Future Chicago: Creative Roundtable
Traveling outside our comfort zones, traversing the real and imagined boundaries embedded in our city’s racial history and design, is always greater in community. Join National Public Housing Museum, South…
Future Chicago: Neighborhood Excursions
-
Various Locations
- Free
When was the last time you visited a new Chicago neighborhood? Learned something about the history of your neighbors across the way? Have you ever truly traveled outside of your comfort zone, across the real and imagined boundaries embedded in Chicago’s racial history and design?
Join our citywide 2-day excursion program designed to foster greater understanding of our beloved city, and ourselves, those who are building its future. Bring your curiosity, tools for reflection, and a friend to a guided or self-guided experience sharing the historical and cultural influences that make each Chicago community unique, and fertile ground for disrupting segregation.
After your excursion, meet us at the National Museum of Mexican Art at 6pm on Saturday, September 21 to debrief your experience with neighbors and colleagues from across the city with food, music, live performances, art-making, and other interactive activities.
Riverdale
Featuring a Toxic Tour with People for Community Recovery
People for Community Recovery is a legacy environmental justice organization founded in Altgeld Gardens by the late Hazel Johnson, known as the mother of the Environmental Justice movement. PCR’s toxic tours feature some of the landfills, industrial facilities and polluted waterways in the Lake Calumet Areas with tour stops focused on key sites in current and historical struggles for environmental justice.
This tour is currently at capacity. Confirmation details and waitlist notifications will be sent to those who RSVP’d prior to September 13.
Friday, Sep 20, 2024
10:30am–12:30pm
1pm–3pm
Bronzeville
Featuring Sherman “Dilla” Thomas
The historic Bronzeville district is renowned as an early-20th-century cultural and business hub, with famed residents like poet Gwendolyn Brooks and journalist Ida B. Wells honored with plaques and sculptures. Vacant lots owned by the Chicago Housing Authority, alongside closed schools, and seemingly sporadic development of new mixed-income housing tell an even more complex story of this historically Black community.
Bronzeville Art District Trolley Tour
Hop on the double-decker bus to explore the vibrant art scene of Bronzeville through its art galleries, studios, and creative spaces, including a special stop at the historic South Side Community Art Center to honor it’s 84-year legacy through Bronzeville is Beautiful: A Living Archive—a dynamic, participatory archive.
Friday, Sep 20, 2024
6pm–9pm
Bronzeville History Tour
This 2-hour bus tour guided by Sherman “Dilla” Thomas of Chicago Mahogany, LLC shares the rich history and culture of Bronzeville’s people, architecture, and impact on the world. To request to join our tour of Bronzeville led by Sherman “Dilla” Thomas of Chicago Mahogany Tours, complete the form below.
This tour is currently at capacity. Confirmation details and waitlist notifications will be sent to those who RSVP’d prior to September 13.
Saturday, Sep 21, 2024
10am–12pm
Pilsen
Featuring Pilsen Public Art Tour
The Pilsen Mural Tour is an hour-long walk through some of the neighborhoods’ most iconic murals. We will explore murals that colorfully express the history, culture, and struggles of the Mexican community in Pilsen and discuss the political and socio-economic role of murals in this resilient community. Tours will be led by Mario Hernandez, the National Museum of Mexican Art’s Gallery Education Coordinator. With over 15 years of experience studying Pilsen’s murals, Mario will be sure to share information about Pilsen’s murals that will surprise and intrigue you.
Participants must register in advance or on-site for a place in one of the guided tours throughout the day.
Saturday, Sep 21, 2024
10:30am
12:00pm
1:30pm
Humboldt Park
Featuring a tour of Paseo Boricua with Eduardo Arocho
Humboldt Park has been the symbolic nucleus of Puerto Rican Chicago since the 1960s. Some 80 murals, Spanish colonial inspired architecture and a visit to La Casita de Don Pedro reflect that heritage and longevity of the Puerto Rican Community in Humboldt Park.
This thought-provoking tour of Paseo Boricua, explores the history of this iconic neighborhood through the public art proudly displayed along the six blocks of Division Street in Humboldt Park.
To request to join our guided walking tour of Paseo Boricua led by local resident and poet Eduardo Arocho, please complete the form below.
Saturday, Sep 21, 2024
1pm–2pm
This tour is currently at capacity. Confirmation details and waitlist notifications will be sent to those who RSVP’d prior to September 17.
Loop
Native and Indigenous Chicago
Center for Native Futures invites you to visit the only all Indigenous-artist-led art center in the heart of the Loop. Meet the artist-in-residence Camille Billie (Oneida) for open studio hours, guided tours by curator-in-residence Lois Taylor Biggs (Ojibwe/Cherokee) of Gagizhibaajiwan, and view The Upsetters: A Painting Exhibition and the community art showcase.
Join a guided tour at one of the scheduled times below.
Saturday, Sep 21, 2024
11:00am
1:30am
Lincoln Park
Stories from the Redline: Fire Fire Gentrifier
Through photos, oral history, music, and dance, National Public Housing Museum and Blu Rhythm Collective’s self-guided tour of a people’s history of Lincoln Park features Pinqy Ring, photos by Carlos Flores, and stories and history by activist scholars Jose Cha Cha Jimenez, Billy Che Brooks, and Professor Jacqueline Lazu. This tour excavates the hidden and repressed history of urban renewal, and explores the struggles of the Young Lords to organize, raise political awareness, and resist gentrification.
This is a self-guided experience and does not include a timed-tour. No reservation required.
Englewood
Featuring Inequity for Sale by Tonika Lewis Johnson
Are you familiar with the living history of Greater Englewood homes sold on Land Sale Contracts during the 50s and 60s? Tonika Lewis Johnson’s Inequity for Sale project is an artistic, critical exploration of this racist practice in Black neighborhoods, and how land contracts combined with redlining, directly contributed to the wealth gap and community disinvestment we witness today.
This is a self-guided experience and does not include a timed-tour. No reservation required.
Our Partners
This 2-day excursion program is supported by Smithsonian’s Our Shared Future: Reckoning with Our Racial Past Initiative, as part of their National Conversation on Race series, along with several other programs and events presented in collaboration with the National Museum of Mexican Art, Center for Native Futures, and South Side Community Art Center, September 20–28, 2024.
Bank of America is proud to be the Founding Partner of Our Shared Future: Reckoning with Our Racial Past.
Chicago community partners for this day also include People for Community Recovery, Chicago Mahogany Tours, and Paseo Boricua Tours.
Upcoming events
