MADEXXXX
GUEST EDITOR’S
LETTER
S tefanie J ason
While envisioning the links between the city that
I have come to call home, Joburg, and the locale
of MADE, Chicago I found many similarities
that connect the two innovation hubs. As these
iconic cities are famed for their culturally rich
metropolises that hold as much history as they
do futures, there are the elements that bind and
others that draw similarities.
What comes to mind so often is the music
scene, house. A genre that was started in the
Midwest by the Black and LGBT community.
It later spread across the globe, to cities like
Joburg and the rest of South Africa, which is
today one of the world’s epicenters of house
music.
African Americans came to in droves to seek
refuge from racist ideologies and segregation
that festered in their Southern hometowns.
While Joburg – nicknamed the “City of Gold”
from its gold rush days in the 1880s - has come
to symbolize a city for people of South Africa
and other parts of Africa, to come to in search of
hope and their fortune; an escape from where
they came from; looking to get lost in this man-
made forest.
With this, the two cities have grown wealthy
with hopeful and imaginative people. And today
are homes to the young and revolutionary, the
pioneers of cultural movements and powerful
thinking. This issue continues to celebrate our
greatness and bridge any gaps between us.
Less obvious is what the two cities represent
and their parallels. During the Great Migration
from 1918, Chicago was one of the cities that
Stefanie
Cheers,
made-magazine.com |
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