… well within living memory, Lincoln Park was the site of a violent civil rights struggle for self-determination. In the late 1960s, Lincoln Park was rocked by firebombings, murder, and massive demographic displacement, inspiring a legacy of resistance that was one of the first to be erased from city’s civil rights history. 

But it’s being unearthed in a walking tour from the National Public Housing Museum (NPHM) and Blu Rhythm Collective, a Chicago-based dance and arts group: The first in a series, “Stories from the Red Line—Lincoln Park: Fire Fire Gentrifier” tells this story of through the people that lived there and academics that have studied this struggle. 

Underlying this story is the realization that Lincoln Park’s affluence came at a steep cost. “The story of Lincoln Park is one that is repressed all the time,” says Lisa Lee, executive director of the NPHM. “We don’t like to think that Lincoln Park was anything other than this amazing space of privilege.”

The walking tour uses the Vamonde mobile app to play audio files and show off period photographs by Lincoln Park native Carlos Flores, who also shares his experiences. (The Vamode website also presents the same materials for a virtual walking tour.) The tour begins at the site of the former McCormick Theological Seminary, now part of the DePaul School of Music, a neighborhood institution that local activists occupied because its generally progressive reputation made it likelier to accede to their demands.

In the 1950s and 60s, Lincoln Park became a prized location for middle-class white professionals to settle in the city instead of adding to the suburban exodus, putting pressure on the poor, working-class white populations in the east of Lincoln Park, and slowly creeping westward, where many Puerto Ricans lived.

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