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February, 2012
Growing up in Mexico and then Mesa, Ariz. with a mother who worked long hours, Jose Castro started writing out of loneliness. Soon he was rapping, and after turning 18 he moved to Las Vegas to try to make it big.Several years ago he felt like he was close— performing at the House of Blues and other big venues, working with producers and musicians with major label connections. Like many well...
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February, 2012
Rapper Young DBoy Low and his friends shoot a video with the help of Project Spitfire, a nonprofit that uses music to help young people break free of the vicious cycle of gangs, drugs and violence. The group pairs young musicians with professional producers who help them record songs and videos.
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February, 2012
Protesters, many of whom are members of Southside Together Organizing for Power (STOP) and Fearless Leading by Youth (FLY), demand that the University of Chicago Medical Center reopen its level-one trauma center, which closed in 1988. There are no adult level-one trauma centers on the South Side, and one of the founding members of FLY, Damian Turner, died at Northwestern Memorial Hospital...
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February, 2012
On a cold November evening, the strip of 75th Street in Englewood felt bleak and deserted, lined by boarded-up and dilapidated buildings. Outside a liquor store, young men appeared hyper-aware—on the lookout for conflict or danger. But the atmosphere inside a corner storefront across the street was completely different, filled with warmth and energy as South Side residents crowd the...
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February, 2012
In 2009, 14-year-old Ondelee Perteet was shot in the jaw at a birthday party on the city's West Side. The bullet severed his spine, paralyzing him from the neck down. His doctors told him that he would never walk again, but two years later, he is beginning to walk with the help of crutches.Too Young to Die is a long-term documentary photography project, now in its fifth year, which seeks...
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February, 2012
"It wasn’t easy trying to survive a bullet to the chin,” rapped Ondelee Perteet, 17, to the tune of Lil Wayne beats played off his smartphone on Nov. 5.Ondelee was shot in the face at a birthday party at his older sister’s West Side apartment during Labor Day weekend in 2009—leaving him paralyzed from the neck down. His wide, sparkling smile is unaffected by the puckered scar on the right side of...
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January, 2012
More young people are killed in Chicago than any other American city. Since 2008, more than 530 youth have been killed in Chicago with nearly 80 percent of the homicides occurring in 22 African-American or Latino communities on the city's South, Southwest and West sides. [Data analysis by Alden K. Loury]
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January, 2012
Too Young to Die is a long-term documentary photography project, now in its fifth year, which seeks to enlighten the public about the effects of youth violence on young victims, their families, and society as a whole. It is an effort to shake the country's conscience in a way that most mainstream media—hyper-commercialized and celebrity obsessed—no longer do. My interest is to get beyond the...
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January, 2012
“Pour out your heart like waterFor the lives of your childrenLet justice roll down like watersRighteousness like an everflowing stream.”So sang a soaring chorus of voices—young and old—inside Hyde Park Union Church on Nov. 6. The songs were interrupted by a somber litany of names: Chicago youth killed since the school year started in 2008. The event was called “Urban Dolorosa,” a commemoration...
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