Why are hundreds of thousands of Black people leaving Chicago? There’s no easy answer. Lori Lightfoot, the first Black woman mayor of Chicago, has a plan to stem the losses, but is it enough? And who’s really to blame?
Some say it’s purposeful - the closing of schools in Black neighborhoods, demolishing housing projects like Cabrini Green without building replacement affordable housing, and investment funds going to primarily white neighborhoods.
But there’s more to the story.
Others argue it’s the result of decades of segregation, or consistently high crime rates, or lack of jobs as manufacturing declined.
Regardless of the reason, the impact is the same: tens of thousands of Black families are moving, whether to the suburbs or back to the South.
Mayor Lightfoot believes addressing poverty and affordable housing will keep Black people in Chicago. But nobody knows for sure.
Chicago’s decline shows what happens when we’re no longer “useful” to the white supremacist society. Black people built Chicago, and now that it’s poppin’, we’re being pushed out.
This is why we need to focus our efforts on community building, conscious entrepreneurship, investing in education and our youth, owning land, building wealth, prioritizing self-determination, and loving each other - so we can build communities so strong they can’t be dismantled like this!