The People is our section for opinions and perspectives. Submit your opinion to info@thetriibe.com.
Watching the Chicago Public Schools (CPS) situation unfold is unsettling. Budget shortfalls in Chicago always mean Black and brown communities should expect and settle for less. The default position is we contribute less so we deserve less. Neither is true and frankly, most of us are tired of that narrative and baseline for all discussions. It’s time to look at our past successes for future solutions.
Chicago Public Schools need money. Teachers need more than a survival wage. Investing in our youth is a strong investment in our city. More divestment in our schools will breed more disaster. The city can’t keep proposing to policing and locking up all our children.
CHICAGO NEEDS ITS OWN LOTTERY
I’m the child of two parents who each had one job their entire lives. They worked for Chicago Public Schools. My mother told me that she and my dad graduated from Chicago Teachers College (today, known as Chicago State University) on a Thursday and both started working for CPS the following Monday.
I grew up in a beautiful home, paid for by professional teaching salaries, in a beautiful Black neighborhood on the South Side of Chicago. I attended CPS schools. At the age of 60, I’m still friends with many people I went to grammar school with. We’re all doing OK. I’m devastated by CPS’ current challenges.
The Illinois State Lottery came into existence in 1974. With much fanfare, the Illinois State Lottery advertised its goal: much of the proceeds will go towards education. I was 10 years old. I said to my mom, “Look, the man on the news said the money is going towards education!” My mom said, “We’ll never see that money.” I thought she was being cynical. He wouldn’t say that if it weren’t true, right?
Fast forward to 2013. Then-mayor Rahm Emanuel aggressively disrupts over 200 schools and then brands himself a hero by only closing 50, the largest mass school closure in U.S. history. At the time, Emanuel said there’s no money. Today, outsiders are saying the same thing.
According to an Illinois Lottery news release, “players helped generate $882 million for the State of Illinois” between July 1, 2022, to June 30, 2023. And in that fiscal year 2023, the $882 million “was used to fund public education and good causes.” The release also says “approximately 24% of every dollar played on the Illinois Lottery is used to support education and other good causes.”
Like we say in the community, the math ain’t mathing. It’s been 50 years of the Illinois State Lottery. It’s not helping CPS. Let’s just do our own thing.
CHICAGO HAD ITS OWN LOTTERY
Black Chicago was doing its own thing in the early 1900s. Redlining was real. Mainstream opportunities didn’t exist. Chicago’s South Side community, now known as the historic Bronzeville, was densely populated but managed to have its own economy —primarily financed by our local lottery called “policy.”
The men who ran it were called Policy Kings. These men were our own venture capitalists leading to over 2,000 small businesses, six newspapers, banks and a hospital. They financed our own Provident Hospital where a Black doctor, named Daniel Hale Williams, performed the world’s first successful open-heart surgery.
A Policy King opened the country’s first Black-owned department store, the Ben Franklin Store on 47th Street.
A few Policy Kings built their own airport in Robbins, IL as they helped Bessie Coleman, America’s first Black woman aviator, get to France to learn how to fly!
Rarely is it discussed in mainstream society how our Black communities accomplished so much with so little. Any American knows we didn’t achieve these successes with the help of mainstream banks and institutions.
Policy was so important to our closed economies. An optimistic Illinois state Rep. Lewis Caldwell authored legislation to legalize the policy game and allow the state to levy policy with a hefty 10% state tax. He was assisted by another ambitious Illinois state Rep. Harold Washington. The document they created in 1966 was called The Policy Game – Numbers. The Elders tell the story that this legislative effort, although it didn’t pass, led to the formation of the Illinois State Lottery and the deterioration of Black Chicago.
American government lotteries date back to the American colonies. In 1746, New York’s provincial government advertised a lottery to raise £15,000 for King’s College, now Columbia University. That success led to a series of seven more lotteries around 1753. These runoff lotteries financed schools known today as the University of Pennsylvania, Harvard, Yale and Princeton.
My question is, can we fund our schools with a similar start 278 years later?
CHICAGO PLAYS AND CHICAGO PROFITS
I know that the Illinois State Lottery contributes to education throughout the state, but when you look at the most recently-accessible data from 2011 showing the top 20 zip codes of state lottery players, 16 of those 20 communities are in Chicago: six are Black neighborhoods and eight are Latino neighborhoods. With about 70% of the lottery tickets coming from the Chicago metro area and concentrated in our local communities, we should have a local lottery to fund our education, LOCALLY.
As the “new and improved” Mega Millions tickets increase from $2 to $5 per ticket, Chicago’s lottery could focus on smaller games with lower ticket prices and smaller winnings.
The Illinois Gaming Board issues the licenses in the state. I know we’ve got casinos coming, sports betting and digital gaming moving into place. The city could have another stream of revenue. The city could ACTUALLY put the proceeds towards education. No one would be asked to pay more taxes! It worked for the finest educational institutions in this country. It worked for the most prosperous Black community in American history, Bronzeville Chicago. It can work for the greatest city in America, too. Yes, Chicago.
I don’t play the lottery, but if I knew it was going to help the future generations of Chicago, I’d bet on it.
