Block 3: “Killed a Cactus”
Block 3: “Killed a Cactus”
Tonight I’m meeting Ms. Taylor on the 78th block of Michigan in the Chatham community. I like to tell people that I’ve been fighting out of the Chatham corner for over twenty years, so it's always special for me to be back in a place I consider home. Before I make it to the block I stop in at the Jewels off 87th. It may just be a grocery store, but man, does it make me nostalgic.
The checkout line was long and I only had one item. Folks kept asking if I wanted to go ahead of them, but I politely declined. I wanted the time to reminisce about when I lived in the neighborhood and how broke I was when I was starting my nonprofit. I stood there thinking about the employee whose job it was to clear carts from the parking lot and how everytime I would see him he’d yell “God is good!” or the man that’s always dancing on the corner of 87th and Lafayette or the father and his sons selling watermelons on 85th. Chatham’s not a community, it’s a state of mind.
Over on the block, I’m reminded how much I love the backyards in Chatham. "Wow! Look at your yard," I said to Ms. Taylor. She tells me that she’s decent at it now but won’t claim to have a green thumb because in college she could’ve "killed a cactus.” It took me a second to understand that one but once I got it I broke out laughing.
I had planned to stay under the street lights, but Ms. Taylor suggested we start behind her home. Walking through an alley on 78th and Michigan in the middle of the night isn’t the safest choice to make, especially because Ms. Taylor and I are both victims of gun violence. I got shot in the shoulder a few years back and narrowly escaped a second shooting on 58th in Hyde Park. We walked in our purpose though, together.
There's a lot of drugs sold in this alley and someone had recently been murdered in a nearby garage so she was very grateful for My Block, My Hood, My City and the Ring cameras and security lights we were able to install on the block. They work really well too. They light up the whole alley. I take pride in it because the city didn’t do that. The alderman didn’t do that. My nonprofit organization did that. I hope that proves to folks that one person, trying to make a difference, can make a real, tangible change.
It’s like what Robert Kennedy said in his famous Day of Affirmation address:
“Many of the world's great movements, of thought and action, have flowed from the work of a single man. A young monk began the Protestant reformation, a young general extended an empire from Macedonia to the borders of the earth, and a young woman reclaimed the territory of France. It was a young Italian explorer who discovered the New World, and 32 year old Thomas Jefferson who proclaimed that all men are created equal. "Give me a place to stand," said Archimedes, "and I will move the world." These men moved the world, and so can we all. Few will have the greatness to bend history; but each of us can work to change a small portion of the events, and in the total of all these acts will be written the history of this generation. [...] Each time a man stands up for an ideal, or acts to improve the lot of others, or strikes out against injustice, he sends forth a tiny ripple of hope, and crossing each other from a million different centers of energy and daring those ripples build a current which can sweep down the mightiest walls of oppression and resistance.”
I love that quote. I could read it everyday and it would still charge me up.
Ms. Taylor is sending ripples and that’s inspiring. She hosts an annual garden walk on 79th from Michigan to Indiana, she’s raising money for domestic violence awareness, and when folks on the block were getting packages stolen or delivered to the wrong address she coordinated solar powered address lights. “The left side of the street would have more solar powered address lights but they're acting like the West Side,” she tells me, “and they don’t come outside much.” One of the neighbors that had joined us said, “girl, you better hush.” These ladies are too much!
But one of the best things Ms. Taylor is doing is rallying volunteers for “National Hello Day.” She wants neighbors to come stand on a few corners and say “good morning!” to folks as they pass by. It’s so simple but it doesn’t get any more powerful than just being polite and showing the block that everyone is welcome. Tiny ripples, man. Tiny ripples.
