[Voices of Cabrini raw #104]

Raw video shot for "Voices of Cabrini." Shot between 1995-1999, it documented the Cabrini Green redevelopment project proposed and carried out by the City of Chicago. This video features a town hall meeting between Cabrini-Green residents, Congressman Bobby Rush, and activist Marion Stamps. Additionally, the video features resident Mark Pratt filming around the Cabrini-Green neighborhood.

0:14Copy video clip URL Open to a group of people seated at a town meeting. Close up of a mother’s face. She holds her sleeping baby. Congressman Bobby Rush is speaking at a podium.

2:05Copy video clip URL Bobby Rush: “The press can’t decide whom and when I should fight for…Before I was a member of the Congress I was fighting and protesting for black people…so I have some credentials that go way, way back…Secondly, I grew up in this area. I went to Jenner…” He notes the high value of Cabrini’s land. He calls for Dan McLean’s resignation.

4:56Copy video clip URL Rush: “There was a plan. A good plan…that was signed on by…everybody. It was the original plan. It called for no more demolition…except demolition of three buildings, and called for the restoration of this community. That was the plan that $50 million was going to fund to implement. Now, overnight it seems, on Wednesday, they had a meeting–HUD, CHA, the mayor, all those individuals who agreed to the original plan…all of  a sudden they come up with a new plan, and then what do they do? They didn’t include you in the discussion.”

8:13Copy video clip URL Rush: “When it comes to our respect..they’re in for a hell of a fight.” Applause.

9:03Copy video clip URL Pan to the crowd. Rush: “They’re going to try to divide you. This is big money here. You gotta understand. This is a billion dollars worth of stuff…this can be an integrated community…but let’s make sure you’re here [when it happens].” Rush leaves the stage.

10:37Copy video clip URL A woman speaks at the podium and details the future changes to Cabrini. Video of the crowd. Woman in the crowd: “They took my son and my daughter off my lease…I’m not going anywhere until they place me somewhere else. They promised me that!” Applause. She continues to complain to the woman at the podium.

12:39Copy video clip URL Another woman takes the microphone. Audio is hard to hear: “We are fighting back!”

13:42Copy video clip URL Cut to the crowd. A man is at the microphone. He frames the Cabrini redevelopment project and its backlash in terms of white and black race interests.

16:59Copy video clip URL Woman: “I’m black and 50 years old. If I can stand and fight, so can you…”

18:37Copy video clip URL Dean Hampton enters the room. Applause. Several cuts of the crowd with fragmented audio of speakers.

21:29Copy video clip URL Activist Marion Stamps: “Historically, it’s the way of our people. It is our natural instinct to take our children and our men. The problem is, sister…some of us have forgotten what it means to be an African woman…you have to understand you’re a nation within a nation. We have one enemy…Daley is the enemy…Shuldiner ain’t nothin’ but a soldier.” She discusses organizing the black vote.

25:14Copy video clip URL Stamps: “Y’all think you’re special, cause you live on the North Side?…all this week newspapers are talking about me like I can’t walk and chew gum at the same time…we want everybody to help, they’ve got to follow the leadership right here…”

26:42Copy video clip URL Video goes to static.

26:56Copy video clip URL Cut to a woman walking through one of the Cabrini galleries at night.

27:06Copy video clip URL Cut to Mark Pratt directing a film. A young woman holds a baby and sits in front of a window. She stares outside. Cut to Pratt’s children doing the light rigging.

28:21Copy video clip URL Pratt exposes the film.

29:12Copy video clip URL Pratt organizes more children around the seated woman. He sets up several more shots.

32:07Copy video clip URL Cut to a kitchen window in a vacant apartment. Fuse box is open and all the cabinets and drawers are empty. There is another shot out the window.

32:56Copy video clip URL Cut to graffiti on the cupboard door: “Once the kitchen is clean, leave it–Lynn.” More video of the kitchen counter tops and sink.

34:00Copy video clip URL Shot of the vacant apartment Pratt is filming in.

34:57Copy video clip URL Another shot of the vacant kitchen through the doorway.

35:13Copy video clip URL Shot out the gallery at night. View of the skyline.

35:28Copy video clip URL Shot of the gallery hallway. Pratt is breaking down his film equipment.

35:43Copy video clip URL Shot of the Pratt kitchen. His children eat.

35:52Copy video clip URL Shot of a man throwing furniture out an apartment window.

37:46Copy video clip URL Shot of Pratt filming outside in the winter snow. Long shots of the Cabrini high rises. Pratt directs his children for a scene.

44:30Copy video clip URL Pratt records the shots on a camera log.

47:39Copy video clip URL Shot of the Pratt’s walking into the snow. Long shot of row housing and the Cabrini courtyard.

48:51Copy video clip URL Cut to Pratt setting up another scene behind one of the apartment buildings. He films children playing double-dutch jump rope.

50:04Copy video clip URL Close ups of children jump roping.

51:10Copy video clip URL Static. Audio comes in and out.

52:46Copy video clip URL End of tape.