On Wednesday, more than 200 people enthusiastically gathered at Kennedy King College in Englewood for the premiere of unBlocked Englewood, a new documentary created by activist, social justice artist and Englewood native Tonika Lewis Johnson. Digifé, a Black-owned and Chicago-based production company, produced and directed the documentary.
“This event and the documentary are to inspire people, to inspire people to contribute to solutions, to help existing solutions, and to be more informed about how these histories of racism and redlining impact all of us,” Johnson said. “I really want that to be the takeaway for people to be educated and to feel inspired, especially given the sociopolitical climate of the country, to know that, if we can’t save the country, we can where we’re at, and to just buckle down and focus on that.”
unBlocked Englewood builds upon Johnson’s previous works, including the Folded Map Project and Inequity for Sale. Launched in 2018, the Folded Map Project examines segregation and its impact on Chicago residents. Inequity for Sale, which was introduced in 2021, is a project that she created as part of her Artist-as-Instigator residency for the National Public Housing Museum. It sheds light on racist housing practices such as land sale contracts and the impact of Black homeowners in Englewood.
Through her works, she demonstrates how her native Englewood community has often been at the center of institutional harm in Chicago, but she also highlights solutions that can repair these harms, block by block.
“I consider myself lucky to be from Greater Englewood, but Greater Englewood has unfortunately gotten the reputation of being the poster child of everything wrong in this city,” Johnson said ahead of Wednesday’s premiere.
Johnson cited issues such as gun violence, shuttered Chicago Public Schools, lack of accessibility to grocers, disinvestment, and more as reasons why Englewood has received that reputation from outsiders. Still, for Johnson, Englewood is much more than that, and its issues are also present in other Black neighborhoods on the South and West Sides and other cities nationwide.
In unBlocked Englewood, Johnson follows the story of the Walls family and other residents on the 6500 block of South Aberdeen Street in Englewood, some of whom are descendants of victims of a predatory housing practice known as land sale contracts. Citywide, these contracts, which were prevalent during the 1950s and 1960s, “expropriated an estimated $3.2 to $4 billion from Chicago’s Black community,” according to the 2019 report, “The Plunder of Black Chicago: New Findings on the Lasting Toll of Predatory Housing Contracts.”
For Walls and some other residents on the 6500 block of South Aberdeen, Johnson said home repairs are costly, and it’s hard to receive assistance through a loan or insurance claim for repairs because their homes are devalued because of their location.
“They’re very special because it demonstrates how this misconception or this lie that we’ve been told that being a homeowner will create generational wealth for Black families. Their story proves that that’s not the case,” Johnson said, referring to the Walls family. “You cannot have generational wealth created by passing down a home in a neighborhood that’s devalued. So in order for us to kind of apply that American dream of home ownership equal generational wealth to Black people, we have to address this harm.”
The documentary also showcases what’s possible when residents and stakeholders collaborate to create solutions. Johnson has collaborated with organizations such as the Chicago Bungalow Association and the Englewood Arts Collective to raise funds for repairs and improvements to the homes of the Walls family and other residents on the 6500 block of Aberdeen and other beautification projects for the block.
In 2022, Johnson’s nonprofit, the Folded Map Project and the Chicago Bungalow Association received a $250,000 Together We Health Creative Place grant, an initiative from the Mayor’s Office of Equity & Racial Justice and the Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events (DCASE) for repairs for the homes on the 6500 block of Aberdeen.
Currently, 12 homes have been repaired, with 10 more scheduled for improvements. Residents have also applied for and purchased city-owned vacant lots, installed a block club sign and completed a mural. In total, $400,000 has been invested in roof restoration, electrical repairs, porch stabilization and HVAC installation.
“It’s a demonstration of how we could correct this, help Black homeowners in predominantly Black neighborhoods, and restore some of the equity that history has denied them. How we can restore some dignity,” Johnson said, referring to the project.
Wednesday’s premiere was hosted by social strategist and public speaker Xavier Ramey. Chicago poet Leslé Honoré kicked off the event with a poem reading.
The room greeted Johnson with a standing ovation when she took the stage.
A panel discussion followed the documentary premiere, featuring Johnson in conversation with Ald. Stephanie Coleman (16th Ward); Candace Moore, the city’s first chief equity officer; Erin Harkey, former DCASE commissioner; and Robin Rue Simmons, a former Evanston alderwoman and leader in the national reparations movement for Black people. Moderated by Moore, the panel explored reparations, art, sustained investments and social justice as mechanisms for change.
They also highlighted what reparative solutions look like on the local level. They implored attendees to tap into collective power to demonstrate what’s possible, especially as President-elect Donald Trump transitions into a second term in the White House.
“This is us taking our collective power and making change about the communities that we live in, how we are governed, where resources go, what policies are designed. We got to start thinking about our democracy through the eyes of an artist through what is possible, the creativity, the imagination. It is a desperate time for us to make sure that we are clear about our power and about the kind of change that we want to see in our communities,” Moore said. “Because it is our lives, our home, our history and our legacy.”
The next phase of unBlocked Englewood includes raising $1.05 million to sustain its mission of stabilizing and uplifting Englewood.
“When you learn all of this history, it will inspire you to figure out what you could do, and so I want to continue to do more of that and definitely get all of the homes repaired on 65th and Aberdeen and all of the homes on 65th and Aberdeen to be unified,” Johnson said.
