OUT OF EDEN WALK

OUT OF EDEN WALK IN CHICAGO, ILLINOIS

One of the goals of the Out of Eden Walk project is to inspire people to rediscover their own and other neighborhoods through walking and sharing their stories. Now thanks to a grant from the Chicago-based Robert R. McCormick Foundation, the Out of Eden Walk team is hosting a series of community walks in Chicago neighborhoods. To enhance the storytelling that emerges from these experiences, the team is collaborating with digital mapping experts at Esri to create an online map that achieves at city scale what Paul is doing at global scale. The aim is to highlight individual Chicagoans’ stories about the neighborhood they call home. The first Chicago walk took place on October 28, 2017, in North Lawndale. It was co-led by local artist and educator Haman Cross III. Here Cross describes what it was like “walking home” in his community. -- Julia Payne, Project Manager, Out of Eden Walk

For most of my life I have felt a constant sense of transition—the sensation that no place I find myself in is actually home.

Even as a child I was never convinced that where I lived, where my things were, and what seemed to belong to me were really mine. I always felt like a visitor whose acquisitions and stay were temporary. This led me on a different journey—a journey inward to learn who is this mind, this soul inhabiting the body belonging to Haman Cross III? My desire for freedom, power, and integrity constantly moves me forward. Ironically, this never ending journey has given me an ideal of “home” that I carry with me everywhere.

I was drawn to the Out of Eden Walk concept because of the ways it mirrors my inward journey. The walk is about taking that sense of home with you across the planet and recognizing home wherever you are. It is about sharing home with whomever we come across. It is about seeing ourselves in each other. When we do that, we experience one of the greatest transformations on Earth.

In October 2017 I co-led the first of a series of Out of Eden: Chicago community walks in North Lawndale, a neighborhood where immigration has characterized its infrastructure and spirit and shaped its future. North Lawndale today is predominantly African-American, and South Lawndale is Mexican/Latino. Next year Lawndale will celebrate its 150th anniversary. During its early years this neighborhood provided opportunities for families to start over and was advertised as a great place to raise kids, open a business, or find work. It was once home to a large bohemian demographic and later became a strong Jewish community. It was also home to Sears, Roebuck and Company in the early 1900s and to Martin Luther King, Jr., in the 1960s. In North Lawndale, Ogden Avenue is a part of historic Route 66, which blazed a trail through Midwestern America. And yet Lawndale remains a hidden jewel in Chicago.

The ethnic group with which I identify is African-American. African-American history carries with it the baggage of displacement; however, being displaced is not solely an African-American experience. We have all moved or been moved at some point. Either we have been displaced, or we fear being displaced. Most, if not all, groups share this experience. Home is something we leave to find again, be it by force, by necessity, or for opportunity.

Society places great value in the concept of “home.” Largely, we invest in things that align with what that concept means to us. When uprooted, one of our greatest desires becomes to find, establish, build, and protect a place where we can express and experience belonging. It is more than a desire—it is a necessity. Even though this has been my experience as an African-American, I understand this to be common to all who are not of the place where they find themselves.

When I think about migration, or the journey humanity has taken and is currently traveling, I can relate in several ways. Realizing our common need for connection and belonging, I recognize the plight of the displaced.

I find it crucial to develop awareness about where we are, where we come from, and where we are going. Life itself is a journey. Its path is filled with purpose and meaning. This journey is figurative and symbolic, simple and complex, temporary and final. As we explore reality, what we learn along the way can lead toward either freedom or bondage. At times I loathe the journey, desiring an early end, but I have also found reason to celebrate the discoveries and fresh connections as new experiences emerge.

Despite the fact that I now work and live in North Lawndale, and my history here goes back longer than I can remember, I have maintained the position that I am a visitor. The way the North Lawndale community embraces me, however, suggests that I am right where I belong, and welcome to stay as long as I want. The opportunity to call this place home exists and is encouraged. North Lawndale is HOME and has been home to the displaced, to the immigrant, to the seeker, the sojourner, the artist, the teacher, the builder, the gardener, the investor, and anyone who recognizes where we are, where we come from, and where we are going.

I am pleased to be reminded that as human beings our journey on Earth is a migration we begin in birth and end in death. The path we take toward our end is one that seems to pull us back to where we started. Along the way, what we learn, what we experience, and what we accomplish all bring us to that place deep inside where we connect with each other. Most of the time I have avoided connecting—fear and other insecurities have been huge obstacles. I am still learning to relish and rely upon that connection.

As I look back to my experience leading the walk through North Lawndale, I see that taking a physical walk is also about stepping inward. That walk was part of an awakening. I am now more open to listening, learning, and truly engaging with my community. Before, I had my head down, focusing on tasks and agendas. Now, thanks to a renewed sense of curiosity, I’ve been seeking out the history of this area I call home. For example, I recently had the opportunity to go to an exhibit that I would have bypassed had it not been for our walk, and I discovered how art had a unique role as a tool for activism in North Lawndale in the 1960s. At that time, the community was organized and empowered through nontraditional, sometimes militant, methods. The exhibition, titled, “The Best Side: The Art and Soul of Jackie Hetherington,” highlighted the efforts of a gang-created nonprofit organization that offered artist residencies, held art exhibitions, and created public murals in North Lawndale. Jackie Hetherington worked from his building on 16th Street—a place where I create works of art with students today, and a place we passed on our October walk.

Community organizers and activists like Hetherington were responsible for spreading awareness and encouraging civil action to advocate for those who were disenfranchised, overlooked, and under-resourced. The community walk experience taught me that we must be able to access and share this type of knowledge. We are better able to do that if we slow down to read, observe, create art, and connect with each other. I was able to speak with authority about my perspective on North Lawndale as a community member and representative. During the walk we created space for residents we met on 16th Street to share their view of and their love and pride for North Lawndale.

Our walk helped me reframe imagined boundaries and perceptions and redefine my ideas of belonging and community. It helped me see my path as our path, my journey as our journey. It helped me realize that we all carry home within ourselves, in strong but unseen connections to our shared past and future. I am now able to understand that wherever I find myself, I am home.