Plans Finalized for Sunday Open Dialogue About Unity in 19th Ward

Neighborhood groups gathered Saturday for two peace vigils in Beverly and Mt. Greenwood promoting inclusion and diversity after two weeks of heated demonstrations and protests revolving around race.

Other than an unrelated fender bender at the corner of 103rd Street and Western Avenue, South Siders for Peace drew a positive response from passing motorists. A random woman dropped off coffee for the group, and there was only one motorist who screamed, “Go back to the suburbs.”

South Sider for Peace member Mark Kuehner said he was at the demonstration in Mt. Greenwood on Nov. 8 that quickly grew into an angry racial confrontation.

“I haven’t seen a display like that before, it was pretty extreme,” Kuehner said, who lives in Blue Island. “I think a majority of people in this community are fine, upstanding people. I’m out here today to give people of goodwill the courage and confidence to stand up to racism and say this is not the community I want to live in.”

Fellow member Willie Williamson said that as an African-American man he is still not comfortable or lulled into a feeling of false security because the possibility of being victimized as a black man is always there.

“I do understand that racism is definitely based on a lot of ignorance and I don’t see an effort to actually quell it,” Williamson said.. “What I do see is an effort to further enrage people and make the public more ignorant about it. It’s not based on facts. That is the part that makes me keep my guard up because ignorance is bliss when it comes to questions of race. I have to do so in order to remain sane.”

The Southwest Chicago Diversity Collaborative also held a vigil at 111th Street and Kedzie Avenue, where an African-American man reportedly armed with a gun was fatally shot by an off-duty Chicago police sergeant earlier this month.

“The presence of guns escalates any situation, both on the side of the off-duty police officer and the person who died,” said collaborate board member Scott Smith. “I think the bigger problem we have are the unresolved tensions around race. People don’t want to talk about and find solutions. We want to pretend that we can isolate ourselves from other people and situations.”

Plans have been finalized for another a community open dialogue about “unity” that will be held at 2 p.m. Sunday. Ald. Matt O’Shea invites any 19th ward resident interested in joining that conversation to meet at 111th Street and Kedzie Avenue where residents will walk to the Mt. Greenwood Library, 11010 S Kedzie Ave.-- not St. Christina Church or Chicago Ag High School as previously reported.

Organizers of an anti-white supremacy protest at still planning to hold another protest at the same time and location.