Use This Time
don't just get mad, organize!
If you read my last newsletter, you know how taken I am with the book, Mrs. Miniver. The author, Jan Struther (the pen name of Joyce Anstruther), so adeptly requires a mere 3-4 pages to comment on the most quotidian details of life and match them with a potent metaphor requiring you to look up from the book and contemplate.
Here is my humble attempt to combine such writing with the very non-quotidian details of what it means to be part of the solution in Chicago.
Jill Attends a Meeting
The chairs in this upstairs meeting room were in short supply so I sat on a bench pulled from an upright piano standing in the corner. Hardly a comfortable perch from which to view the organizing. Per my nature, I sat in the back, ready for a quick getaway if necessary. This, it turns out, was ill advised as the roars of the volleyballers competing in the gym below came through the open back wall, sounding like a group of recruits learning to yell as loud as their drill sergeants.
I was at the Broadway Armory, a massive building taking up a whole city block that really was once an armory of sorts. Today, it’s a thriving community center and on this night, it featured a Gen Z volleyball league playing in one of the five gyms and Indivisible Edgewater’s meeting.
Repurposement*
Originally built to hold an ice rink in 1916, the building was quickly commandeered by the Illinois National Guard during WWI.
It’s not clear if they ever really stored munitions or guns there. It is clear that they used the huge space for drills and training. Like most stories from the past, this one is much more complicated than it seems at first blush. But let’s not digress.
Because the building is right in the middle of the Edgewater neighborhood, it has always been used for community meetings and events. Today the building is alive with activity. I found it ironic that while the building is no longer a place for military drills, it is still in its way a place of training--sports or political action, take your pick.
In the “nothing ever changes” department, this meeting was run by women.
This community center would not exist were it not for the committed and visionary alderwomen who represented this Chicago ward. First, in the 1970s, Marianne Kennedy Volini started the political process which the beloved Alder Kathy Osterman continued in the late 1980s to return this building to the community. They even had to fight Ronald Reagan to get their way. (Photo and explanation at the end of this post.)
Smart, focused women often showcase a stick-to-itness not to be outrivaled. This gathering was no exception.
The meeting gets underway
Looking around the room I could see about 65/35 percent split women to men. Most of us were white and, ahem, of a certain age with few estimated to be younger than 35.
Next to me (sitting on his own bench) was an elderly gentleman named Gary and next to him was a white-haired couple whose names were never shared. It wasn’t until I got home and looked in the mirror that I realized I also have some white hair. (It is freeing in its way!)
And it was all women in charge. Not surprising really. There are few egos involved in this “head down and do the work” organizing so no roosters preening about. On this night there was a speaker with ICE updates and “Rapid Response” training information. A gentleman gave us an update on the status of legal challenges and court fights. Then a self-pronounced elementary school teacher walked us through the awesome organization of Chicago’s response teams--all connected by the secret squirrel app, Signal.
Thanks to ICE we now have many hyper-local focused groups and rapid response teams. Rogers Park is often credited with creating the first one to respond to kidnappings and to continue to build an extraordinary system that’s been replicated in other cities and states. (Exciting to see North Carolina and New Orleans take these tactics even further.)
All politics is local
The talk was of ICE, a subject which every Chicagoan is now an expert. There is no neighborhood or community its lawlessness and inhumanity has not touched.
But no matter how much you know--or think you know--there are more facts to digest and much nuance to interpret. For instance, on this night, there was a lot talk of “using this time,” as if all time wasn’t in short supply and used up the minute you make your todo list.
The inaptly named Border Patrol was finally exiting Chicago after reeking so much havoc. (Yes, I do mean “reeking” as if their presence was such a heavy pall on our neighborhoods that you could literally smell both the tear gas and our fear.)
ICE is still with us. But as it turns out, most of the combat-suited, ill-trained pseudo-fighters are scared of snow and scrammed after the first inch of the season fell. It is anticipated that the worst of the kidnappings won’t really pick up the pace again until the March thaw. Although we can’t let down our guard.
A break in the action. A change of schedule. Time to regroup.
The holiday season being upon us, we are being asked to cook, host, buy presents, be cheerful, hug people who wear too much cologne or perfume, as well as to organize. (As if the holidays themselves don’t require an advanced degree in organizing.)
Yet, in this room, no one complained about being asked to do too much. Instead, we all leaned in as the speakers, to my great surprise, did not speak in generalities or the typical “we can do this” rah rah speak. Looking at my notes I see that they shared a laundry list of specific ways to get involved and use this time.
1. Join a mutual aid group.
2. Learn to be a rapid responder.
3. Hang up posters and collect details at the locations of kidnappings. (Important work, this, as these facts will be vital at hearings and for legal challenges, not to mention the Illinois Accountability Panel investigations the governor is organizing.)
4. Join a bike patrol in your neighborhood.
5. Organize a candidate forum.
6. Go to a Yes You Canvass training.
7. Register people to vote.
8. Raise money for the bond fund for those who were abducted and the court released on bond, which requires money these folks do not have.
9. Join a school or neighborhood watch.
Counting the number of times “organize” was mentioned, it occured to me we have a good opportunity for t-shirts slogans:
To Organize is to Fight
Organize the shit out of it
Pissed Off Women Organize
Beware the Organizer, She Will Win the War.
“Do you work?”
After the meeting as I was talking to committee heads to determine where I wanted to use my time, I was asked this question: do I work? Well, sure, every day I work at something.
Oddly enough, I wasn’t quite sure how to answer the question. Yes, I do still “work” and have a job. But I find that these days, there are many other equally important types of work demanding my attention. Chairing Stories Matter Foundation is like a part-time job for me. And fighting for democracy and our country is taking more and more time, especially as I see our efforts working locally and having a strong positive impact on the national stage as well.
After I signed the join a committee sheets and talked to the organizers, I shuffled off, stunned by the silence as I walked the hall through this armory-now-community center. The volleyballers had gone home. The art rooms were closed and the kitchen was dark. There was no one around as I wandered down the hall, looking at the dated photographs on the walls. Stopping to inspect one large black and white image, I contemplated the hundreds of women in dresses and hats awed by a cooking demonstration. Next to it was one of an auditorium packed with people in their best 1930s outfits listening to a speaker.
People are always organizing something. It’s how the world moves forward. I vowed to use this time in the quiet to organize my thoughts to see how I fit in and decide what will be my work.
How will you use the time?
Keepin’ the faith,
Jill
There’s always more to the story.
I happened upon the fascinating Women and Leadership Archives blog from the old Mundelein College which has a post about the armory and its history. It included this not surprising tidbit:
Thank you for your service. Sincerely.