Illinois news

• This Week In Black History April 26 – May 2, 2023

  26-04-2023 21:55
  
   
  April 26
  1886—The “mother of the Blues” Gertrude “Ma” Rainey is born Gertrude Pridgett in Columbus, Ga. She began her career touring with the Rabbit Foot Minstrels. She was the first person to sing the Blues in minstrel shows. Rainey also coached, then young Blues singer Bessie Smith who would become more famous and celebrated than Rainer. Rainey died Dec. 22, 1939.
  1994—The first all race elections take place in then White ruled South Africa. The elect
  
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• Catharsis through fire

  26-04-2023 18:43 via chicagoreader.com
  
  To break in their new North Lawndale space, Kezia Waters directs Theatre Y’s production of Jackie Sibblies Drury’s 2012 meta meditation on colonialism, genocide, and racial trauma. (The play received its world premiere at Victory Gardens Theater.) Structured as a rehearsal for a play about the massacre of the Herero people of Namibia by the […]
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• Bluegrass healing

  26-04-2023 18:23 via chicagoreader.com
  
  Hearken back to a simpler time—the pandemic—and join Mira, a classical violinist, and Beckett, a folk music academic, as they escape their Brooklyn apartment and head to a hootenanny in Georgia. Along the way, Mira, who is biracial (one parent white and one of Korean descent), reveals to Beckett that her estranged grandfather lives in […]
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• Soul vocal group the Independents grew out of a powerful songwriting duo

  26-04-2023 18:09 via chicagoreader.com
  
  All forms of art speak of their time, and during events of historical significance, art reliably reflects those changes, whether overtly or subtly. Often the artists themselves respond by creating new aesthetics or philosophies. Righteous Chicago soul group the Independents didn’t catalyze a musical revolution of their own, but they still prove the point: they […]
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• Still the word

  26-04-2023 18:07 via chicagoreader.com
  
  There have been many versions of Jim Jacobs and Warren Casey’s Grease: the raunchy one that premiered at Kingston Mines in 1971; a much cleaned-up version that opened a year later in New York; the star-heavy 1978 movie (which, among other abominations, takes a Chicago girl named Dumbrowski and gives her an Aussie accent). And […]
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• Ready to rock

  26-04-2023 17:44 via chicagoreader.com
  
  Airness, now playing at the Citadel Theatre, delivers a rocking good time, laughs, and a rock classic earworm to follow you home. Chelsea Marcantel’s play follows the journey of Nina (an earnest Julia Rowley) an outsider who dives headfirst into the world of competitive air guitar. Nina initially judges her fellow competitors as cringeworthy but […]
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• Springtime family fun

  26-04-2023 17:20 via chicagoreader.com
  
  The Very Hungry Caterpillar is a delightful, mesmerizing production created by Jonathan Rockefeller that’s been traveling the globe for the last five years. Chicago Children’s Theatre first brought this charming show, based on four classic children’s books by Eric Carle, to local audiences in 2019. (In addition to the title story, the show also brings […]
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• School of Rock doesn’t quite make the grade

  26-04-2023 16:57 via chicagoreader.com
  
  The idea of turning Richard Linklater’s brilliant 2003 film comedy, School of Rock (about a struggling guitarist/substitute teacher coaching his prep-school students on how to, well, rock), into a Broadway musical sounds like a great one. All you need is a book writer capable of preserving the wit and warmth of Mike White’s screenplay, a […]
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• Cook County State’s Attorney Kim Foxx Won’t Seek Reelection

  26-04-2023 16:00
  
  Kim Foxx, the first Black person elected as Cook County State’s Attorney, will not seek reelection when her term is up in 2024. 
  Foxx revealed her plans to the City Club of Chicago during a rousing address on Tuesday.
  “And so I am announcing today that at the conclusion of my term in November of 2024, I will be stepping down as states attorney. I will not be on next year’s ballot, by my choice,” she said.
  And what an address it was for Foxx, who was elected as the Co
  
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• Black Man Says He Was Forced Out Of Bed & Wrongly Detained While-Half Naked

  26-04-2023 14:30
  
  A California man says he “felt like a runaway slave” when he was awoken from his sleep by officers and wrongly detained while half-naked.The incident unfolded last week after Los Angeles County Sheriff’s deputies entered the home of longtime Compton resident Derrick Cooper at around 4 a.m. and detained him at gunpoint, per KTLA.
  Cooper said he felt “humiliated” and “violated” as he was forced out of his home naked from the waist down.
  “[I asked] &
  
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• The Carr Report: ‘You said I’ll be a millionaire by the time I retire…’

  26-04-2023 14:00
  
  Getty Images
  Hi Damon. I’m not sure if you remember me.  You helped me put together a financial plan a couple of years ago. I can’t say that I followed it to the letter, but I have implemented many of your ideas. I follow you on Facebook. I’m also an avid reader of your column. I believe in your advice and the principles you teach. There is one thing you told me during our coaching session that I’m having a hard time grasping. You told me that if I follow the advice
  
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• Student Breaks National Record With 125 College Offers, $9M In Scholarships

  26-04-2023 14:00
  
  A New Orleans high school student has shattered a national record by receiving offers from 125 colleges and $9 million in scholarships.According to 9News, Dennis Barnes, a senior at International High School of New Orleans, broke the record for the number of offers and scholarships earned by any college-bound senior in U.S. history.
  The previous record was set by a Lafayette high school senior who received $8.7 million in scholarships in 2019, per the Guinness Book of World Records. Barnes&rsquo
  
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