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http://www.facebook.com/pages/Unity-in-Action-Magazine/91121983841

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On Monday night, June 14, 2010, longtime community activist Terry Townsend delivered a list of demands for construction of the new school to replace the Booker T. Washington School in Champaign. The new school is to fulfill the requirements of the consent decree to provide an additional 200 seats in the historically black community of the North End. The Unit 4 School Board is currently reviewing bids for the $13 million school. The old school has already been torn down and its replacement will be roughly double the size. Townsend says that this will significantly impact the neighborhood, bringing increased traffic and paving the way for gentrification.

Extended School Vacation and March on Champaign Schools

Coalition Demands

1. We demand that you build a smaller Washington school (BTW). Traffic and parking options are unacceptable.
2. We demand that Champaign schools stop using sales tax money to purchase homes in the BTW target area.
3. We demand a public accounting of sales tax money used for lawyer fees.
4. We demand that you guarantee all walking students within the 1.5 mile radius of BTW a seat in the new school.
5. We demand a copy of the controlled choice seat assignment policy that will be used to assign students to BTW.
6. We demand a public guesstimate of the tax increase on residents in the BTW area and the geographical reach of said tax increase.
7. Superintendent Arthur Culver has stated, “he will not use eminent domain in the BTW area.” We demand a Board of Education resolution consistent with and supportive of said statement.
8. We demand that the parking on the 400 block of East Eureka be restored as the residents have requested and that no additional parking for the BTW will be allotted on that street. Please note: residents cannot park on said street thus they are parking on their front yards. They have been informed that this practice of parking on their front yard subjects them to fines up to 700 dollars!
9. We demand that Douglass Center not be torn down and that programs be developed for all ages of the community. Douglass center should not become an outpost for BTW.
10. We demand that parks that are frequented by minorities close at the same time as other parks.

Demands are negotiable.

If demands are not met, nonviolent direct action will commence August through October.

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CHAMPAIGN – For six years, Seon Williams has been cutting hair at The Whip Hair Designs. Two other stylists work with him at the barbershop on North Fourth Street.

But he might not have gotten the business going without help from the Community Collaboration for Economic Development.

That volunteer group encourages minorities and low-income people to start their own businesses. It does so by offering business workshops, mentors and even a loan program – and it plans to make a new push in 2006.

In 1999, Williams was still in school at Concept College of Cosmetology. He paid a visit to local businessman Robert Hambrick, hoping to get advice on opening a shop.

"I went up to Mr. Hambrick's office and told him I was struggling with 'How can I get my business started?'" Williams said. "He said, 'We have a program that's going to start up next year. Stick around, and you'll be one of the first to be enrolled.'"

Williams attended a series of weekly workshops and discussed his plans and aspirations with mentors from the group.

"I was working with Robert Hambrick, Joe Page, Thom Moore and Al Griggs," Williams said. "Those guys were instrumental in getting my business started."

Now many of those volunteers are at it again. The Community Collaboration plans to offer workshops and mentoring services again next spring, said Page, president of the group.

For several years, the organization offered workshops at the Ridgeway Center in northwest Champaign on topics including business basics, computer basics, credit repair and preparing business plans.

But now, after a quiet period, the group is ready to become active once more.

"We'll have a meeting in January, and we'll pull together volunteers and set up workshops and a mentoring program," said Page, who does training for Worden-Martin Inc. in Champaign.

The group will coordinate its efforts with other community agencies that help people start businesses, he said.

"We coordinate things with the University of Illinois, Parkland College, the Small Business Administration, the Urban League," Page said. "We try to make sure to work with and through these agencies so we're not duplicating things. We want to help facilitate what they're doing, rather than create new things that are counterproductive."

Alvin Griggs, treasurer of the Community Collaboration, said the group has located a place for an office and is looking for staff.

"All of us are volunteers ... and we want to find someone who can help do some of the administrative things," Page said.

Griggs said several area residents went into business as the result of previous workshops, and calls continue to come from people wanting advice on starting a firm.

The turnout for workshops was traditionally good, said Griggs, a retired educator who operates Colony Square Cleaners in Champaign.

"We didn't have one session with under a dozen people. Generally there were 15 to 20 people at the weekly sessions," he said.

Assistance went beyond class lectures.

"It's easy to tell someone to write a business plan, but in many cases you have to show them how," Page said.

Besides offering mentors, the group had a loan committee that reviewed applications for loans.

Thom Moore is secretary of the Community Collaboration for Economic Development. Other board members include Mable Thomas, Al Anderson and Avon Morgan.

Thomas estimated that between 125 and 150 people took part in Community Collaboration workshops and about 40 of them "moved on the idea" of launching a business.

She said participants were warned that if they thought operating their own business meant working less, they were mistaken. They should plan on tripling their workload and not having any profit or vacation at the outset, she said.

The Community Collaboration has received financial support from banks, as well as municipal, state and federal sources. Its workshop series was conceived by Robert and Hazel Hambrick, who operate Hambrick's Maintenance Service.

Williams said having his own barbershop has given him the opportunity to work with young people in the community and encourage their growth.

"It allowed me to work with some of the youth and tell them some of my ideas about life and about business," he said. "It set a big presence, me being a young guy and having a business."

Since Williams opened The Whip, Antonio Turner has been cutting hair with him. Odell Wesley became the third barber in the shop about a year ago.

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Seon Williams has worked in his barbershop, The Whip, 904 N. Fourth St., in Champaign, for 10 years. Throughout that time, many have said he has become more a brother than a barber to the members of the North Champaign community.

“A lot of things that go on in the community directly affect my customers,” Williams said.

The community of North Champaign, however, has dealt with a variety of economic and social hardships over the years that have proved detrimental to the community members, according to a report developed by the Champaign Neighborhood Services Advisory Board.

The report concludes that the median property value of all owner-occupied homes in Bristol Place, a neighborhood community in the area, is less than one-third the median property value of owner-occupied households in the rest of the City of Champaign: a value of $43,303 compared to $138,000.

Development in the community is also below acceptable levels, Williams said.

“I haven’t seen any redevelopment in the area since the Douglass Center in 1977,” he added.

The Douglass Community Center, located within the Champaign Park District, is a fitness facility first constructed in 1945 to serve the predominately black community of North Champaign, according to the Champaign Park District Web site.
Greg Skaggs, Champaign’s community development specialist, said there was a change of values for people within the community throughout the years.

“When a child gets home, there’s not always a parent around and they’re home alone,” Skaggs said.

Skaggs said there has also been a decrease in respect for authority in the area.
However, the problem extends beyond just redevelopment, Williams said.
He said he thought the City of Champaign needed to “allow the African American community to be at the table” for a more accurate assessment of the problems in the area.

“Don’t create something around us that’s not going to be for us,” he added. Despite these issues, Champaign County cannot do a lot for some areas — especially the Shadow Wood trailer park community, which is privately owned — he added.

Skaggs said the city is working on a Bristol Park Neighborhood Redevelopment Plan, which will aim for long-term development of the area bordered by Neil Street, Bradley Street, and Interstate 74, which includes North Champaign.
Robby Boyer, a graduate student and intern in the Neighborhood Services Department, said the biggest problems include after-school and summer recreation for neighborhood children, aging and unmaintained housing and litter in the neighborhood. Crime and gangs also remain a concern, he added. If the plan is approved, community members will see results as early as next year, Skaggs said.

On the University level, plans are being made to increase awareness of problems in the community. The Illinois Student Senate approved appropriations for a documentary detailing the economic and social situations in North Champaign, said Zenobia Ravji, graduate student and student senator.

“It just kind of hit me,” Ravji said. “We have a lot of students who don’t know, and this is literally four blocks from Green Street.”

Ravji said a documentary would be the easiest way to portray the injustices in the community to the rest of the campus.

“We live in a bubble,” Ravji said. “You can spend your entire college career just on campus and never go beyond those boundaries.”

Within the school district, other plans and initiatives are being followed up on, said Kristine Chalifoux, member of the Unit 4 School Board that serves North Champaign.

“I think they’re doing extremely well considering most of them have a very low socioeconomic makeup for their students,” she added. “Data across the rest of the country show that has an impact on student learning.”

Other community members are working on their own solutions to problems facing the area. Aaron Ammons, co-founder of Champaign-Urbana Citizens for Peace and Justice, said the group has been working for the community for almost five years.

“The mission and purpose is community organizing,” Ammons said. “We represent the underserved and forgotten about.”

Ammons said the group also is reaching out to citizens and trying to instill citizenship education, encourage political involvement and strengthen advocacy and the needs of the people.

One of the first projects for the group was preventing the Champaign-Urbana Police Department from purchasing Tasers, he added.

Brian Dolinar, graduate student, said the group had “put up legal defense for a kid that was a victim of police brutality.” Dolinar declined to comment further on the incident.

Williams said he also works on community projects helping the youth and adults of the community.

“I’ve tried to unify the community by bringing the old and young together,” Williams said. “I’m trying to create a different vision for them.”