{"id":93740,"date":"2020-11-30T13:42:51","date_gmt":"2020-11-30T19:42:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.medill.northwestern.edu\/chicago\/?p=93740&#038;preview=true&#038;preview_id=93740"},"modified":"2020-12-04T16:13:27","modified_gmt":"2020-12-04T22:13:27","slug":"oak-park-promises-diversity-local-groups-hold-the-community-accountable","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.medill.northwestern.edu\/chicago\/oak-park-promises-diversity-local-groups-hold-the-community-accountable\/","title":{"rendered":"Oak Park promises diversity, local groups hold the community accountable"},"content":{"rendered":"<strong>By Helen Quinn Pasin<\/strong>\r\n\r\n<em>Medill Reports<\/em>\r\n\r\n\n<!-- iframe plugin v.6.0 wordpress.org\/plugins\/iframe\/ -->\n<iframe src=\"https:\/\/player.vimeo.com\/video\/487340273\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"autoplay; fullscreen\" 0=\"allowfullscreen&gt;&lt;\/iframe\" scrolling=\"yes\" class=\"iframe-class\"><\/iframe>\n\r\n\r\nAfter the 2016 presidential election, concerned citizens of Oak Park and the surrounding areas formed Western Front Indivisible and Oak Park Call To Action. They are dedicated to holding Oak Park to the standards of diversity and inclusion that the village has prided itself on since 1968 when local legislatures decided to stop \u201cwhite flight\u201d by passing a fair housing ordinance.\r\n\r\nEtta Worthington, 70, is the head of Western Front Indivisible and a retired professor turned activist by the 2016 presidential election.\r\n\r\n\u201cWhen I woke up the morning after the 2016 election, like many other people, I was sick,\u201d Worthington said. \u201cI announced to my class the good news, which was that the Cubs had won, and then I started crying.\u201d She went home that day reeling, tried abstaining from the news which didn\u2019t last long, and came to the conclusion that she needed to get involved in community organizing to fight for democracy.\r\n\r\nWorthington started with the Chicago Women\u2019s March in 2017.\r\n\r\n\u201cThat\u2019s a high point of my life,\u201d she said, \u201cBeing with such a wonderful group of people who all unified in order to make a really grand statement.\u201d She continued by organizing weekly demonstrations outside senators\u2019 offices and protesting against racism, sexism, and reproductive health rights.\r\n\r\nIn a car-caravan protest after the murder of George Floyd, Worthington wrote #BlackLivesMatter on her back windshield. The car\u2019s back windshield was smashed in the middle of the night while parked outside her home. \u201cSomebody here in my community just found that hashtag to be so intolerable that they had to smash my window,\u201d Worthington said. \u201cRacism is here. In Oak Park, in River Forest, in Forest Park, we can&#8217;t deny it. People are doing aggressive things.\u201d\r\n\r\nCate Readling, 50, is an activist with Oak Park Call to Action (OPCTA) and a candidate for village president in the April 2021 election. Through OPCTA, Readling has fought hard to protect the Oak Park Regional Housing Center, which is dedicated to protecting integration. Readling knows that if integration is not intentional, segregation will prevail, she said: \u201cIf we want to be the place that we tell people we are, then we have to protect that.\u201d\r\n\r\nWith OPCTA, Readling passionately fought for all six taxing bodies to attend a Crossroads antiracism training. They wrote letters, had difficult conversations, and organized around making the training happen because they believed it would make Oak Park more prepared for progressive systemic change. Staff from four out of six taxing bodies attended the training, and Readling says she\u2019s seen direct changes as a result.\r\n\r\nIn the boardroom of Oak Park\u2019s Village Hall where community meetings are held, there used to be a mural of words that represented Oak Park\u2019s values, such as sustainability, integration, and diversity. Often, concerned citizens would reference the words on this wall when making public comments at meetings. A few years ago, village president Anan Abu-Taleb\u2019s administration had the mural taken down. \u201cThere was nothing wrong with the wall, it didn\u2019t need to be repaired, it was really just an act of shirking accountability,\u201d Readling said. \u201cThat physical manifestation of being silenced, of being erased, has really really set deeply with me.\u201d\r\n\r\nReadling believes that building people\u2019s power in Oak Park relies on conversation and connection that doesn\u2019t stop once someone is elected into office. Readling believes that in order for Oak Park to thrive, it needs more access points for citizens to participate in the democratic process. \u201cWe need to elect people who are going to be accessible and open to having conversation, sharing information, and trusting the community to participate.\u201d\r\n\r\nPost-Trump, Oak Park Call to Action, and Western Front Indivisible are making phone calls and writing postcards to help elect democrats Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock to Georgia\u2019s senate. Worthington said, \u201cI hope that the biggest thing we\u2019ve learned from Donald Trump is that we cannot take democracy for granted anymore. We have to fight for it every day and we\u2019re going to have to continue fighting.\u201d\r\n\r\n<figure id=\"attachment_93769\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-93769\" style=\"width: 1440px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-93769\" src=\"https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/medill.wordpress.offload\/wp-media-folder-medill-reports-chicago\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2020\/11\/Cate.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1440\" height=\"1078\" srcset=\"https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/medill.wordpress.offload\/wp-media-folder-medill-reports-chicago\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2020\/11\/Cate.jpg 1440w, https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/medill.wordpress.offload\/wp-media-folder-medill-reports-chicago\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2020\/11\/Cate-300x225.jpg 300w, https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/medill.wordpress.offload\/wp-media-folder-medill-reports-chicago\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2020\/11\/Cate-1024x767.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/medill.wordpress.offload\/wp-media-folder-medill-reports-chicago\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2020\/11\/Cate-768x575.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1440px) 100vw, 1440px\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-93769\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Cate Readling at Buzz Cafe writing postcards to voters. (Cate Readling)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\r\n\r\n&nbsp;\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<i> Helen Quinn Pasin is an investigative reporter who covers social justice at Medill. You can follow her on Twitter at <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/HelenQuinnPasin\">@HelenQuinnPasin <\/a><\/i><!-- \/wp:post-content -->","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By Helen Quinn Pasin Medill Reports After the 2016 presidential election, concerned citizens of Oak Park and the surrounding areas formed Western Front Indivisible and Oak Park Call To Action. They are dedicated to holding Oak Park to the standards of diversity and inclusion that the village has prided itself on since 1968 when local [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":752,"featured_media":93779,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5045,675],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-93740","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-fall-2020","category-social-justice"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v26.6 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Oak Park promises diversity, local groups hold the community accountable - Medill Reports Chicago<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/news.medill.northwestern.edu\/chicago\/oak-park-promises-diversity-local-groups-hold-the-community-accountable\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Oak Park promises diversity, local groups hold the community accountable - Medill Reports Chicago\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"By Helen Quinn Pasin Medill Reports After the 2016 presidential election, concerned citizens of Oak Park and the surrounding areas formed Western Front Indivisible and Oak Park Call To Action. 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