During the reconstruction era that followed the Civil War, visitors to the American south were astonished at the way African-Americans openly participated in society. Following his 1885 visit to New Orleans, American essayist Charles Dudley…

“Our mothers take credit, but in Stateway we raised ourselves.” – Jasmon Drain On May 17, 1954 the U.S Supreme Court handed down its decision banning segregated schools, and on the same day, the Chicago Housing Authority announced plans to build…

Described by Aaron Modica as "national symbols of the failure of urban policy," Robert Taylor Homes were once the largest and most infamous public housing project in America. Part of a post-war slum-clearing initiative, Robert Taylor Homes were…

The desegregation of Chicago’s Public Schools played out as an epic drama in which Hal Baron spent years struggling against Superintendent Benjamin Willis and his inexorable network of allies. Benjamin Willis—described in his Chicago Tribune…

Sixteen months after the Civil Rights Act was signed into law, Hal Baron watched administrators riddle it with loopholes. Without immediate and decisive action, he argued, the U.S. would consign the new act to the same ineffective fate as that of…