to expose discriminatory real-estate practices such as redlining and panic peddling.
Same time, North Lawndale is also a place reeling from decades-long tension with systemic racism and police. In July 1966, uprisings broke out after police arrested a Black man for opening a fire hydrant; over the course of two days, more than 200 people were arrested, 30 people were injured and two Black people killed by stray bullets from shootouts between police and snipers.
At its peak in 1960, the North Lawndale neighborhood alone was home to 113,827 Black residents. Today, the entire 24th Ward, which includes parts of Homan Square, North and South Lawndale and Marshall Square has a population of just 52,205. All of the neighborhoods within the ward are still suffering from decades-long neglect and poverty, with unfortunate stretches of abandoned buildings, littered vacant lots and a big symbol of state violence housed in the Chicago Police Department’s Homan Square black site.
In 24th Ward, incumbent Ald. Monique Scott has sights on retaining her seat; one that Mayor Lori Lightfoot appointed her to in July 2022 after her brother, former Ald. Michael Scott Jr., retired. Lightfoot went on to appoint Scott Jr. to the Chicago Board of Education, which his father served as president under Mayor Richard M. Daley. Scott Jr. also took on a cushy job at Cinescape Studios as its head of industry and community relations. Prior to July, Scott Jr. had held the seat since 2015.
There are now seven people challenging his sister for the aldermanic seat.
For our West Side wards profile series, The TRiiBE interviewed three people who are part of the 24th Ward. There is hope that things will turn around economically for the 24th Ward — and there is straightforward pride in the residents.