Everyday I take the Chicago Transit Authority 52 Kedzie bus route to group therapy. I always sit in the back, on the left side, two rows away from the door. My purse is usually clenched between my arms, resting on my lap like a mother holding their child.

When I'm not vigilantly checking my surroundings, playing Wordscapes on my phone, or stealthily pulling my mask up to sip my morning brew, I like to look out the window. I watch as the bus trudges through dilapidated buildings, old storefronts, and boarded up homes.

One particular day, I paid close attention to the lack I often bury to the back of my mind. We passed by the intersection of 16th Street and Kedzie Avenue: boarded up building. Next street: another one. And another, and so on. Finally, by Roosevelt Avenue, we passed a shopping center. Ahh, the neighborhood grocery store garnished with a police van vehemently waiting on the corner.

It saddened me. Shuddered with goosebumps, I cringed at the ickiness that passed through me. I have seen this before. I have lived this before. I resented all the other Chicago neighborhoods that didn’t look like mine. Where were the mom and pops like the ones plastered all over West Town? The manicured lawns sometimes in Austin? Cute boutiques sitting along 53rd in Hyde Park? Where were the bars crowding loudly like the ones in Wicker Park?

W. 18th Street & Kedzie Avenue (Photo by M. Wadley)

A neighborhood concocted from a traumatic past, North Lawndale never had a chance. In the 1900s, European immigrants moved to the neighborhood and built their own community, followed by Russian Jews. By the 1960s, Black people began to move in, resulting in “white flight” and disinvestment.

So Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. moved his family out west and decided that North Lawndale would be the perfect stomping ground to raise awareness in the North about the Civil Rights Movement. At the time, like many Chicago neighborhoods, blockbusting and redlining were desperately trying to push black Americans out the city.

Then, following Dr. King’s assassination, riots permeated North Lawndale and destroyed many properties and lives. Lawndale Christian Development Corporation executive director Richard Townsell recalls his families’ recollection during that time, naming fear as their prominent emotion.

I think of my own fears living in North Lawndale. Clutching my purse on the bus and parading the pepper spray clipped on my keys. I won’t leave the house after certain hours and only walk down busy streets, fearing being robbed or worse shot. What does that say about me?

According to the Chicago Suntimes Homicide Data, North Lawndale is the fourth deadliest priority neighborhood. Meaning, it is one of the many neighborhoods that contribute to 50 percent of the gun violence here in Chicago. And WTTW notes that North Lawndale already suffered economic disparities, unemployment, and violence for years, but the pandemic heightened these hardships.

Why do these patterns permeate generations? Why does this trauma linger for the residents to come?

I don’t want North Lawndale to be remembered for its horrors. But I don’t want its history to be forgotten because it's integral to why things are the way they are. There’s so many things about this community that are tied to my existence.

There’s Douglas Park: where my papa’s summer day camp would swim every Thursday because it was free to the public. Sometimes, instead of swimming, my cousins and I would go down to the nearby lagoon and chase toads. I remember squealing when one of the camp kids caught one and tried to throw it on me.

The Lagunitas Brewing company that was right across the street from my internship. Once my friend, Andi, and I went out to lunch and secretly bought beers. We were freshly 21 and felt so cool that we were on our first official work lunch buying brews.

And there’s my home cooped up on a corner somewhere in Little Village, the bakery across the street where I buy conchas, and the 52 bus stop where I wait anxiously. This community belongs to me, someone, and somebody else. This community belongs to those who inhabit it and that should solely be a reason why North Lawndale is worthy of everything it deserves.