Everything Must Change

The first tape made by the Community TV Network through the Alternative Schools Video Project, in which students from Chicago's West Garfield Park discuss their neighborhood.

00:09Copy video clip URL Opening credits written in chalk on a sidewalk: “Alternative Schools Video Project presents Everything Must Change.” 

00:14Copy video clip URL Footage of the L train, accompanied by the song “Express” by B.T. Express. 

01:28Copy video clip URL The narrator, a teen boy, speaks over footage of children playing on a Chicago sidewalk: “What’s the use to hide? What’s the use to cry? We brought it on ourselves. Black brotherhood. With the brotherhood we got, we ain’t nowhere but in the gutter. Look around. You ain’t gonna see nothin’ pleasing, I expect. A few [unintelligible] or a few clean streets. But it’s still there: the hearts of the black families that try and die in this barren land of degenerates, prostitutes, and rapists. It seems that the Blacks that got all uptight over something they could have gotten out of long ago after the Emancipation Proclamation was written. But we had to be fooled by crackpots. Here we are. Right where we put ourselves. 

02:18Copy video clip URL Inside. Teens sit for a discussion “problems… in the neighborhood.” They mention garbage cans not being picked up and attracting dogs, and people not keeping their yards clean.

03:14Copy video clip URL Footage of the neighborhood, including children on bicycles, accompanied by “That’s the Way of the World” by Earth, Wind, and Fire.

03:42Copy video clip URL Interview with a young woman, who says that she comes to this neighborhood to work. 

04:23Copy video clip URL Another woman speaks with the videomakers. She says she comes to this neighborhood because there isn’t a Burger King near her. Her neighborhood is a little bit better than this one, she says. 

05:00Copy video clip URL Two older men talk about how the neighborhood has changed over time. Footage of men hanging out outside the Karlington Apt. Hotel. 

05:56Copy video clip URL The teens discuss the positives in the neighborhood, mentioning the church. 

06:27Copy video clip URL Interview with Pastor Nelson, an elderly white man, who says he likes the neighborhood because it has the feeling of a family. He discusses break-ins. 

07:02Copy video clip URL Two young children giggle as the videomakers attempt to interview them. 

07:40Copy video clip URL The teens discuss wanting to stay in their neighborhood. The need for police presence and protection. 

10:44Copy video clip URL Footage of the neighborhood, including police cars, billboards, pedestrians, business signs. Accompanied by Grover Washington, Jr.’s “Mister Magic.” Close ups exploring store windows. Kids on bicycles. 

14:45Copy video clip URL End credits, written in chalk on the sidewalk. “Rap Session: Gregory Whitehead, Byron Mitchell, Victor Collins, Angela Travis, Michael Bryant, Calvin Wright. Bike Ride: Thomas Williams, Junior Buggs, Ronald Bradley, Calvin Wright, Tony Buggs. Camerapeople: Stanley Walker, Thomas Williams, Myron Collins, Byron Mitchell, Calvin Wright. Written by Thomas Williams. Music Coordinator: Calvin Wright. People Who Helped: Thomas Calloway, Denise Zaccardi, Videopolis, Jack McFadden, Mary Burton.”

16:22Copy video clip URL End of tape.