[People for Community Recovery #4]

This is an informal meeting of the People for Community Recovery, an environmental activist organization that is based out of the Altgeld Gardens community in the far South-East Side of Chicago. Some of the topics discussed are segregation, racism, changing times, and taking advantage of the poor.

0:00Copy video clip URL Open on a few women who are part of People for Community Recovery talking. “People think that poor people shouldn’t have decent housing.” They talk about the need for an attitude change amongst the people who provide housing for the poor and the poor people themselves, how they need a desire to beautify their community. They talk about establishing support groups and how they need to tailor their approach to the desires of the community: “Maybe they don’t want a support group, maybe they want a rap group!” They talk about all-black communities and there is a divide between the two main speakers, one believes that an all-black community is a good idea and that they should bring back the non-poor blacks to the community–she seems to think that black people are better than others. The other believes that all people are good people and seems to favor a more integrated community. They then move on to talk about Altgeld Gardens specifically and how the community does have good things about it despite its drawbacks. The older woman talks about segregation and how it has changed from her childhood in the ’50s and ’60s. “Altgeld isn’t a bad place, the people in it are bad.” The younger woman talks about the need for management of public housing to live in the public housing in order to be sensitive to the needs of the people.

38:10Copy video clip URL Switch to shot of the floor while the women are barely audible. Shot adjusts eventually such that the women are once again in the shot. Both of the women are smoking and they talk about how they are industrial environmentalists, they deal with industrial pollution. They talk about politicians and how they use developing neighborhoods as PR but don’t follow through; they specifically put down Chicago Mayor Jane Byrne (1979-1983) because she treated them as ignorant. They go on to talk about people in power prostituting off the poor. The older woman talks about black solidarity.

56:17Copy video clip URL Video ends.