FDR

One hundred and fifty years ago today, the future mayor of Chicago Anton Cermak was born in an area of Austria-Hungary that is now part of the Czech Republic. The above photo of him with Franklin Delano Roosevelt was taken in 1932, a year before Cermak’s death as a result of his relationship with Roosevelt. FDR won the nomination to be the Democratic Party’s presidential candidate against Herbert Hoover at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago that year.

Over the course of his long career, 25th Ward Alderman Danny Solis has risen from ragtag community activist to one of the most powerful and senior aldermen in the Chicago City Council. During that time, he’s managed to expertly leverage power and city funds to help transform his ward.

Father Charles Dahm is a dyed-in-the-wool activist, following in the footsteps of a long line of old-school, firebrand Catholic priests. He’s been pastor or associate pastor at St. Pius V in Pilsen since 1986 and says he has no intention of ever leaving. “I felt, and still feel, totally enriched just living in this neighborhood,” says Dahm.

Jeramey Winfield is a 26-year-old North Lawndale native who was introduced to the concept of restorative justice while in high school. He now facilitates restorative justice in his community as a way to help heal divisions, support residents, and combat the violence that has affected many residents, including his own family.

Meet Emma Lozano and Pastor Walter Coleman, the spiritual leaders of Adalberto United Methodist Church in Pilsen and trailblazers in Chicago’s immigrant rights movement.

Benito Juarez Community Academy in Pilsen is more than a public high school. It is a community hub that might not exist today if not for local Latina moms who fought in the mid-1970s against discrimination in Chicago Public Schools and for a school of their own.

Community leaders are working hard to foster investment and stability in Humboldt Park, cementing and celebrating the neighborhood’s Puerto Rican identity in a way that welcomes visitors and newcomers but also helps long-time, local residents stay and benefit from the increasingly prosperous environment.

To many outsiders, Englewood is a symbol of Chicago gun violence and disinvestment. Lifelong resident Asiaha Butler, founder of R.A.G.E., has made it her mission to highlight and nurture the positive aspects of her community. In the process, she’s created a wealth of new opportunities and a blueprint for community-led development.

Many of the women who seek help from Chicago’s oldest domestic violence organization serving the Latino community have to overcome multiple barriers — including, in recent months, a growing fear of deportation.

In the face of what one activist calls the City of Chicago’s “anemic” effort to protect residents from lead in tap water, Pilsen residents are taking the initiative to inform and equip their neighbors to reduce their risk of exposure.

The City is moving forward with plans to transform the abandoned BNSF railroad into a multi-use “rails-to-trails” path from Pilsen to South Lawndale. But not all residents in Pilsen, where the first phase of the project could kick off this fall, view the initiative as a symbol of positive change.

This year, dozens of Chicago teens fanned out across the city – some of them to places they never thought they’d go – to tell the stories of people working to make their communities stronger, as part of WTTW’s My Neighborhood project. At a film festival showcasing those films, students at Nicholas Senn High School won top honors.

Few people have played a larger role in Pilsen’s transformation during the past 27 years than Raul Raymundo, CEO of The Resurrection Project. He is now expanding his organization’s model to other neighborhoods, while he continues to struggle to preserve Pilsen’s identity and affordability.

When Eleazar Delgado opened Jumping Bean Café in 1994, his neighbors accused him of helping to usher gentrification into Chicago’s Pilsen neighborhood.

Pilsen is known in Chicago for its public art and, in particular, its many colorful and distinct murals along 16th Street and beyond. Murals distinguish the neighborhood as a center not only of Mexican culture but of creativity and self-expression.