“ Hope is all we have” it make binding commitments on housing, jobs, and much more for residents.
“ The engagement was to address issues of displacement, housing costs, and jobs for community members,” she said, standing near the campus on a hot summer afternoon.
While the coalition wanted to honor the first Black president, she was careful to say, it also wanted him to recognize the neighborhood’ s fear that a landmark of this magnitude could price out the very people it claimed to celebrate. What the community didn’ t want was“ gentrification.”
The coalition didn’ t get all it asked for but got something acceptable. In 2020, the Woodlawn Housing Ordinance deal was reached, requiring affordable housing in new developments on city-owned Woodlawn land, and providing up to $ 20,000 in home-improvement funds for longtime homeowners. Madison counts it as a victory born of the fight.“ The Woodlawn Housing Ordinance came out of that campaign,” she says. Fifteen years on, still working with the 20th Ward alderwoman’ s office and the Woodlawn Working Group, she has arrived at a verdict:“ It is a symbol of education. It’ s not about a man— it’ s about a man’ s story. But the biggest takeaway from here is civic engagement. What citizenship means. What participatory democracy means. This center was not self-centered around an individual or an ideology.”
Madison, a donor herself, highlighted the benefits to the community, including community members getting hired and Woodlawn-based companies receiving contracts. Her message for the visitors now arriving from around the world is this:“ Inclusive communities can exist. They do exist... We can welcome change,” she said,“ without changing who we are.”
The Third Place
Tyson Madison, Tara’ s son, was born and raised in Chicago and works at Jewel-Osco, a regional supermarket chain. He has been inside the museum already, up through the floors of the tower, past the replica White House rooms and the Selma exhibits and the interactive stations where visitors record their own stories. What stuck with him were the galleries about power— human power.
“ The ones mostly about your power as an individual to protest and bring your ideas to those who can make the actual changes in your life. It does a good job at explaining to you your role as an organizer and what you can do to get your voice heard— not just in your community, but also with those in power in the government,” he said.
Artwork:“ A Cut Above” depicts Obama receiving a haircut form Zariff which is displayed in the Hyde Park Hair Salon.
Madison remembers what this land was before: Jackson Park green space, technically, but neglected in practice— torn-up sidewalks, vague bike paths, a field house he describes as“ a hot mess.” Frederick Law Olmsted designed this park in 1871; the 1893 World’ s Fair made it famous; the decades since have not been kind. The Center’ s arrival came with a renovated field house, a public library branch, a media center, an athletic facility, a sledding hill, and something he keeps
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