This is a picture, one of my Flickr favorites, from 47th and Calumet in about the Bronzeville neighborhood.

I have driven through the Bronzeville area frequently over the last month or so in a zeal for avoiding the Dan Ryan construction. This area was a mecca for black culture, I've always thought about living in an area that was a part of MY history. By MY history I'm talking about black history.

This area was thought of as ghetto but today it is gentrifying. It would be a shame for blacks to not be apart of this change. Whether we take ownership of the properties of this neighborhood or we help to change the neighborhood and make it solidly middle class. Either way it may only be a dream for now. It wouldn't surprise me that this neighborhood gets a little too expensive to live in. Even middle class families couldn't live there.

Either way I want to see this area recognized as a historic black neighborhood and I want to see other blacks live there and make it a better neighborhood. Hopefully gentification will not take away a piece of black Chicago history.

Labels: photograph

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It's been an interesting six months. I posted two slide shows, Flickr photos, and You Tube videos. As well as some other things of interest. The thing here is that now I want to further personalize this place. Not sure how yet but that's the plan.

Also I've been talking about videoblogging for a while. I've got video ready to go I'll be specific later on. I will say that it is a part of the video experiments from April when I started posting YouTube and Google videos here on this blog.

Here's another aspect of random. I intend to start posting things about videoblogging here. I've been doing it all along at It's My Mind, but since this blog is more of a creative outlet I will devote more time to it here than I have there. Either way some changes will be coming this way soon. So let them come.

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This was on the back of a block club sign in my neighborhood. Very nice piece of work.

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I was out for a stroll during my summer break I was over at 95th and Cottege Grove. I just so happened to have my camera with me and I took a simple shot.

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This was a fun commercial that I have never seen. It's pretty cool to see Morehouse represent.

Labels: video

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I found this You Tube video at Steve Garfield's Off on a Tangent. This video is based on a true story from Vinny at Insignificant Thoughts.

Vinny Ferrarri tries to cancel his AOL. But John (a call center rep employed by AOL's subcontractor) decides he'll play tuff guy. Happy ending? Vinny has no more AOL and John got fired.

Labels: video

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You are 60% Sagittarius

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I miss that 40 hour train ride we took to Los Angeles last July. My mother and I as well as a couple of my aunts took a nice train ride accross the American Southwest to the City of Angels. It was my first trip to California in almost 15 years when my family drove out that way. This was the best train ride in my life and it almost hurts that we won't be doing that again anytime soon. We'll be taking another train ride this summer though but not out west.

If I ever take another long train ride I'm not going to fool with coach. I'm going to splurge for a sleeper car which gives me a complimentary meal. It'll be fun.

This is one of my Flickr favorites although I do have some pictures on this blog of my 2005 LA vacation. I have video too if I can get a handle on posting video on the internet I'd post that too.

Labels: amtrak, favorite, flickr, photograph, train

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It sits in Millenium Park which is just off of Michigan Avenue from about Madison to Randolph Streets.

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One of my Flickr favorites. I was there at the bean in Millenium Park this past week and I took a few pictures. I may post them here in the near future.

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Check out this caption from the photographer...

A few days ago, I was reading the blog of black woman who took umbrage with the term "African American." She said black people are so removed from the Continent, the term is meaningless. But our souls retain something of the motherland--more than some of us realize--as is the case of this beautifully-rendered mural of a spider, painted on the alley side of a carwash in the predominantly black Grand Boulevard neighborhood.

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A memorial at Cape Canaveral in memorial to the space shuttle Columbia and those astronauts we lost on that fateful day back in 2003. One of my favorites on Flickr.

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Hmm this may just be what happens when I have no idea about what I want to post here. This photograph may just be the photographer being bored so she just takes a picture of her toes. You make the call.

Labels: photograph

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A minority owned bank in the Chatham neighborhood on the south side of Chicago located on 87th Street.

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Yeah I'm not sure why but I can't post anything from Flickr right now. The picture I was going to post here was a good one too but I can't do it for what ever reason right now. I'll figure it somehow. I guess all I can say is stay tuned I'll come up with some more content for this blog.

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This was an interesting picture and it's on a corner I'm somewhat familiar with (95th and Michigan). Check out this backstory from the photographer, ChicagoEye...

..and yet, a little sad. This sweet ghost sign from the uptight/outtasight 1970s was for Independence Bank of Chicago, one the nation's largest black-owned banks. Offices were at 79th and Cottage Grove and, early on, 79th and Stony Island in the city's black middle-class South Side communities. Independence and Seaway National Bank were both black owned and through they were born of utter racism---black folks formed their own banks because white-owned banks weren't that keen on lending to them--they were sources of pride, especially on the black South Side and the slogan on this sign, frankly, almost brings a tear to the eye its to simple, elegant and of times: "Be proud." Then came the Community Reinvestment Act of the 1980s which all but forced major banks to make loans in black America. Suddenly there was competition for Independence and other black-owned banks. Independence hung tough and even acquired the viable and white-owned Drexel Bank. Sadlly, Independence is no longer around. It got bought out by Shorebank in the 1990s. Seaway still exists, but there are rumbles every year about them selling.

Labels: photograph

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