The Struggle for a Latino Place in Chicago

Like Their Black Neighbors, Mexican Americans Fought for Decades to Access Restricted Housing and Urban Space

In June of 1966, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.  and his Southern Christian Leadership Conference headed north to Chicago to lead the Chicago Freedom Movement in a series of marches through all-white neighborhoods intended to take aim at the city’s deeply-entrenched residential segregation.

They marched through Gage Park and the surrounding neighborhoods of Chicago’s Southwest Side, where rows of bungalow homes provided a perfect visual. The modest houses were within buying reach for many Black families, but decades-old restrictions and discriminatory practices by real estate agents barred African Americans from purchasing …

Where I Go: Hunting Queer Ghosts in Chicago | Zocalo Public Square • Arizona State University • Smithsonian

Where I Go: Hunting Queer Ghosts in Chicago

Why Being Gay and Being Haunted Go Together in Fundamental Ways

We think the ghosts will come to us as we sit in Kaitlyn’s car, once our car, on top of the man-made hill that houses the only mausoleum in Woodlawn …

Preparing Dinosaurs Author Caitlin Donahue Wylie | Zocalo Public Square • Arizona State University • Smithsonian

Preparing Dinosaurs Author Caitlin Donahue Wylie

Cretaceous Herbivores Are Overlooked in Their Awesomeness

Caitlin Donahue Wylie is a social scientist at University of Virginia and author of Preparing Dinosaurs: The Work Behind the Scenes. Ahead of her visit to Zócalo for an event titled …

The Anticipatory Grief of Living Through a Pandemic | Zocalo Public Square • Arizona State University • Smithsonian

The Anticipatory Grief of Living Through a Pandemic

The Great Believers, a Novel of the AIDS Crisis, Reminds Us That ‘We Are the Memory-Keepers of This Moment’

To be a survivor of wars, of diseases, of earth-shattering moments is to be an inheritor. You inherit the grief that comes with loss; but you also inherit the memories, …

How Chicago Lifted Itself Out of the Swamp and Became a Modern Metropolis

By Building Canals, Laying Sewers, and Jacking Up Buildings, the Windy City Spurred Its Miraculous Growth

In 1833, Chicago was a wilderness outpost of just 350 residents, clumped around a small military fort on soggy land where the Chicago River trickled into Lake Michigan. The site …