Move aside, Bonnie and Clyde. Modern-day desperados could put Chicago on pace for another record year of bank robberies.

Instead of career robbers, people from many walks of life are gravitating to robbery, ranging from drug addicts to employed middle-class individuals, according to Gregory Scott, professor of sociology at DePaul University.

"We're coming to the end of the really well-plotted, well-organized bank robbery that results from long-term strategic planning. Now we're talking about lower-level bank robberies," he said.

In addition, Scott said, the new breed of robbers is more diverse than the old guard.

According to the FBI, 9,010 people were involved in 7,272 bank robberies nationwide in 2006. Black males executed 46 percent of robberies nationwide, white males 36 percent, and women only 6 percent. Of these robbers, the FBI identified 3,584 people; 46 percent were narcotics users and 22 percent were previously convicted for bank robbery, bank burglary, or bank larceny.

Today's robbers are spontaneous and opportunistic, according to a 2007 study commissioned by the U.S. Department of Justice, which identified three factors contributing to rising robbery rates: more bank outlets and extended hours creating greater opportunities, robbers' perceptions of banks as a lucrative target and because robberies are usually fast, low risk crimes.

After decades of fewer than 100 robberies per year, robberies in the Chicago metropolitan area shot up in the mid-1990s. In 2006, the number of robberies peaked at 284, more than in the entire state of Florida.

The Chicago office of the FBI collects bank robbery data for the five-county area surrounding Chicago - Cook, DuPage, Kane, Lake and Will counties. As of March 12, there were 52 bank robberies in the area, on par with numbers for the same 10-week period in 2007. The total robbery tally for 2007 came in at 226, down 26 percent from 2006.

By extrapolating the first several weeks of robbery activity for the remainder of 2008, "we could be on pace for another record year," said Ross Rice, a spokesman in the FBI's Chicago office.

Illinois is not the only state grappling with higher robbery rates. Nationwide, a new era of bank robbery is on the rise - and banks are paying the price.

In 2006, robbers hit 6,985 federally insured financial institutions, stealing a total of $72.7 million, of which law enforcement recovered $11.2 million. Although 90 percent of robberies are a "success," according to the Department of Justice study, nearly 60 percent of robbers are eventually caught.

And robbers face big risks for a typically small reward. For an average take of $2,000 to $3,000 per robbery in the Chicago area, robbers face federal punishment of up to 20 years in prison.

To the non-robber, these risks may be too much, but Scott said some robbers may not even be aware of the how little they'll nab or how long they'll sit in prison if convicted.

"When people reach a point of fiscal desperation, they're often not weighing the costs and benefits," Scott said.

In addition, security measures apparently do little to deter robbers. Of the 7,272 robberies or attempted robberies nationwide in 2006, 98 percent of victim institutions had an alarm system and/or surveillance cameras.

One man accused of robbing seven Indiana banks told a newspaper earlier this month that his only deterrent to robbing banks was security guards. However, fewer than 10 percent of banks robbed in 2006 had a guard on duty.

After two robberies at a North LaSalle Street branch of Builders Bank, president Chas Hall said the bank decided to hire a guard for that location. He said the bank took this additional security measure in part to deter would-be robbers, but mostly to provide peace of mind to the bank's employees.

"We don't want that to happen to our employees again," Hall said.

But if a recession is on the way, could employees like Hall's be subjected to the desperate measures of desperate robbers again? Not necessarily.

There is no direct correlation between crime and unemployment according to Scott, though economic crime rates may move with changes in the economy.

"When things change fast - unemployment suddenly spikes or it suddenly goes down - people are thrown into what sociologists call anomie," Scott said.

Anomie is marked by instability and a lack of societal norms and Scott said individuals are more likely to take greater risks during such periods.

In addition, robbery was on the rise even before the r-word was on everyone's lips. Rather, rising robbery rates may just be a by-product of changes in the banking industry.

Price said the FBI does not interpret robbery data, but said the most commonly touted hypothesis for rising robbery rates is the proliferation of branch banking.

"The theory is that this creates a greater opportunity for people who are so inclined," he said.

This theory sticks with Scott. As financial institutions have become more decentralized, he said, banks have become more accessible to consumers, but at the expense of becoming more accessible to robbers.

"This is a technological innovation that has legitimate pro-social goals, but . the underbelly of greater accessibility is greater vulnerability," Scott said. "Banks are far more susceptible to being robbed and they're easier to rob."

But even as banks continue to expand, they are fighting back, according to Debbie Jemison, spokeswoman for the Illinois Bankers Association.

"Banks are doing everything they can to protect their employees and customers," Jemison said.

She said several security measures thwart would-be robbers, including security guards, bank fraud task force programs, and participation in the association's thumbprint signature program and FRAUD-NET.

The thumbprint signature program requires non-account holders to provide an inkless impression of their thumbprints for certain transactions. Meanwhile, FRAUD-NET is an online collaboration for banks to share information about robberies with other financial institutions and law enforcement agencies.

Within minutes of a robbery, for example, a bank can electronically disperse a physical description and information about the robber's modus operandi to other banks in the network and law enforcement officials.

In addition, many Illinois banks are participating in a program to combat rising robbery rates, the "No Hats, No Hoods, No Sunglasses" program. The bankers association launched the program in 2006--security guards ask people entering the bank to remove hats, hoods or sunglasses-- as an inexpensive way for banks to deter so-called "note job" robberies, in which a person hands a note to a teller demanding money. In 2006, more than half of robbers demanded money using a note.

Beyond the take, there are other costs to robberies, according to Hall, the Builders Bank president.

"The biggest cost [of a robbery] is that is such a traumatic experience for our employees," Hall said.

Hall said the emotional cost far outweighs any financial cost and said banks should be very appreciative of their tellers.

Jemison of the Illinois Bankers Association agrees. "There is definitely a psychological cost," both for employees and customers, she said. If a bank is a robbed, it will often provide a program for affected employees and customers. And the effects of a robbery are felt even after the robber has fled.

Working with the FBI's Violent Crimes Task Force, victim banks provide valuable information to law enforcement to catch serial robbers - people who have committed at least three robberies.

And bankers are always looking for ways to keep robbers at bay, according to Jemison.

"Banks constantly review their procedures to better thwart robberies from occurring," she said.

But Scott, of DePaul, is not optimistic that these efforts are working yet. While he expects robberies to reach a saturation point, he said some security measures - such as surveillance cameras - do not effectively deter criminals.

Her $519 mortgage doubled three months ago. Small, plug-in heaters and a constantly burning oven kept at least the downstairs warm for a few winter nights until the next paycheck. The mortgage on Aurora Thomas' two-story, red brick house on Chicago's South Side is past due, along with several other bills.But household debts are only half of Thomas' financial breakdown. Short-term loans Thomas used to stay warm and in her house add to the turmoil.

"It's just really upsetting to think about. I don't know whether to pack or not; or what to do," Thomas said, "Everything is going wrong. And then you just-it just-gets worse."

Thomas' mortgage was initially with Ameriquest, the lender currently fighting an Illinois class action lawsuit alleging fraud.

"My mortgage has changed hands several times," said the soft-spoken Thomas, "I went into bankruptcy in 2003 to get out of my mortgage with Ameriquest because it was an adjustable rate mortgage. And then my mortgage got transferred so many times, I ended up back with the same company and the same adjustable rate mortgage."

Thomas has owned her home since 1998 and her mortgage has changed hands five times in the past five years. Ameriquest bought Thomas' mortgage on two separate occasions. Poplar Mortgage now owns Thomas' past due loan.

"I called Poplar Mortgage ... to see if I could work out a payment plan, but they didn't want to help." Thomas said, "I asked if I could make a lower payment and they said, 'There's nothing we can do for you. So you can just sell it.'"

Poplar Mortgage did not respond to requests for comment for this article.

Amidst the boxes and bags of clothes and pictures and old blankets in her basement, Thomas waited for the bad news. The first foreclosure notice arrived on Monday. Her hands often pressed against her forehead as she considered her scarifying options.

Thomas earns $18,000 a year between two part-time jobs as a nurse. Chicago's median income is almost $35,000. Rising prices quickly upset the already strained balance of Thomas' household expenses. A jump in the mortgage and heating costs during the coldest winter since 1978 was crushing.

For Thomas, short-term loans weren't debt relief; they were stress relief.

"I knew it probably wasn't the best idea, but what else are you going to do," Thomas said, "You can't just wait to get thrown out of your house. You stop waiting and you do what you can."

By the end of January, Thomas had accumulated four loans totaling $1,500 from storefront loan shops and online lenders. The loans charged $2,326.15 in interest in addition to the actual loan amount.

Despite the 2005 Payday Loan Reform Act, these loans are still legal. The 2005 law only covers loans lasting 120 days or less. Thomas' loan from First Cash Advance has a 126-day repayment schedule.

The longer loans that Thomas took out are called consumer installment loans. Although installment loans are often sold by lenders that offer payday loans, the installment version has fewer restrictions and often higher interest rates.

One loan from First Cash Advance charged Thomas $1,105 in interest on a $425 loan. According to Thomas' payment schedule, nine payments of $68 lead up to one final balloon payment of $493 in June 2008. First Cash Advance's parent company is licensed to provide payday loans as well as consumer installment loans like the one Thomas received.

"There are so many games out here. They tell you how much it costs and you think you can just pay it a little bit at a time," Thomas said, "But you can't. And if you don't pay, they take it out of your check."

First Cash Advance's representative did not respond to requests for comment.

Thomas' loan with First Cash Advance included an agreement to garnish up to 15 percent of her wages if she missed any of her loan payments. A missed payment could take as much as $225 a month directly out of Thomas' paycheck.

"I had four different loans and I had to pay on the bills and I'm still trying to stay in my home. That's the reason I got into [these] loans in the first place," Thomas said, "So when I realized I might get behind on my loans I asked them, can I just pay what I owe and not pay the interest? Some worked with me and some didn't."

Illinois law requires lenders to give struggling borrowers a 56-day interest-free repayment period if they cannot pay their payday loans. But the law doesn't apply to installment loans.

More than 1,300 short-term loan shops dot Illinois' street corners. Citizen Action Illinois and other consumer advocacy groups are trying to get tougher laws passed.

Citizen Action asks people to send in complaints about payday loan companies, but many of the loan agreements make a class action lawsuit unlikely. Thomas' loan included an arbitration agreement barring customers from participating "as a member of claimants in any lawsuit filed against" the loan company.

Consumer rights advocates are pursuing other solutions in the Illinois General Assembly. Senate Bill 1993, passed out of the Financial Institutions Committee on Wednesday, would extend the Payday Loan Reform Act to all loans with interest rates over 36 percent, no matter how long the payment schedule lasts.

"Right now, if the loan lasts more than 120 days it is governed under the Consumer Installment Loan Act and there are no protections," said Linda DeLaforgue of Citizen Action Illinois.

Installment loans have been characterized by Citizen Action Illinois as causing even more damage than payday loans because they stretch out the debt over more payments and charge more interest.

"Often people think they are getting a regular payday loan, but they are not," said DeLaforgue, "People can only have two payday loans at a time, but they can take out more of the installment loans at even higher interest rates at the exact same time."

The State Senate is scheduled to vote on the new Payday Loan Reform Act on Tuesday.

"This is a very important piece of legislation. Most of the loan companies are steering people into these longer loans," said DeLaforgue, "We encourage anyone who has gotten into trouble with a payday loan or a consumer installment loan to contact their senator."

Citizen Action Illinois has been working with State Senators Pamela Althoff (R-Crystal Lake), Kim Lightford (D-Westchester), Jackie Collins and William Delgado (both D-Chicago) who co-sponsored the bill.

The bill also includes a provision to return a portion of the interest to borrowers who pay off their loans before the final due date.

The proposed law would take effect as soon as it is passed, but Aurora Thomas and others who already have loans are locked into their debts. Thomas is working with Chicago's Neighborhood Housing Service to pay off her loans and stay in her home.

"I'm still not sure what will happen. On Friday, I'll have one loan down and three to go." Thomas said, "I've found out a lot of things the hard way since I've owned a home."

Thomas's mortgage is still past due, but Poplar Mortgage had not begun official foreclosure proceedings.

Even though the most recent condominium conversion craze has slowed, many Chicago renters are still at risk for losing their leases.

When the real estate market boomed a few years ago, many developers started buying apartment buildings and converting them to condominiums. The high demand for real estate meant that selling units was more profitable than renting them. The surge of 2004-06 was the latest in a pattern of condo conversions dating back to the 1970s.

As the market for real estate has slowed so has the conversion trend. The trend peaked last year, according to John Bartlett, executive director at the Metropolitan Tenants Organization, which helps tenants learn their rights in scenarios like condo conversions. But, he said, "It's still a problem."

In February 2006, Zakiyya Muhammad found a memo on the door of her Bronzeville apartment saying the building was sold and she should attend a meeting at the local church.  Muhammad said residents were then asked if they intended to buy.

Many of the residents were Section 8 (subsidized housing) tenants and could not afford to purchase their apartments. Eventually, their leases were renewed with a clause requiring them to move within 90 days if someone wanted to buy their space, Muhammad said. She added that renters paying market rate were allowed to stay without the 90-day moving stipulation.

With the real estate downturn, even former hot-spots are experiencing a housing lag. Muhammad said the first building in her complex to convert to condominiums has been experiencing slow sales. Her building is now part of a rent-to-buy program where residents rent for six to eight months with the option of buying and having their payments transferred to a mortgage.

"Not all buildings lend themselves to be conversions," said George Carlson, president of Conversion Specialist Incorporated, a condominium conversion firm that works in Chicago's suburbs. Muhammad said that her building has an assortment of problems including bad plumbing.

Carlson explained that Chicago's real estate market is slowing less than other regions of the country. "If you have a good locations you know people are going to buy," he said. "I think there's a pent-up demand out there."

That pent-up demand was probably what led to the interest in Muhammad's complex; Bronzeville has been gentrifying recently.

"Gentrification, urban flight, black flight, those are the terminologies that we use," Muhammad said.

Condo conversion is part of gentrification. Problems arise when people in the apartments can't afford to buy. Legally, the apartment resident has first option for buying, but many don't have the money to purchase right away.

According to Carlson, about 10 to 15 percent of people who live in a property will buy it if it converts, but the number can be as high as 20 percent or more. He adds that, with tax benefits and appreciation, it can actually be cheaper to own, provided the resident can make the down payment. With the credit crunch, however, even though interest rates are low, some lenders are reluctant to give mortgages to low-income buyers.

At the height of the condo conversion boom came more protection for tenants. They are now legally guaranteed 120 days to move, 180 for the disabled or elderly.

In Summer 2007 the Illinois General Assembly passed a bill allowing former tenants to receive up to $10,000 in damages if a developer misrepresented its intention to convert a building to condominiums.

According to Bartlett, though, "There's certainly not enough regulation [for condo conversions], especially if there's any problems."

On a recent Sunday outside Beth Eden Baptist Church, just two blocks from the whir of expressway traffic, a sacred sound rises above the crunch of autumn leaves under latecomers’ feet.

Beth Eden, the “Mother Church of Morgan Park,” is gearing up another Sunday service. The church is the place where the long road from the South first enters metropolitan Chicago, on West 111th Street and South Loomis Avenue, which is newly named for longtime music director Robert E. Wooten Sr.

This church and these sounds capture an original Chicago creation – modern gospel music – in its glory, complexity, and at an important crossroads.

Gospel thrives in new forms and influences popular music at large, but some experts worry that its roots in older congregations may be in danger; others say its very popularity is pulling it from its religious mission. Many artists, devotees and congregants are committed to gospel in many forms, and Chicago’s South Side maintains the richest traditions in the world.

Since 1923, Beth Eden has welcomed the Great Migration of African-Americans and nurtured generations of gospel music.

“Lord, I want to live up yonder.” On this particular Sunday, these lyrics are intoned slowly, carefully, in an a cappella jubilee version of the old spiritual.

“My Mother’s gone to glory, I want to go there too,” the ensemble continues in a pitch-perfect harmony revealing both practice and devotion. “Lord, I want to live up yonder, in bright mansions above.”

Soft shouts of praise from the sparse congregation obscure the end of this delicate paean to God and the Underground Railroad. But before the applause can fade, Minister of Music Robert E. Wooten Jr. slides into an organ-driven “I Thank You, Jesus” and the church erupts in tambourine sway and praise.

Gospel Tradition Intro >>

Page 2 - Pace, Pilgrim and the Gospel Blues

Page 3 - The Gospel Blues – Sacred or Secular?

Page 4 - Which Way Gospel?

Extra: Video Perspectives on Chicago's Gospel Traditions

History – Pace, Pilgrim and the Gospel Blues

Bronzeville's Pilgrim Baptist Church was an early adopter of what become modern gospel music.
Peter Holderness/MEDILL

Black migration streams from the South date back more than 150 years, but when World War I halted European immigration and raised Northern demand for industrial labor, the stream to cities such as Chicago became a mighty river. Historians estimate that up to 7 million African-Americans moved north in 50 years of The Great Migration – a movement of epic scale.

The pages of the Chicago Defender, disseminated at whistlestops across the South by Chicago-based Pullman car porters, trumpeted the opportunities awaiting blacks in Chicago, and new arrivals brought more than dreams for a better future, they brought rich cultural traditions. Black music was already changing from field and work songs to spirituals, blues, jazz and more.

“From 1915 to 1960 over a half-million African-Americans migrated to Chicago from the South, including my mother and father,” said Fernando Jones, a renowned bluesman and professor of music at Columbia College in Chicago. “A lot of the musicians that were the architects of modern music were part of that migration.”

One of these architects, known as the best brothel-and-party piano player in Atlanta, moved north in 1916 to find fortune in Chicago’s famed music bars. “Thomas A. Dorsey sang the blues,” Jones said, “but he also created a gospel music considered heavenly. He could sing both with complete conviction.”

Dorsey worked in churches – he was appointed music director at Chicago’s New Hope Baptist Church in 1922 – and in blues clubs and studios, recording a huge hit as Georgia Tom with the sexually suggestive single “Tight Like That” in 1928.

In 1925, Charles Henry Pace organized the Pace Jubilee Singers at Beth Eden, establishing the church as a center for the sounds of emerging gospel music. Though their toe-tapping, carefully arranged spiritual style was popular, the vocal improvisations of the “Dorsey Songs” performed by Mahalia Jackson, Willie Mae Ford Smith and others would establish Dorsey as the most famous gospel composer of all.

Still, his achievement was built on a rich foundation. “When the blues is added first to spirituals and then to jubilee, it becomes gospel,” gospel historian Robert Darden writes in his 2004 book, “People Get Ready!”

Pilgrim Baptist Church, the landmark Louis Sullivan structure built as a synagogue in 1890 at East 33rd Street and South Indiana Avenue, embraced this sound and invited Dorsey to form a gospel choir in 1932. Dorsey’s wife and newborn daughter died that same year, and Dorsey dedicated his life to the church, writing “Take My Hand, Oh Precious Lord,” the most famous of gospel songs.

“Even today, I bet that 1-in-3 African American funerals feature that song,” said Jones, who was born in Bronzeville, not far from Pilgrim Baptist.
Scores of Chicago churches supported the vibrant and evolving sounds of gospel worship, but a special bond remained between Pilgrim and Beth Eden.

In 1933, Associate Pastor Richard Keller left Pilgrim, then the second-largest church in the city, to become pastor at Beth Eden.

Dr. Robert E. Wooten Sr. founded the Wooten Ensemble at Beth Eden Baptist Church in 1949. The elder Wooten played for Thomas Dorsey and is a critical link in Chicago's storied gospel history.
Peter Holderness/MEDILL

Robert Wooten Sr. remembers growing up at Beth Eden in those days of intense music and movement. “Anybody who came here, they knew Beth Eden was noted for its music. On second and fourth Sundays,” he said, pointing around the warmly lit sanctuary, “you couldn’t get anywhere near here to get a good seat. It was that well-attended.”

In 1949 Wooten Sr. founded the Wooten Ensemble at Beth Eden, now under the direction of his son, who is known as “Bobby.” It is the longest-operating community ensemble in the country.

“We started rehearsing on Tuesday nights in ’49 and I never changed that time in all these years,” the elder Wooten said. “I had one member in the armed forces for 20 years and I saw him outside the church and said ‘When you comin’ back?’” Wooten said as the sanctuary emptied. “‘When you rehearsin’?’ he asked and I said ‘You know it’s still on Tuesday night,’ so he came right back.”

Wooten Sr., a music conservatory graduate, said he responded to a call from God to build an ensemble that would sing gospel jubilee, spirituals, anthems, hymns and more.

This unusual breadth and uncompromising commitment to black sacred music has entwined Beth Eden and the Wootens with the history of gospel.

“I had an audience with Thomas Dorsey,” Wooten said. “We did all of his selections and then he came out and spoke and shared a third verse of ‘Precious Lord’ with us. It was very, very meaningful.”

In January 2006, Dorsey’s famed Pilgrim Baptist Church burned to the ground. Today, across the street from the ashes and broken shell of the building, Pastor Keith Gordon leads a revival of the Pilgrim community. The key to Gordon’s faith? Beth Eden Baptist Church.

“I was age 15 in Sunday school class” at Beth Eden, Gordon said, “when I finally understood what Christianity really meant. … Gospel music was part of that same beginning for me.”

Gospel Tradition Intro >>

Page 2 - Pace, Pilgrim and the Gospel Blues

Page 3 - The Gospel Blues – Sacred or Secular?

Page 4 - Which Way Gospel?

Extra: Video Perspectives on Chicago's Gospel Traditions

The Gospel Blues – Sacred or Secular?

Fernando Jones is a renowned bluesman and professor of music at Columbia College in Chicago.
Peter Holderness/MEDILL

As famous as the blues-melded gospel sounds of Thomas Dorsey, Mahalia Jackson and Pilgrim Baptist have become, their acceptance was not inevitable.

“Initially the church was hostile toward this music as blues,” said gospel musician Johari Jabir, who is a member of the African-American Studies department at Northwestern University and an expert in black sacred music and cultural historical studies. “The church was shaping [newly arrived] black folks into obedient urban citizens, and the blues disrupts that,” he said. “Dorsey’s merging of these two forms was unsettling for people.”

Fernando Jones, winner of this year’s Keeping the Blues Alive award from the Blues Foundation, agrees. “During that time blacks were just one generation out of slavery or sharecropping.”

Churches, especially in the North, wanted arranged music that showed sophistication, Jones said.

“Memories from sharecropping were associated with the blues, with field hollers,” he said. “When Dorsey came to church he would put his foot up on the piano, he would put on a show. That’s why the gospel music moves us,” Jones said, “because it has that blues element in it, you know.”

One of Dorsey’s earliest and most important gospel collaborators explained her approach to both forms and is quoted in Darden’s history. “The gospel song is the Christian blues,” Willie Mae Ford Smith Said in the 1930’s. “I’m like the blues singer: When something’s rubbing me the wrong way, I sing out of my soul to settle it down.”

Dorsey, according to historians, was no less shy about his approach. “Everything is a show,” he reportedly said. “You got to know how to do your show.”

Eventually the power and popularity of the Dorsey songs made them canon in black churches, but the debate over secular influences in sacred music continues today.

“I was a kid when Edwin Hawkins came out with ‘Oh Happy Day,’” Jabir said, referencing the funky 1967 arrangement of a 19th century hymn. “And there were people in my church who said ‘oh no; no no no.’”

“It used to be just pianos and tambourines … It was almost sacrilegious to play electric instruments,” Jones said, but over time the organ became a staple of service, and gradually more instruments were added. Still, the boundaries seem mysterious to Jones. “My mother told me that when she was coming up in Mississippi you could do your religious shouts and move a little, but you can’t cross your feet, because that was dancing,” he said.

Darden also quotes the Rev. Wyatt Tee Walker, a co-founder and former executive director of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, poking fun at the thin line sometimes drawn in church.

“The same beat that black folks dance to on Saturday night is the same beat that they shout to on Sunday morning,” Walker said. “If you hear the beat and do not know what the program is, watch the direction of the shout. It the shout is up and down, it’s religious; if it’s from side to side, it is probably secular,” he said, according to Darden’s 2004 book.

Other musicians with deep roots in Chicago’s gospel history tell similar stories of rejection and acceptance, usually mediated by time.

“People have been saying that [new gospel music] is too secular forever,” said Roxanne Stevenson, a life-long church musician who is now director of bands at Chicago State University. “When my dad played his music from Jubilee Showcase … the Swan Silvertones, Clyde Jeter ... and all those old guys, my grandfather thought those were the blues, too worldly,” she said.

“So I decided that if my granddad thought that Dad’s music, which I thought was old as dust, was too blues, then my music from the ’70s, ’80s, ’90s must be OK. To me, if it’s holy 30 years later, it was holy 30 years ago.”

“I started playing piano at my mom’s church,” Stevenson said. “When I could finally make sense out of my saxophone, I brought my horn instead and the pastor, he didn’t care. He just said let everything that has breath praise the Lord.”

Stevenson said many of her friends were not so lucky and used to trade stories of being thrown out of church for playing their horns “with too much blues” in houses of worship.

Stevenson takes her mission seriously, whether she’s playing at Trinity United Church of Christ, the mega-church on West 95th Street to which Barack Obama belongs, or at a secular club.

“I like the ministry, the spirit, the heart of the matter,” she said. “There are no real rules you have to follow. It doesn’t have to be danceable like R&B or swing like jazz. ... As long as the message is from the heart to the heart, and as long as the message is Jesus Christ, then it’s still gospel music.”

The director of Trinity’s formidable music program, Robert E. Wooten Jr., says the No. 1 concern of his music ministry is “having church.”

“Our music has a message,” he said. “Gospel music signifies some kind of reverence … If it’s speaking truth, biblical truth, then we can use it in worship. If it is just adornment, then it won’t get too much movement.”

Wooten Jr. leads one of the largest and most inclusive musical programs in the city, preparing 27 different pieces for the 10,000-member Trinity each week, and still serving as music minister at Beth Eden twice monthly. Although he occasionally stops his young players from “practicing your jazz at church unless you’re planning to work gospel at your jazz gig,” Wooten Jr. says gospel music is accepting. “If Thomas Dorsey could do [boogie-woogie] before doing ‘Oh Precious Lord’ and ‘I’m on the Battlefield,’ then certainly we can accept some of the things done by younger people now.”

Gordon, the young leader of Pilgrim Baptist, is taking a harder line as he rebuilds the venerable church.

“We’ll try to meet you on your ground,” he said, “but in this church we don’t compromise. If an artist isn’t based on Christ, he won’t play here.”

Gordon paused to break down his words. “Gospel means God’s spell,” he said, “and you can’t get God’s spell unless it comes from Jesus.”

Gospel Tradition Intro >>

Page 2 - Pace, Pilgrim and the Gospel Blues

Page 3 - The Gospel Blues – Sacred or Secular?

Page 4 - Which Way Gospel?

Extra: Video Perspectives on Chicago's Gospel Traditions

Which Way Gospel?

Percussionist Makaya McCraven came to Chicago to take advantage of the vibrant gospel music community.
Peter Holderness/MEDILL

If the stretch of road Bobby Wooten travels between Beth Eden and Trinity connects gospel music’s rich roots to its accessible modern sound, it also crosses paths with an ongoing debate about the sacred content of the celebrated form.

As congregations age and gospel shares its talented musicians with the secular world, more may be at stake than ever before.

Cultural critic Johari Jabir worries that commodification of gospel music – whether for recording contracts or to fill mega-churches – risks sapping the form of its swing, of the powerful human connection that has defined it across many forms.

“Anytime you have a media-driven production in worship, that’s going to be a different thing than when people depend on their bodies and will and talent. When you have cameras and big screens, it isn’t as raw as handclapping and people just swinging it out,” he said. “In the ’20s and ’30s, when gospel music emerges, black folks are still being lynched,” he said. “Our music imitates these horrors and you can’t just extract the hardships.”

“I don’t mean to diss or tell people what to play,” he added. “I know that to grow, the music has to change. …I know you’re not going to build a megachurch on the Dorsey canon, but what kind of gospel is being repackaged to draw people?”

Without the draw of new people, however, the multitude of churches that define and retain the South Side’s rich heritage in gospel music are threatened. Jabir sees no easy solution to the tension between a repackaged sound that thrives and the principled traditions upheld by shrinking congregations.

At the same time, black churches continue to incubate and support skilled musicians. Like Thomas Dorsey, these musicians are influenced by and contribute to popular and gospel music.

This two-way street between the sacred and secular is not new, but its intersection with the divide between megachurches and the raw gospel experience described by Jabir puts Chicago at the center of a crossroads.

In fact, Chicago’s gospel scene has become the prime training ground for young musicians, and an easy place to find talent. From BET’s “Sunday’s Best” to top touring acts, gospel musicians power popular music.

“I think the best musicians are in the churches,” Stevenson said between classes at Chicago State.

“A lot of them don’t learn to read music right away, but any song you want them to play, they could play in any key... I would take a gospel musician anywhere [on tour] because I know they bring ears … which is beyond most musicians.”

Makaya McCraven, a young percussionist who just moved to Chicago to pan its rich musical prospects, said gospel drummers are constantly picked up for tours and studio sessions.

“If they get you out of a gospel tradition, then they know you’re going to be able to play the parts. If it takes a few times to hear the part [because you don’t read music], it’s still worth it,” McCraven said, echoing the Stevenson’s argument. “They know you will really be able to hit it.”

“You hear some of these young guys out there on the scene and they’re just killing it, using strokes they developed in the church,” McCraven said.

“And the church provides a place for practice when there might not be other spaces to go,” he said. “Think about it – gospel musicians get a chance to play each week in church, plus rehearsals and other services. That’s a lot of time to practice and develop!”

Jones said that churches also incubate talent that the industry might ignore, citing as an example kids too young to play in clubs. “The church is not biased: If you’re overweight, too skinny, too light, too dark, freckles … you can still play,” Jones said. “The guys in the band might crack jokes on you, but you’re not going to be kicked out of the choir.”

But incubating talent does not guarantee that musicians will devote themselves to the church, especially if they must find income elsewhere.

Robert E. Wooten Jr. watches the congregation leave Beth Eden Baptist Church, where he is the minister of music. Wooten Jr. is also director of music at mega-church Trinity UCC, on 95th Street.
Peter Holderness/MEDILL

The younger Wooten said he has never had trouble finding musicians for Trinity, which pays its band.

“Biblically, the Levites were always taken care of,” he said. Although some people don’t think musicians should be paid, Wooten shakes his head. “Let me set the record straight, Trinity is not one of those churches,” he said. “You can’t expect a great music program and not be willing to invest in it.”

Every first and third Sunday, Wooten Jr. spirits away from Trinity after the 7:30 a.m. service to drive 15 blocks south to Beth Eden.

He leaves the massive modern sanctuary, hundreds choir and band members, and thousands more congregants, to spend a few hours at the place he calls his “home church.”

The older congregation gathered around his father at Beth Eden cannot tithe as well as it once did, but the church still fills with the sound of the Dorsey songs and their predecessors. The emotional sound of keys, drums and bass is filled by tambourines and voices no less strong for being fewer.

“I don’t care where anybody else comes from or what anybody else does,” Chicago gospel great Albertina Walker said in 1990. “Chicago is the capital of gospel and always will be. This is where great talents come to learn, this is where the great singers live. Gospel music, you know, can’t really be written down. You have to hear it and feel it, and you can do that best here in Chicago.”

But if gospel traditions continue to stretch to accept mainstream popularity and new musical forms, it will be left to the Wootens of Chicago to maintain the continuity on the road.

The survival of older gospel forms and the aging buildings and congregations for Chicago’s great repositories of gospel music concern Northwestern’s Jabir.

“We don’t have any institutions devoted solely to black sacred music, and that’s just not good,” he said. “Churches are not often good at preservation because they’re trying to bring in new people. …We need to change that. We need museums and cultural institutions … and I think that’s possible in Chicago,” he said.

Jones wants to be sure Chicago preserves a legacy already recognized worldwide.

“Oh, I’m optimistic about the future of black-based music, gospel and blues,” Jones said, wearing a smoothly-tipped hat and dark shades. “The rest of the world is mature and smart enough to appreciate the musical contributions that the African in America has made to the world. … The power to move people with the style of music that we make, you know.”

“Black music … coming out of New York, Chicago, Los Angeles,” Jones said, “We all come from folks on the plantation who had to survive and [we] used music as a second language when we didn’t even know the regular language here.”

That language will survive too, Jones said, for a simple reason. “Gospel music, it’ll move you.”

Gospel Tradition Intro >>

Page 2 - Pace, Pilgrim and the Gospel Blues

Page 3 - The Gospel Blues – Sacred or Secular?

Page 4 - Which Way Gospel?

Extra: Video Perspectives on Chicago's Gospel Traditions

A supplement to "Chicago gospel music feeling tug of modern influences" (link)

Return to Chicago gospel music feeling tug of modern influences.

Reader Elle T., who describes herself as a 5+ year Bronzeville homeowner who's "cautiously optimistic" about the future of the 3rd ward thinks Mayor Daly's had plans on the table regarding Bronzeville for some time...and that the Olympics are just the capstone.

What do you think?
In a detailed, conspiratorial comment left on the site today, she laid out what she calls a "fairly likely Olympic scenario" for the south side that takes into account recent CTA developments, Pat Dowell's recent aldermanic upset victory over Dorothy Tillman and escalating gentrification throughout the neighborhood:

"So, the Olympics.

Now that we are officially building a lakefront spire making the Chicago skyline a beacon to the world, my mind has invented a fairly likely Olympics scenario. It is my belief that this scenario would be possible no matter who the Aldermen were, so we don't EVEN need to go there. Daley isn't going to let anything or anyone stand in the way of his Olympic dream. And our Olympic nightmare.

Comment if you please.

1. The city actively endorses bringing in real estate developers from outside the state to rapidly build-out Bronzeville, Kenwood, and Woodlawn, and Englewood with modern retail and residential buildings and attractive amenities.

2. The CTA finds the money to begin modernizing all Green Line stops south of the Loop.

3. The city approves a secret petition to re-zone the city land Ida B. Wells sits on and lets the highest bidder win! In exchange and as a concession to the 3rd ward residents, they agree to subsidize an apartment complex on some city land that backs up to the el.

4. The city passes a resolution to fine owners of vacant lots if they do not meet certain criteria- fenced and secured, clean, mowed regularly, etc. OR, the city will seize it for being a neighborhood nuisance. Same with vacant buildings and any building where people are arrested for buying or selling drugs.

5. 39th Street beach is finally completed after 12 years, and opens to much fanfare.

6. Trader Joe's, Whole Foods, Starbucks, expensive early childhood learning centers, medical buildings, doggie daycares, day spas, and several sit down restaurants open in the area in 2008/2009.

7. In 2008, developers will begin construction, and leave their projects 80-90% compelete until they receive the signal"

8. Go! The Tribune runs a 5-part series on the "new" South Side highlighting safety, affordability, amenities, proxmity to the lakefront, ease of parking, several direct public routes to the loop, and the Olympics.

9. The stampede begins! People buy up the available real estate, the builders finish their projects and by the end of 2009, demographic of the 3rd and 4th wards more closely approximates Wicker Park. Property taxes increase by 100%. Some residents sell, take the money, and run to Tennessee to build a home in the woods to get away from the Olympic frenzy (me).

10. The IOC awards the Olympics to Chicago. Long-time residents complain, but since they are outnumbered, nobody listens. The organize a sit-in in Washington Park to draw attention to their cause. The night before the protest, the city, in a carefully choreographed dance, dispatches 50 tow trucks to the park at midnight to relocate any vehicles, sends in 150 men to chop down all of the trees by torchlight, and the whole thing is over by 2 AM. The protesters arrive, make a statement, and go home.

I haven't thought about what might happen from this point, but I think it will involve people having to sell their homes to the city, no-bid contracts, budget overruns, and a ghost payroll or two. Don't get me wrong, I love the City of Chicago, but we all know how things work.

What do you guys think? Am I way off base? Just a little off base?

Elle"

So how about it? Is she on target? Does the Mayor have a plan this elaborate on the drawing board?

By Peter Holderness, Jeremy Gantz and Darryl Swint
Methods Reporter correspondents

When Valencia Hardy gazes at the vacant lots stretching from the 120-year-old house on South Calumet Avenue her family has owned for more than 20 years, she sees signs announcing new townhouses starting “in the low $600’s.” Hardy, a disabled postal service retiree, is one of many residents and business owners trying to adapt to her neighborhood’s rapid redevelopment.

Bronzeville is at a crossroads. Although the area’s affluent new residents provide opportunities for growth to businesses that can retool themselves in the changing economic environment, many residents and businesses owners are on the defensive, battling to stay in their neighborhood.

The changes in Bronzeville are most visible in new high-end developments on South State Street, city-owned land that until recently held the massive public housing towers of Robert Taylor and Stateway Gardens. This land, plus more taken in arrears, comprises the 1,896 lots owned by the City of Chicago in the Bronzeville area, according to the Department of Planning and Development. These holdings have attracted developers like Capri Capital Partners, which will build The Metropolis, a 10-acre, 102-unit condo and retail development at Pershing Road and 40th Street. Construction will begin in early 2008, pending the company’s purchase of eight city-owned acres.

Residents plan for developing future

Empty lots sandwich Hardy’s house on the 4800 block of South Calumet Avenue, and vacant glass-strewn land stretches from her stoop to the rattling Green Line across the street. This land once housed the densest concentration of people in the city: Chicago historian Timuel Black said Bronzeville’s density was once 80,000 per square mile, four times the city average. As the neighborhood declined, homes were abandoned, property taxes went unpaid, and the land was taken by the city.

Hardy tends the lot next to her home, and would like to buy it. She learned that she had to get her alderman to release the lot, and spent a year waiting for Alderman Dorothy Tillman’s help, volunteering for her office.

“I kissed butt for that lot at one time,” she said at her home Monday. “And that’s not me.”

Hardy’s family settled on Clybourn Avenue near North Avenue in 1950, but the neighborhood has changed so much, she laments, that none of the people with whom she grew up could afford to stay.

Her father paid $35,000 outright for the South Calumet Avenue house in 1984, and Hardy said the family spent weekends together for more than two years rehabbing the original building. Hardy said people used to break in and steal whatever they could find, “like we were giving away our lunch.”

After her father’s stroke in 1993, Hardy moved in with him and found that rising property taxes threaten the neighborhood’s fixed-income seniors. “In 1995 taxes were $330 per year,” she said, “and last year I paid over $1,100 on the same property!” Still, she said she will never leave her home: “They’re going to carry me out feet-first.”

Hardy said that when Tillman flatly refused her the adjacent lot, she realized she needed a role in the future of her street and her community. “I’ve always been the type of person to get involved, but I’ve never been a leader,” Hardy said.

Tillman’s office did not return several calls for comment.

Over the past year Hardy has become a leader with the affordable housing group Housing Bronzeville. “They’ve got me to the point where I’m speaking out,” she said.

“I learned to motivate people,” she said. “By far this is the biggest thing I’ve done in my life – it’s going to benefit the whole community.”

Affordable housing group keeps fighting

Hardy joined Housing Bronzeville, a group founded in July 2004 to build support and momentum for affordable housing. This year, the group faces its biggest challenge as it pushes for a local stake in development.

Bronzeville’s history as an all-black mixed-income community informs the group’s desire to see a roughly even divide between market-rate housing and middle- and low-income housing, organizers said.

“People who work hard and live right should be able to live in their own community without being threatened by the greed of others,” Hardy said, noting that middle-income families couldn’t afford Bronzeville today.

In November 2004, Housing Bronzeville sponsored a non-binding referendum to establish a housing trust fund, and received more than 85 percent support at the polls.

The fund would be financed by a .009 percent increase in the property tax bill of current Bronzeville property owners. The fund would be used to subsidize developers and buyers to create affordable housing. Enabling legislation must pass city council or the state legislature before any fund can be created.

Since its inception, however, Housing Bronzeville has struggled to find aldermen to introduce and support the initiative. This year, 2nd and 3rd Ward incumbents face serious run-off challengers, each of whom have pledged to support Housing Bronzeville’s platform.

“We're in a good position to get somebody to sponsor it, which is the main thing we need,” said Cheryl Spivey-Perry, Director of the Hope Center and a Housing Bronzeville activist.

3rd Ward challenger Pat Dowell, an “early and consistent” supporter of Housing Bronzeville’s agenda, declined to comment Monday on whether she would push for the group’s legislation if elected next month.

Hardy, the Bronzeville homeowner, put it bluntly Sunday: “If we don’t have an alderman on our side in this battle, then we’re sunk.”

With the value of Bronzeville’s vacant lots rapidly increasing, it will likely be a tough battle to win. The Metropolis, the $155 million mixed-use condo and retail project announced last month, signals the tension between big-money development and Bronzeville’s longtime residents and business owners.

Although nearly 20 percent of The Metropolis’ condo units will be affordable to low- and middle-income home buyers, it is unclear whether any of Bronzeville’s small business owners will be able to afford to rent the development’s 330,000 square feet of retail space. Capri Capital Partners did not respond to questions sent via email.

As real estate booms, businesses brace for change

As many of Bronzeville’s lots transform into high-end residential and commercial buildings, local business owners hope to attract new residents with more disposable income and a desire for upscale goods and services.

Two recently announced initiatives offered by Bronzeville-based nonprofit organizations aim to help local businesses adapt to the changing residential demographic.

The Chicago Urban League’s “projectNext” initiative will partner with business, political and academic resources to encourage black-owned business development and entrepreneurship. In a separate effort, the Bronzeville Visitor Information Center (BVIC) will begin its first-ever business development course later this month (see video story for details).

http://www.youtube.com/v/jXBNTUfpsdU[/video]

Throughout Bronzeville, small business owners need the kind of help projectNext and the BVIC are offering. But some businesses are already working to retain and expand their customer base as the area develops.

Fashion store owner Khan Yasin relocated his business, while artist Andre Guichard has made a point of also attracting nontraditional patrons to his gallery.

Yasin, in his late 30s, owns two clothing stores along the 47th Street fashion corridor west of the Green Line, part of a strip of several locally-owned hip-hop fashion stores on the street.

Yasin moved Best Buy Clothing a few blocks from 47th Street and South Calumet Avenue five years ago because the store was burglarized eight times at its old location. He credits the increased police presence for safety and increased foot traffic, and the success of his stores to the teenagers and hip-hop fashion lovers who patronize his store.

“They are really good with us," Yasin said, noting that his customers are mostly black. “They don’t give us a hard time,” Yasin said. “I’m looking for a good future for them too, you know.”

Guichard, 40, opened Gallery Guichard in 2005, at 3521 S. Martin Luther King Drive, and innovated ways to attract new customers. For residents with no or limited exposure to the work of black and African artists, the gallery introduces a contemporary artistic environment through events like graduation parties, baby showers and receptions.

Despite his successes, he likens the political and economic neglect of small business owners to the neglect of students receiving inferior educations. Inequities in the business community should be addressed “in the same way that we treat inequities in education,” Guichard said.
Guichard said current business workshops lack the essential access to capital and business plan direction that show potential investors the value and viability of a business that does not yet exist.

Guichard concluded that to thrive in the future, “We really need some start-to-finish turnkey programs that have the educational element as well as the funding access.”

ARTICLE BY JEREMY GANTZ
PHOTO/SLIDESHOW BY PETER HOLDERNESS

Bronzeville returned to its musical roots February 8, when bluesman Fernando Jones appeared at Bronzeville’s Visitor Information Center to offer his signature sound to a small but enthusiastic audience.

The performance, billed as “A Blues Background” by the center, was open to the public and part of an ongoing series of events organized by the not-for-profit Black Metropolis Convention & Tourism Council.

Fernando, who teaches a blues history survey course and leads the nation’s first collegiate blues ensemble at Columbia College, sang a handful of soulful, stripped-down original songs accompanied by nothing but his red Fender Telecaster. The songs were pulled from his four albums, the most recent of which is “Whodoyuvoodu.”

“Chicago has got everything you need. We’ve got a Great Lake and gold-plated streets,” Jones sang in his song “Chicago, ” the city he calls “the Blues Capital.”

http://www.youtube.com/v/qWafeFWpbuQ[/video]

Although the audience was small – Bronzeville residents, it seemed, were mostly at home with the dead-of-winter blues – Jones had no trouble persuading listeners to clap their hands and echo his refrains. He even managed to convince three young siblings, all suffering from stage fright, to accompany him with an impromptu backup vocal performance.

Bronzeville is hungry for blues music, according to Harold Lucas, president and CEO of the Black Metropolis Convention & Tourism Council and ePublisher of Bronzevilleonline.com. The council, which operates the visitor center, is dedicated to transforming Bronzeville into what Lucas called a “premier tourist destination.”

“We could very well lose the blues if we don’t continue to study it and know that this is the home of the blues,” Lucas said Thursday before Jones’ performance. “We’re happy to have [Jones].” Lucas regularly leads historic neighborhood tours and is currently applying for a federal “Preserve America” matching grant to bolster Bronzeville’s economic and cultural redevelopment.

In July 2001, the Palm Tavern, a venerable nightclub that opened in 1933 at 446 East 47^th Street, was declared unsafe and closed by the city, which then evicted the tavern’s longtime owner and took the building by eminent domain. It remains closed.

Bronzeville has been without a blues music venue since April 2003, when the legendary Checkerboard Lounge on 43^rd Street was also shut down by the city due to building code violations. The Checkerboard, whose stage once hosted such blues legends as Willie Dixon and B.B. King, reopened three years ago in a University of Chicago-owned Hyde Park building amid a flurry of protests from Bronzeville community activists.

But Jones, who performs regularly around Chicago, is optimistic Bronzeville will soon revive its storied past and once again become a musical destination.

“It’s on the upswing,” Jones said, referring to Bronzeville’s blues scene. “Once it’s down, it can only go up.”

For more information about Fernando Jones and Bronzeville’s Visitor Information Center, visit www.fernandojones.com and www.bronzevilleonline.com.

Late in the afternoon in a small shop in Bronzeville, Shantel Gibbons carefully guides silk and satin through a sewing machine. Sharod Baker, the owner and manager of Mahogany, which specializes in custom-made gowns, stands behind the Wendell Phillips High School senior, approving and critiquing her work.

Since December, Baker has mentored six fashion-design students who are part of the Chicago Public School system’s Education to Careers (ETC) program. The five seniors and one junior, who volunteer their time and do not earn school credit for their time at Mahogany, are part of a major citywide trend in vocational education.

The professional, on-the-job skills these students are obtaining are a far cry from traditional high-school vocational programs, which have focused on classroom learning and workshops. Although some Chicago schools still feature classic auto-repair and shop classes, students are increasingly heading from schoolyards into businesses to gain real-world skills and experience.

“Vocational education in the past was kind of a dumping ground for students who wouldn’t go to college,” Maji Ford Steele, an ETC Partnership Development Manager who works to develop student internships and job-shadowing opportunities with Chicago-area businesses, said February 22. “But we’re actually training students in careers that will provide a livable wage. They’re [training] in pretty much every major industry that there is.”

The six students working at Mahogany are not employees, although they receive stipends from Baker amounting to about $4 per hour. They come to the studio and retail business, located at 260 E. 35th St., to develop their passion for fashion whenever they have time after-school and on weekends.

After nearly two months of training at Mahogany, Gibbons, 17, is more in love with fashion designing than ever. “It’s a way for me to express my creative side,” she said February 21 while cutting fabric on a measuring board. “It’s a way to express myself.”

Last fall Baker, who opened Mahogany in October 2004, contacted ETC officials and offered the program’s aspiring fashion designers a chance to develop their skills in a professional setting. Although the 33-year-old business owner has not yet officially partnered with ETC, he hopes to do so later this year.

“[Baker’s] program is unique, in terms of the magnitude of the numbers of students he’s serving,” said Steele. “A lot of employers will only take on a few students at a time.”

Around 30,000 Chicago Public School students are part of ETC, according to Steele.

The program relies on its business partners to provide students with up-to-date technical training that prepares students for post-secondary education, advanced career training or immediate jobs after graduation, according to the program’s Web site (www.etcchicago.com). ETC is currently partnered with a handful of Chicago-area companies, including Lord and Taylor and After Hours Tuxedo, according to Steele.

But Baker thinks the program’s three-year fashion-design curriculum, which students begin sophomore year alongside regular academic classes, should incorporate even more partnerships with Chicago’s fashion design world.

“Apprenticeships are a lost tradition that we need to reinstate now,” Baker said in his shop February 21. “By not offering alternatives to college prep programs, we’re losing our youth. Every business should have incentives to do this.”

He believes the city should provide businesses with monetary incentives to train ETC students part-time and improve their professional skills.

James Peterson, another ETC Partnership Development Manager, agrees that the program should be more oriented toward workplace experience to give students a competitive edge upon graduation. Still, he is confident that ETC has been a vital part of participating students’ educations.

“We’ve found that the kids who do complete the three-year program do much better in their academic program and test scores, GPA and graduation rates,” Peterson said.

Baker sees himself as mentoring young future business-owners.

“My dream is that, once they leave my shop, they go somewhere and open their own shop. I’m trying to give them skills that will be very valuable and rare,” he said.

His dream may soon come true. Gibbons will enroll at the International Academy of Design & Technology this fall.