Around town and around the nation, many voices have been crying out for justice regarding the issues of illegal immigration.

At a massive march on May 1 in Chicago, hundreds of thousands of undocumented illegal aliens and their advocates marched and rallied demanding labor and civil rights, as well as to convince U.S. congressional leaders to give them amnesty for their illegal entries into America.

These Mexican undocumented workers were among many other illegal immigrants who demanded better treatment from the U.S. government and their employers during a rally for immigration reform in Union Park on May 1. Photo by Mary C. Johns

RJ attended the march and interviewed both leaders and marchers. Later, RJ also attended a rally held by a group of ex-offenders and others who protested against the legalization of the illegal immigrants.

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Many of the poorest of the poor in Lawndale feel as if they have been exploited for years by Cecil Butler and his company called Lawndale Restoration as well as U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, or HUD.

Until last year, no one paid close attention to the cries of the people in the Lawndale community. People only started to cast their eyes to this West Side neighborhood when one of Cecil Butler’s apartment buildings’ roofs caved in, endangering the safety of residents.

Pictured here in September, 2004, a dismantled ceiling in one of Cecil Butler's dilapidated buildings. Photo by Beauty Turner

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Like a slave master’s bull whip marking up the back of a slave, an invisible X marks the back of an ex-offender from the inside out, advocates claim, leaving many of them in pain and without a leg to stand on.

Ex-offenders expressed to me that once they are released from the controlled environment of prison into an uncontrolled society that doesn’t embrace them as human beings, they feel left out and lost. They feel as if they don’t exist.
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“You are in the way!” Those words angered many residents like myself who live at the Henry Horner Homes Annex. We sat and listened to former Chicago Housing Authority (CHA) Chairman Vince Lane boast that the residents of the Annex wouldn’t have a choice of where they would live. He intended for the Horner Annex to become a parking lot for the new United Center just across the street. The Annex is swallowed up in parking lots. I am sure that to the owners of the United Center and the yuppies that generally attend games, our building was an eyesore. But fortunately, Lane is no longer here and the Annex is. The Annex is still standing because of the consent decree resulting from a lawsuit against CHA and the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) being won.

The consent decree gave the Annex residents a choice between revitalization or demolition. The residents were shown scattered site plans and a model of what the apartments could look like if the Annex was rebuilt. Read more »