Sen. Jacqueline Collins on Springfield, race and Obama

If you ride the 79th street bus, heading west from the Red Line, you pass empty lots, run-down strip malls and boarded-up Pentecostal churches that have seen more worshipful days. But then you get to a small oasis of activity–a Walgreens, a Chase bank, a beauty salon and a steady hum of foot traffic despite the cold....