(pensive music) - This is the Metropolitan Sanitary District park here that runs along the canal.

And one of the main reasons why they let black people live here, is that this used to be the sewage system for North Evanston.

That sign there, you see, "Reparations.

We All Win."

(laughs) Our family moved to Evanston in the 40's, as part of the migration from Abbeville, South Carolina.

The lady who lived in the building right here, when we would hit a ball in her yard, she would sit by the window and race out.

It was a race who could get to the ball first.

And they said that when she died, she had a collection of about three or 400 balls that she had confiscated from us as kids.

(laughs) Isn't that crazy?

- During those times we had black businesses, we had commerce, we had grocery stores.

There used to be a store right there, a grocery store.

And that vacant lot, The black business community was Church-Dodge.

My dad was a tailor, so he had a dry cleaning and tailoring shop.

He was a master tailor.

He would go to the back, pick up one of the suits that was abandoned, and he was such a great tailor, he'd recut it for the holidays.

I walk in like a cashmere, silk lining with my dad's tag in there.

I was his billboard (laughs) (door opens) - [Man] Sleepy Joe.

- Mad Skippy Ricky, Little Small Sam, - Always - To my main man, (handshake slaps) - Always is, you know it.

In the house you know it, - What's up baby?

- All right.

This is probably the most famous place you can come for black history.

There's more black history here than anywhere.

We didn't care about living in East Evanston or South Evanston.

We had our whole life in West Evanston.

We had our whole community.

All of that changed.

Hi, baby boy, because of the way that this community has been decimated, the neglect of the neighborhood, they have allowed these things to go.

We were coming up, they had programs.

- Baseball teams, roughly 10.

So he took all them programs away.

And you expect, - Not only that you're going to recreate whatever you have.

and if you got garbage, what are you recreating?

- [Man] Garbage?

- Because the black people were brought to Evanston to service the university, and everything was separate.

You have to have the same services for the black community as you do for the white community.

Well, when integration came in, the big problem wasn't integration, the big problem was economic development.

People on the east side of Evanston could afford to buy into the west side.

People on the west side, rarely could afford to do the same.

Integrating without economic development meant that you can live anywhere you can afford to live, but you don't have the means to live there.

(laughs) - Get a fresh cut and go out and make something of yourself.

My grandparents gave them money to buy a house in the 40's on Foster Street.

Hi, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to block you in.

I'm John xxxxxx.

I've been living in this house for 40 years.

This is the first time I've actually been back to this house.

I mean, my aunt passed away in his house.

My mother cared for my mother in this house, but not the same place.

It ended up being down to my mom and me after my parents got separated, there were no opportunities for me in Evanston.

I went out into the world to make a living and I was on the road.

We're making good money.

I was sending money home.

We noticed that bills were not really getting paid.

Came home and noticed that my mom, she was deteriorating in age, you know.

I returned home later on.

We found out that she had a tumor in the middle of her skull.

It was a life or death situation.

With the hospital bill, she was deep in debt.

I was actually her personal caregiver.

I could not work a full-schedule.

I wasn't really, as astute on all the things that needed to be done for property maintenance and taxes.

Through not knowing the system that the property went into probate.

My mom passed away.

They made a move to throw me out of the house.

I tried to buy it.

No city had helped us out before they could have helped us to maintain the property.

But you know the word that I got when they wanted me out.

I mean, how do you repair that?

(laughs) The reparations program in Evanston is not a reparations program.

It doesn't deal repairing anything.

People were keeping me posted about reparations, reparations, reparations.

They explained, "Well, what we're gonna do is basically give people the ability to buy homes in the neighborhood by giving them a $25,000 on their, you know, purchase the house".

Well, a house in Evanston nowadays you get a garage for $300,000.

(chuckles) The garage with no plumbing.

My house that my grandparents bought back in the day for $4,000 is now worth almost $253,300.

So if I wanna buy a house, you're gonna to give me $25,000, but I have to qualify for credit.

I got to pull an application.

What does that have to do with repairing anything that you've done to me.

Now, I took my son, moved my things out, and started my life all over again.

So to me reparations means, "I'm gonna repair the damage that I've done to you and here I'm going to help you out".

So my concern is not so much in looking for money for me.

What would I look like trying to buy a $400,000 house?

I had my 68th birthday on Halloween.

(chuckles) You wanna give my reparations while at the nursing home, if I get to live that long.

Good morning, good afternoon, good evening.

Holy cow, Big John from the Cubby Hole on the new mainstream radio for the grown and sexy WSNR.US.

And your ear all over the world.

Yeah (chuckles) This backyard is bigger than the whole lot that my property was on in Evanston.

Something like this and Evanston would cost me almost a half a million dollars.

It was quiet, you know, a lot more space, a lot more room.

The actual thing that sold me on the house when we first came here and I looked and I said, "How big is that backyard?"

So my wife, yeah, this is it.

The people that have been affected are older and dying.

What did that repair?

My solutions are more community-based.

I've always want to see economic development for that community and building businesses and building wealth because they got it.

The soul of the community.

They basically ran people out of town.

You know, I wanted to always see the history of the families that were there, that kept Evanston, the place that it was when we were coming up.

I always wanted to see that survive.

And I'm not seeing that now.

(soft music)