Dreams from My Father

At Chicago’s southern edge sits the Altgeld Gardens public housing project, “the Gardens” for short. This nickname is ironic—there’s a grove of trees and the Calumet River nearby, but the fish in the river are discolored and disfigured. There’s a landfill on one side and a sewage treatment plant on another. Despite these location issues, Altgeld was designed with the same kind of hope as other Chicago Housing Authority (CHA) housing projects—but unlike in some of the other projects, Altgeld’s occupants try to make the place feel like home. However, the CHA stops performing maintenance.

The choked gray sky makes Barack suspect this is hopeless. And the aftermath of the police meeting hasn’t helped this outlook—working with the Catholic parishes in the city proves difficult, as the white Catholic priests serving in Black churches are disillusioned and feel that they can’t help the neighborhoods. Others, including Angela, Shirley, and Mona, are also disillusioned. They feel like Marty doesn’t listen to them, and they’re disappointed that the job bank turned out to be a bust. Though Marty goes weekly to harangue the people administering the job bank, the women suspect he’s pushing a secret agenda—the money went somewhere, after all. For his part, Marty refuses to listen when Barack suggests he be more tactful; he insists that it’s not his job to make people like him.

One Saturday, Marty takes Barack and Angela to a meeting with a local union president. Marty insists that the steel company is going out of business and he lays out a plan to try to preserve jobs by working with churches, the city, and banks, but the union officials insist that they have to focus on negotiating with management right now. Marty is stunned. After the meeting, Angela confides in Barack that she didn’t understand Marty’s plan. Barack realizes that Angela is questioning whether they should even be trying to keep the steel plant open. That won’t help those who are already unemployed, and the job board won’t help Black people who don’t have any education. Barack realizes that Marty wants to treat Black and white people exactly the same, with no understanding of how history keeps Black people from moving up.

Barack enters a church in Altgeld to find Angela, Shirley, Will, and Mary all looking morose. Angela announces she’s quitting; after two years, she feels like she’s accomplished nothing. Shirley backs this up. Barack feels panic and then anger. He remembers Frank saying that this is the way things are and looks out the window at boys destroying a boarded-up building across the street. He half wants to join them and asks what will happen to the boys outside if they’re not going to fight for them. Barack isn’t sure this play will work, but Will asks what they’re going to do. Barack asks him for his opinion and they spend their time talking about their strategy to help Altgeld.

Later, when Barack calls Marty, Marty isn’t surprised by what happened. He suggests that Barack find some new leaders so Will isn’t responsible for their success or failure—Will is a known eccentric who struggles to connect with people in interviews. He has the idea to host street corner meetings in Altgeld’s vicinity, as he knows the unemployed, struggling people there won’t go to meetings at a foreign church. Barack helps Will and Mary prepare a flyer and stands with them on a corner. To his surprise, about 20 people show up and talk for an hour about what they want fixed in their community. Barack, Will, and Mary repeat these meetings on other blocks and eventually hold meetings in a church basement.

Before one meeting, Barack joins Mary at the coffee pot. Barack doesn’t know Mary well, but he knows that she married a Black man who left her after they had two daughters. Her Irish family won’t speak to her, and she reminds Barack of Ann. Mary asks Barack why he’s doing this work, especially since he’s not very religious. People arrive for the meeting before Barack can answer. Will leads the lengthy meeting and then, at the end, suggests they all reflect on their relationships to each other and to God. Everyone is uncomfortable, but Will shares his happy memories of growing up in Altgeld—and he cries as he says that kids here don’t smile anymore. Others share their stories of loss. After the meeting, Barack tells Mary that their reasons for doing this aren’t so different.

A week later, Barack tries to fit Angela, Mona, and Shirley into his tiny car so they can attend meetings and come up with a job strategy for Altgeld’s residents. Barack figures they can get shops, restaurants, and theaters back into the area and encourage families to start businesses. They go first to the Roseland shopping district to meet with a Rafiq al Shabazz, whom Shirley knows as Wally, a neighbor’s son. Rafiq forces a smile and explains that he’s the president of an organization that helped get Harold Washington elected. He hands Barack a flyer accusing Arab shops of selling bad meat and accuses outsiders—Koreans, Arabs, and Jews—of mistreating Black people. Long term, their goal is to help Black people own local businesses, but Roseland residents just want to move to the suburbs. This will be a disaster, as white folks will move in when Black people leave.

Rafiq excuses himself. Outside the building, Shirley says she’s known Rafiq since he was a kid; he changed his name when he gave up the gang life to become a Muslim. The group heads to the Chamber of Commerce next. There, they find Mr. Foster, who was the president of the Chamber until he resigned last week. He tells the group that the Koreans pay their dues and are community-oriented. They give each other loans and pool their money. Black merchants don’t do that—though they also don’t work their families 16 hours per day like many Korean businesses do. When Angela asks about part-time work for Altgeld’s youth, Mr. Foster explains that business owners turn down 30 applicants every week.

As Barack studies a Korean clothing shop outside, he remembers the markets in Indonesia and realizes that despite the poverty there, the markets were a mark of a coherent community. He figures it’ll take a long time to put the culture and the community back together in Chicago. He also thinks of Indonesian workers who leave their markets when factories come in—and then are out of work without the market to fall back on when the factories go under. Barack and the women miss their final appointment at the Mayor’s Office of Employment and Training (MET). An assistant gives them a brochure. Barack says they’ve found their issue: none of the programs MET facilitates are accessible to Altgeld’s residents.

They quickly draft a letter to Ms. Alvarez, the director of MET, and Barack drills everyone on a meeting script. They plan to demand a job intake and training center in the Far South Side. On the night of the meeting, about 100 people show up. Mona forces Ms. Alvarez to promise a MET intake center in the area within six months, and the only hitch is a shouting drunk man. After the meeting, Barack feels like he can do this. He congratulates himself and notices the drunk man spinning in circles. Barack offers to help, but the man curses at him and wobbles away.