- [Unknown] Good morning everyone.

- [Unknown] Good morning!

- [Unknown] This a big route, right?

(group chattering) - Hey, you guys.

- How you doing?

- I'm good.

I'm good.

How are you?

I'm Domo.

- Domo?

- Uh-huh.

I'm their leader.

This summer I'm tour leader for "My Block, My Hood, My City".

Good morning, how you all doing today?

- Good, good.

- That's good.

- [Policeman] How you doing?

- [Dominetrius] I'm good.

- Ago.

Ame.

- Ago.

Ame.

- This is our third tour with CPD officers this year, which is exciting.

We're thinking of this as having a dramatic impact on changing community interactions.

And we're all about that.

There's lots of love in this community.

There's a lot of deep history in this community.

I want to turn it over to Dominetrius real quick, so she can talk a little bit about why she's a part of the youth led tour.

She's one of our veterans.

- Okay, my name is Dominetrius, as he say, why we do these youth led tours is because we want to show y'all the good things about our community and allow our voice to be heard because what y'all here with the police we feel like we protected and we'll have a connection.

And also we have a lot of history.

So thank you.

And I hope y'all enjoy the tour.

- [Police Officers] Thank you.

- [Dominetrius] You're welcome.

(calm music) (car horn honks) - This is Bobby's barber shop.

His prices are very affordable.

- This is (indistinct), has been in the community for over 15 years.

- Y'all can go in and get snacks if y'all want.

Every week we do tours with Chicago police.

- The garden's got fruits like Asian pears and grapes.

- [Dominetrius] We toured up around the North Lawndale neighborhood to show them the background history of our community.

This is where Dr. King worked and lived here.

It's a museum where all his work was done there and everything.

- People didn't want MLK here.

They thought he was just going to cause trouble.

He was talking about fair and equitable housing which people didn't want to deal with.

Despite threats of firebombing, despite threats of looting, despite threats by law enforcement, all those things were meant to push them out.

But he spoke here anyway to a packed crowd.

And this began to the beginning of his freedom movement.

- Good morning.

(car horn honks) See that's what I like to see.

Like, they see us with police officers, they're trying to be more involved.

Everybody thinks North Lawndale is so violent and by us finding out a lot of history that we didn't know about, we want everybody else to see that too.

I always want to be a lawyer.

- Nice.

- I'll always spark up a conversation with just random people.

Because if we get that connection, like, people talk about personal things.

It'd be like a connection, like a bond.

- I'm a single mom, and from the beginning my mom was telling me that it wasn't right for me to be in this profession.

- [Dominetrius] Right.

- And being a Latina, the idea is that we're supposed to be a certain role, supposed to be at home, supposed to be in the kitchen.

- [Dominetrius] Right.

- So to be able to break that stereotype.

- [Dominetrius] Exactly.

- And be able to show my daughter as well that she can be whatever she wants.

Yeah.

That's important to me.

- Yeah, they stereotype us a lot.

- [Police Officer] You get put in a box.

- Right.

- And then you have to stay in that box.

- Right.

- Like this conversation is important, because what other opportunity would I have had to be here?

What you're doing has purpose.

And you need to be able to believe in that and communicate that others as well.

- Thank you.

- [Police Officer] Yeah.

- Thank you.

I'll take that advice.

I'm gonna take that advice.

- What is one thing we don't know by looking at you?

Well, what thing y'all don't know about looking at me is I'm the second to last child out of all eight.

- I'm the oldest of five.

- I was born in South America and was adopted and brought here when I was like one.

- I'm 20, and I'm a twin.

- I like camping and kayaking and hiking.

- I like poetry.

- I got six babies at home, and I married my high school sweetheart.

(crowd clapping) - The tours with the Chicago PD is one of the most important tours of the organization.

Youth and the police was not getting along.

So about us doing these tours, we want the police and our youth to get connected, maybe stop the violence.

We don't know, but if we start something now, it would be big later.

Question is, what are some life challenges you have overcome to become where you are now?

- Yeah, both of my parents, they're immigrants from Poland.

They came here with very little.

Learning English was very difficult for me at a young age.

I had tough time making friends, though I'm still trying to find that confidence.

- I think for me, one of the biggest challenges was making the decision to leave my neighborhood.

- [Dominetrius] Uh-huh.

- Especially for college.

I went away to California and it was my first time there.

I was by myself.

And so it's hard to make that mental shift, that you're literally going into the unknown.

- I can understand where you're coming from.

And then, especially, I came back to Chicago to finish school year.

So I can recognize.

I'm proud of you.

They got struggles too.

Everybody got struggles.

It was like, if you have a better understanding of others' point of view, you'll have a better understanding of yours as well.

Thank you guys so much.

And I'm proud of y'all.

I'm glad that y'all want to make a change in our community.

With the police being in the Lawndale neighborhood and seeing the kids interact with them, it'd be a better chance for us to grow up and be safe, and stop the violence completely in our neighborhoods.

(calm music) One of my goals is to like get my apartment.

My mom got her first crib when she was 19.

I'm ready to move on my own.

I'm ready to be financially stable, ready to do all this.

It's time for me to grow up.

I'm going to be 21.

It's time for me to grow up.

- Show me what you was looking at.

- The one I love.

This one right here.

This on Cicero.

- [Lady Sanders] 775 a month.

- [Dominetrius] Yeah.

- It looks real spacious.

Yeah.

This is nice.

- I'm gonna be just stacking my money, and working on my apartment, that's it.

- It's a huge step.

And once you get a taste of being by yourself you ain't gonna want to live with nobody.

You ain't gonna wanna deal with nobody.

And ain't nothing wrong with that.

- [Dominetrius] I like my own space, my own house.

- You're going to love it.

- [Dominetrius] I can't wait (calm music) My girlfriend, Andi, she has a surprise for me, and I was so excited because she wouldn't even do things like this.

You know, Andi is just laid back, chill, or whatever.

So when she was just like, "We're going for a drive,".

I was like, okay.

- Where you been?

(Indistinct) - So we ended up pulling up to a mall, and I was like, "What are we doing at the mall?"

She was like, "Well, today I'm going to give you a ring."

I was like, "What?

Okay."

I need some of that diamond.

I like that one.

- [Andi] This one?

- [Dominetrius] Yeah.

And she surprised me with one.

And she gave me the bracelet with her name on it.

I'll marry you.

Okay.

- Put it in a box, please.

- Please put it in a box.

Thank you.

- [Dominetrius] After the ring situation we ended up taking a walk downtown.

That was my first time walking on the Riverwalk.

It was very relaxing.

It was very chill.

Like, you go walk, the air blowin'.

You with your significant other.

Y'all just talking about anything.

It was great.

(calm music and indistinct conversation) It's like that, I want to be around you 24/7.

It's something about you, you've got me like that.

- [Andi] Look at it, you gonna buy me that?

- [Dominetrius] Nope.

- [Andi] Why not?

- [Dominetrius] When you finally feel like you'd found the right person and it would show you, right, this the one for you.

- [Andi] You can't take this off, bae.

- [Dominetrius] I could go to her about anything.

I could crash on her.

I can tell her my issues without her judging me.

(indistinct conversation) - [Andi] Put your ring there.

What's your momma gonna say?

- [Dominetrius] I feel like she's my soulmate.

She's my soulmate.

- You made me cry.

- I like that smile because it's pretty.

Downtown is a getaway from my neighborhood.

It's very pretty at night.

All the lights come out, and that's when you feel like you're a part of something.

Being downtown and being in North Lawndale is very different.

If you see me walking down the street, it's like, it gotta be in the morning time.

It can't be at night.

You can't walk by yourself nowhere in the dark.

You don't feel, constantly, you always got to look over your shoulders.

But downtown is different.

You free.

I was supposed to start school September 28th, I was supposed to start my classes.

And I was so excited to all have all my stuff set up and my school stuff.

Got the email.

School would not be able to... Like, something was messing up their Zoom.

It was like all a setback.

Like all these little things is just messing up.

- But weren't they supposed to shut down Malcolm X?

- I don't know, but they said no more remote classes or any... - So ain't no classes online no more?

- Nope.

- Oh, wow.

- I don't think it's looking good for me right now because I can't get access to school online.

I can't go up there no more.

So I really don't know what's going to happen.

And I was just like, I ain't gonna never get back in school.

This is the apartment, right here.

Jamal is like a father figure to me and my sister.

He started in "My Block, My Hood, My City".

He a very talented person.

And he love his community.

He made people feel comfortable.

He made people feel safe.

He made people feel loved.

A lot of people were not used to that.

I wasn't thinking about college at all.

And Jamal was like, "You going to go to college.

You're going to do that."

- Everybody got their own path.

Everybody got their own journey.

- [Dominetrius] And he was like, no matter how long you have to stay in school, as long as you finish.

- When I first started college I had a 1.7 my first semester and they wanted to kick me out of school.

But the thing is, is that when you come from not having no teachers or never having read a book, or, you know, I wanted to be a drug dealer, so just looking at... seriously, I mean, all my friends sold weed and it was like, to be taken out that environment to go to Nebraska.

For me, it was just like, I was like, man, I'm having a hard time adjusting.

I'm having a hard time with it all.

And then... - [Dominetrius] When I first heard how he grew up and how it was hard for him to go to college, it really was like, we wasn't the only one by ourself that was going through stuff like that.

- I was able to go to college in Nebraska and get away from my surroundings for four years.

And that's when I realized that exposure is key.

When I stopped paying my parents rent and I could get away for four years, when I stopped having my friends getting killed around me or my friends being bad influences around me, I was able to have hope.

I was able to focus on my goals.

It's hard to focus when you got so much murder and so much things going on around you.

It's hard.

This ain't how it's supposed to be.

I know what you thinking, your block is like the world, but it's not.

Anyway, man, just step outside your comfort zone, explore different places, experience different things.

And you'll evolve.

You got people that love you.

Anytime you need support, you know you got that.

That's what it all is about, is having that support.

- Yeah.

Having that support.

- So, hey, take it a stride and kill it, man.

Just have that in your mind.

Like, I'm going to graduate.

I'm going to graduate and when I walk that stage, this is life.

- [Dominetrius] Having those talks really opened me back up.

It really motivated me.

Like, I can do it.

Don't give up.

You go through hard times in life, you know, you just got to overcome it.

And if I know if Jamal can do it, I can do it too.

This is just the beginning.

Keep going.