Hayes, 65, went missing in May 2018 from a Chicago Housing Authority senior citizen apartment where she lived. Hayes’ former boyfriend, Jimmy Jackson, then 72, was captured on surveillance video leaving the building with a suitcase and dragging it through the lobby to a dumpster outside. The next day, a garbage truck emptied the dumpster and transported the contents to a landfill in Indiana.

Yet a body was never recovered because officials told Hayes’ family that it would be too costly to retrieve and that a body wasn’t needed for prosecutors to pursue charges. Then in 2022, Jackson was acquitted in the death of Hayes after Cook County Judge Diana Kenwothy noted a lack of evidence.

“I had nowhere to go, no one to run to,” Smith said to the crowd gathered at 35th Street and Martin Luther King Drive. “I went to police stations, churches, everywhere. … No one would help me. I went to the Kenwood Oakland Community Organization when I was on fumes and they helped me when they started We Walk For Her.”

Smith said her community has a voice. “You have people willing to stand up with you,” she said. “This really needs to stop. Just because we live in a certain area code, ZIP code, it shouldn’t matter. We all are human. This hurts beyond anything I ever dealt with in my life.”

Youths and adults in lavender T-shirts with the words “We Walk For Her” took to the southbound lanes of King Drive to protest the continuing lack of action when it comes to missing Black and brown girls and women.

A young woman with the organization Mothers Opposed to Violence Everywhere said police need to look at Black females the way they look at white females and must put as many resources into searches for Black victims as they do when a case involves a white victim, citing the example of the death of YouTube blogger Gabby Petito, which garnered nationwide attention.

Tanisha Williams of Kenwood Oakland Community Organization told reporters and onlookers that communities of color are outraged and heartbroken over the disregard for their trauma, and demanded more accountability from police and elected officials. She said Illinois needs to pass an Ebony Alert law like the one in California. Williams said she would like civilian liaisons in each police district.

“Too many times families are pushed off or shoved around to different detectives or not getting any answers or feedback for their loved ones,” Williams said. “Too many times officers are controlling that narrative, and today that stops. Today, we are saying we want community liaisons in every police district to be able to interact with victims in the community in terms of real-time community alerts and reports on what’s happening. We want someone there to be genuine and empathize with families who are being impacted.”

Jitu Brown, national director for Journey for Justice Alliance, said he believes Mayor Brandon Johnson’s administration can accomplish some concrete things. Ald. Jeanette Taylor, 20th, said that for seven consecutive years, this march and the young girls who lead it, have been asking for a task force for missing women, like one in Minnesota. As Taylor remembered some of the missing Chicagoans, such as the Bradley sisters and Kierra Coles, she said it’s past time for such as task force.

“We pay taxes as well; we get the right to say how we’re protected,” Taylor said. “At the end of the day, the young ladies missing in my community are just as important as the young lady missing in their community.”

Journalist Trina Reynolds-Tyler of the Invisible Institute was talking to participants and handing out literature about her Pulitzer Prize winning series “Missing in Chicago.” She spoke to Edwina Davis, chairperson of the local school council of John Drake Elementary School, who was participating in the march for the fourth time.

“A lot of people want to tell us ‘don’t make it about race,’ but it’s absolutely about race because we can match how many Caucasian or girls of other nationalities have been found,” Davis said. “Our girls tend to disappear a bit more without being found, whether dead or alive. I want to see some consistency, some investigation. Show us that you’re trying. Out of all the years of doing these walks, I learned you can’t tell us to wait 24 hours. If my daughter is missing for five minutes, I’m coming to the police station. We need to be trained, learn our rights when we’re reporting missing people. If we found Amber with the alerts, let’s find Ebony.”

The students packed a hodgepodge of must-haves.

Kenny Huynh, 11, brought his Stephen Curry basketball jersey, Pokemon cards, medals he won at science fairs and a book he reads to his newborn brother. Greyson Maser, 10, has Legos, a favorite T-shirt, a picture of his family and a book about tanks. And 10-year-old Aria Scott’s 10 things of importance include seven plush dolls, a butterfly she made in fourth grade, her baby brother’s favorite toy tiger and a picture of her and her dad from a father-daughter dance.

This “bag lesson,” is an example of a project Mahmood routinely puts in her lesson plans to teach Asian American history required by law to be taught in Illinois public schools since 2022 under the Teaching Equitable Asian American Community History Act, or TEAACH.

Mahmood, 2024 Illinois Teacher of the Year, was an advocate for the TEAACH Act even before it became a mandate. She has aided other groups with professional development for teachers and curriculum for students in other venues, such as history and contributions of all faith backgrounds.

On that springlike day, Mahmood was teaching the “bag lesson” alongside the award-winning book, “Inside Out & Back Again” by Vietnamese American author Thanhha Lai. The book, part of the TEAACH curriculum, follows Hà Kim and her family’s journey from Saigon to a refugee camp in Guam. The family would eventually come to the United States. The book chronicles the author’s first year in the U.S. in 1975 as a 10-year-old girl who didn’t speak English.

“It’s not only about teaching Asian American history, it’s also teaching about the universal experience that refugees have, with the refugee crisis that’s going on in Chicago and all over the country,” Mahmood said. “They don’t know it’s the curriculum; they just know it’s the way I teach.”

Mahmood’s classroom reflects how she teaches.

Visitors and passersby can see a big bulletin board with Indigenous people at the center and a social justice vocabulary wall in the back of the room, where kids learn terms such as cultural appropriation and ethnocentric immigrant refugee. Mahmood guides her students in writing historical fiction and facilitates frequent conversations about why people of color and marginalized communities have historically been relegated to the margins of textbooks or left out altogether.

Mahmood has informed students about Manilamen Larry Itliong and Philip Vera Cruz — Filipino American labor organizers who were part of the 1965-1966 strike and boycott against California grape growers — and astronauts, including Kalpana Chawla and Sunita Williams.

As leader of the school’s social justice club, Mahmood also thinks up projects for students to engage their civic muscles monthly, such as conducting a drive for hygiene items for the refugee population in the Chicagoland area.

Mahmood stays ready with cultural resources, adamant that the next generation will see themselves and their identities in the school curriculum. That’s a big part of the reason she became a teacher.

With a mother who is a Russian Jew, a dad who is an Indian Hindu, stepparents who are German-Italian Catholics and a husband who is a Pakistani Muslim, Mahmood said she grew up absent from the curriculum. That’s why it was so important to be a part of the TEAACH Act legislation and its implementation.

“When you’re absent from the curriculum, you learn a lot of unintentional lessons from well-intentioned people,” Mahmood said. “I learned lessons about my identity that were unintentional that caused me a lot of trauma. Then I found multicultural education. I became a teacher, because I was still searching for that belonging in school.”

Mahmood has made it a point to be a teacher who normalizes cultures, languages, foods, stories and histories of all backgrounds. “Our culture is one of the greatest assets we bring to our community,” she said. “It’s not a hindrance; it defines who we are and makes our wonderful world complex and interesting. We all need to lift each other up in spaces so people can feel a sense of belonging.”

Grace Pai, executive director of Asian Americans Advancing Justice Chicago, or AAAJ-Chicago, was instrumental in getting the TEAACH Act passed in 2021. Efforts were launched at the same time the nation was shutting down because of the pandemic. The goal is to combat discrimination and harmful stereotypes that lead to violence.

So far, AAAJ-Chicago has trained more than 2,200 educators across the state on how to approach and teach Asian American history, Pai said. It starts with an introductory two-hour professional development workshop and continues with resources that include a teaching database that offers book recommendations, videos, lesson plans and articles that tie topics in Asian American history to state learning standards.

Mahmood has helped with the professional development around TEAACH through her education consulting practice. Pai envisions more teacher training and engagement with Asian American curricula, as well as asking constituents to ask school administrations for proof the history is being taught. And if it’s not, to advocate for it.

According to Pai, AAAJ-Chicago is one of a handful of organizations seeking more funds from the Illinois legislature to expand an existing, yearlong professional development series on inclusive history for educators — one that supports all-inclusive history requirements.

Jeremy Bautista, a Filipino American IT professional at Westmont High School, connected with the Very Asian Foundation in September to help bring teaching resources and AAAJ-Chicago’s professional development workshop to his school. Bautista brought together teachers from Westmont’s English, social studies and science departments to incorporate Asian American curricula into their lesson plans. Bautista, who has a master’s degree in teaching, sees the TEAACH Act as one facet of a bigger picture that has been a long time coming.

“To be aware of a part of American history that might inform your conversations in class … to share a different perspective, this is what the TEAACH Act is for,” he said. “It’s good to talk about diverse backgrounds. It’s not this trivial thing.”

Bautista co-sponsors the student group CAPAOW!, the Club of Asian and Pacific Americans of Westmont at Westmont High School.

“Kids see the value of having teachers educated — students want their teachers to be more informed and understanding of their culture,” Bautista said. “You need people like Dr. Mahmood, and a place like Westmont that are embracing that so kids can grow up understanding that they’re part of this process, they’re part of this society and this world and it’s OK to be you.”

Bautista has worked in his hometown school district for over 25 years and said when he learned about the TEAACH Act, he was excited.

“The benefit of the resources is for everybody,” he said. “Asian American students, sure, but they get to share with their friends … and it’s inspired other groups to do the same thing.”

He said for European refugees, seeing CAPAOW! and the Asian American curriculum in the lessons shows them they also have a voice and a safe space to share their culture.

“It means a lot to the kids to normalize those aspects of their identity which are often marginalized or completely invisible,” Mahmood said.

Mahmood went to school in Downers Grove and remembers learning about the Holocaust and a little about Hinduism in sixth grade.

“If you don’t talk about Asian Americans, then you learn that they’re not part of history,” she said. “Mexicans are not part of history … you learn unintentional lessons through what you read; you open a textbook and they’re not there. That means that they’re not important. You don’t realize it when you’re little, but 20 years later, like me, I tell my students I learned all these negative things about my culture. I’m discovering all these things about my culture now, and I wish I would have learned them as a kid so I was less embarrassed and more proud. I don’t want you to take 20 years to learn it.”

Mahmood joined Indian Prairie School District 204 in 2005 and has spent the last nine years at Georgetown Elementary School. She has led diversity and equity teams across the district, worked to encourage interfaith discussions and written curriculum for her district and beyond.

With her teacher of the year state honor comes a yearlong paid sabbatical to bring her culturally responsive teaching practices to educators and schools around the state and to share her approach to teaching on the platform concept of “belonging.”

“We need to create spaces where not only students feel that they belong, but staff (too); and part of that is letting people show up as their authentic self,” Mahmood said. “Part of that is understanding people’s histories, contributions and culture and all of those pieces that make them uniquely themselves.”

Her culturally responsive teaching is constantly observing students to see what their needs and fears are. Mahmood is taking the next school year to travel around the state; she wants to connect with people, hear what they need and help with those needs.

Mahmood said by viewing students’ cultures as assets and tools that can be leveraged in the classroom, instead of obstacles to overcome, the educational system can change for the better.

“You’re seeing the knowledge they bring, the cultural assets they have. And you’re responding to it by changing the way you teach, what you teach, enhancing it in a way that everything they bring to school becomes useful to them,” she said. “We can do the same thing with teachers. There’s so much diversity in our community and every part of that diversity belongs in education.”

North Lawndale looks to join that club by 2026 with the construction of One Lawndale Children’s Discovery Center at 3140 W. Ogden Ave. When complete, the location will have 15,000 square feet of hands-on interactive exhibits and play areas that will feature spaces centered on art; an area solely for infants and toddlers; a space focused on literacy; a science, technology, engineering, arts and math space; and an additional 12,000 square feet of outdoor recreation and green space.

Educational, recreational, cultural and arts programming will engage children from infancy to 8 years old through a number of interactive exhibits designed with and by the community, said museum founder and Erikson Institute alumna Leslie Bond.

“There are many great museums but there is something to be said when it’s in your community and you can just walk there and take advantage of it,” Bond said. “This is just another effort to say these communities have not had the resources that others have had and their children deserve the same great chance. To have a place you can get to easily and be able to have all that at your doorstep, we hope will make a big difference in kids.”

Bond said work on the Discovery Center began in 2020, but it has faced many delays. Now, a prototype of the center’s literacy exhibit will be showcased at the Lawndale Pop-Up Spot at Central Park Avenue and Douglas Boulevard through the month of June. Bond said the Poetry Foundation is donating hundreds of notebooks, while Open Books will donate books in English and Spanish.

With the theme “Readers Are Leaders,” programming for the prototype will feature community leaders and members reading books to children. The first reader is Chicago children’s author Natasha Tarpley on June 1. While the pop-up will be mostly focused on literacy, information on the other exhibits will be there as well as opportunities for community feedback.

Private foundations, organizations and individual donations have already raised over half of the $7 million cost. Bond expects the project to be debt-free when it opens. And it’s not just adults who are behind the center. Youths have created artwork that will factor into the structure when it’s built, so children can see their work added to the finished product.

“Community really owns this space,” she said. “We will have health workers on-site in the infant-toddler area and the pediatric space because there may be a mom experiencing postpartum depression who doesn’t even know that’s a thing and isn’t connected to other moms. We can have play groups there and organize that. It’s a way to identify things early on and to help educate, but in a fun way.”

Headquartered in North Lawndale, the Discovery Center looks to bring together residents of the North and South Lawndale neighborhoods. While some are positive about the “One Lawndale” concept, other long-term residents are skeptical.

Chelsea Ridley, director of community engagement at Open Books and co-founder of the Lawndale Pop-Up Spot, chalks up the negativity to resource scarcity.

“Everyone is fighting over one piece of bread not knowing that there’s enough bread out there for everyone if we just work together,” she said. “One Lawndale to me is thinking in a more political way of the powers that want us to fight … against each other for the same resources. Think about how powerful we can be if we all work together in a ‘One Lawndale’ way.”

Bond, who is working with dozens of stakeholders to design and build the community-based and community-led museum with a strong caregiver engagement component, envisions a variety of features at the site:

• An on-site teaching kitchen will have a dietician and offer cooking classes, where recipes from community members will be tweaked to be a bit more heart-healthier and subsequently shared.
• A healthy food area, much like the Madison Children’s Museum’s Lunchbox Cafe, will have a refrigerator with prepared foods for visitors to “take what they need, pay what they can.”
• Chickens and an organic garden would offer opportunities for families to take things home that have been grown at the center and grow them at their own homes.
• A science exhibit with a water table will focus on equity through the lens of access to clean water and air, and having kids understand what makes the environment better.
• Sensory areas will cater to neurodivergent learners who might need a little space during a trip to the center. The sensory areas will not just be in one part of the museum, but in every exhibit.

About a dozen stakeholders, including members from the project’s Youth Advisory Council — made up of a dozen youths from Lawndale who meet monthly — sat down at the campus of social services agency UCAN in April to share their thoughts with the exhibit design team from Gyroscope Inc., an Oakland, California-based museum-planning firm.

Catherine Hollis, program director at Malcolm X College, has been working with Bond, the North Lawndale Community Coordinating Council, and the dozens of partners aiding in the development for the last four to six months. She said the Discovery Center represents an avenue where young kids and families can learn together and collaborate together.

“As a resident, to me, this is something that is huge because a lot of times our community is ignored, or we’re seen as the troubled side of town,” Hollis said. “We are a community that loves our families, that loves learning, that wants our children to have the best, and I believe the museum will be a part of that … that will bring a positive light to our neighborhood more than a negative one.”

Allen Rosales, director of professional learning and development at the Carole Robertson Center for Learning, agrees. He thinks the center will be good for fathers in the neighboring communities. “There’s a father crisis out in our communities. … A lot of fathers missing out on beautiful life experiences and playing with (kids) is one of them — it builds relationships, builds nurturing. That’s an opportunity for the community to build that love and relationship with their children.”

Ridley said the center would be a good place to go aside from work, school or home.

“It’s sort of a pet peeve of mine because I’m trying to have meetings here and there’s nowhere where you can have a meeting,” she said. “The coffee shops close at 3 p.m. So let’s have a place to go.”

Having started the Pop-Up Spot museum, Ridley is happy to work with Bond to make the Discovery Center come to fruition.

Ald. Monique Scott, 24th, said the center will draw people to the North Lawndale community, which has a long history of disinvestment.

“This is great because it’s bringing a viable, equitable thing in our community that we’ve never had,” she said. “This is a great start to a new beginning for us. We’ve just been surviving, really. I think this museum will give our children and our families some hope — the opportunity to see what is possible.”

Hours for the pop-up in June are Wednesday-Friday 10 a.m.-12 p.m. and 2-4 p.m., and Saturdays 11 a.m.-3 p.m. Children’s author Natasha Tarpley will kickoff the month by reading to children the morning of June 1.

The Rev. John Hannah of New Life Covenant Southeast Church mobilized thousands to come out Saturday for the annual “Prayer on the 9” peace march in Chatham. The event drew attendees to stand up against violence, raise awareness and foster unity by way of a 2-mile walk along 79th Street, from Greenwood Avenue to the Dan Ryan Expressway. In years past, people donned red clothing to pray along the South Side thoroughfare for an end to the violence. This year’s theme was “Praying for Our City.”

Hannah said that since the event has been taking place over the last decade, he’s seen the crime rate decrease on 79th Street and in the Grand Crossing community, something he is excited about.

“The church that we own on 76th Street and Greenwood Avenue, there used to be a time that you couldn’t drive down this street due to the drug use and the drug sales, but we ended up purchasing every drug house on that street, so now you see no drug activities on that street,” Hannah said.

Hannah, a former juvenile probation officer who served the Englewood community, said his church partners with other churches in the community to march with his 20,000-member congregation, including individuals and relatives of those who have suffered the effects of gun violence. Hannah mentioned a recent shooting at 79th and Cottage Grove in front of Happy Liquor-Food, a space that the city of Chicago had decided to shut due to the amount of violence that took place in front of it. Hannah said the parents of a recent victim marched with the group.

“The national news makes it appear as if Chicago is such a violent city and we will acknowledge we do have our share of violence, but America has a gun issue,” Hannah said. “Every city is dealing with gun violence and, until we deal with the gun violence on a national level, we’re all affected.”

To help with that, Hannah made sure to have counselors offering mental health services and lawyers from legal clinics on-site at the rally to get people the help they need. The church has helped in numerous ways throughout the year, from community festivals to bus tours of historically Black colleges and universities for local youth. He said youth “deserve to live without fear, surrounded by community support and opportunities for a brighter future.”

“Our goal is to show various pieces of the puzzle coming together to address one issue,” Hannah said. “The Grand Crossing community used to be known as a dead zone, which means that very few businesses or anything was coming into that community. We don’t want to call it a dead zone. My goal is to bring businesses and restaurants. … I want to feel like I live on the North Side, to be able to sit outside and eat food.”

Englewood will host its own similar event on Saturday, honoring gun violence victims and survivors’ families during its third annual “Peace Fest: Black-on-Black Love Edition.” The event will commemorate Wear Orange Weekend, a national initiative to end gun violence and honor communities shattered by it.

Organized by Imagine Englewood if and the We Grow Chicago Community-based Coalition, including Think Outside Da Block, Healthy Hood, Chicago Survivors and Moms Demand Action, the fest will have food, music, a resource fair and clothing and shoes giveaways.

Register here to attend the free gathering, slated for 2 to 7 p.m. at Peace Campus – Imagination House, 6407 S. Honore St., Chicago.

The “Say Their Names” initiative, which speaks the names of those whose lives were cut short, launched May 21. The interactive digital map is a database-fueled work that documents incidents that likely would not have resulted in death if white Americans had been involved in the same set of circumstances, said Ronald Browne, lead researcher of the project.

“It’s the story of Blacks in America … the fact that we are subjected to systemic racism,” Browne said. “We’re rapidly going back to the late ’40s and early ’50s, being seen as a target, the enemy … the police trace back to slave patrols. That’s where the attitude comes from.

“You’re someone to be contained: Atatiana Jefferson, Botham Jean, Breonna Taylor and Roger Fortson of the U.S. Air Force, all four of them were killed in their own homes,” Browne said. “A lot of this falls under basic racism. And the mainstream community, they don’t care. We hear people say they’re tired of hearing about race. Yes, well we’re tired of living it.”

By utilizing data from sources such as The Washington Post‘s police shootings database, and details culled from other newspapers, including the Chicago Tribune and the Sun-Times, the “Say Their Names” map showcases lives lost at the hands of law enforcement in the last decade. Browne and his team of about a dozen people aim to find, research, vet and post the names of the deceased from 1919 on, updating the site regularly to keep it current.

Browne pored over primary sources and cross-referenced details against obituaries and internet sources over the course of two years. And in doing the work, he was taken aback by the statistics he found. Black Americans make up about 14% of the U.S. population. But among those who were shot to death by police, Black Americans make up 26% of the population, according to Washington Post data from 2022, and that statistic increases further when it comes to unarmed Black people shot by police.

Browne said the idea for the project came after he saw artwork at Augustana Lutheran Church of Hyde Park in 2019 about 1919’s Red Summer race riots. In that exhibit, community members read the name, age, race and time, place, and manner of death of each person from July 27 to Aug. 5, 1919.

Looking over the Post’s database, Browne found 2,119 names of Black people who were killed and around 800 names were put on the map, with biographies and pictures of the deceased. Those who died in police custody are included and Browne said his team is looking at cases where police are called to scenes of mental health crises.

“We want to memorialize them and say, ‘Hey, these are people with lives,'” Browne said. He refers to the case of Tyre Nichols, who was going home when five police officers beat him to death.

“Those are the facts that most people concentrate on, but here’s a guy who was an amateur photographer, he had an infant son, and he was an avid skateboarder,” he said. “We humanize and memorialize each of the people that we feel are worthy to be on the site.”

Going forward, Browne envisions families, friends and colleagues reaching out to the “Say Their Names” team to submit images and details of those who should be added to the map, or more information added to those already featured on the website. Readers can also contribute to an ongoing audio installation, where the names, genders, ages, date of death, locations and cause of deaths of those killed are said in 20- to 30-second audio clips.

“Anybody from anywhere in the world can access it to learn about these lives,” said Saba Ayman-Nolley, the project coordinator.

Readers will not find details from police reports or mugshots on the map. “The focus is not on incidences of them having been killed or died. The focus is on the lives they were living that got unjustly shortened,” she said. “It’s an ongoing, evolving process, a true collaboration with the public. If we don’t have a photo and you happen to have a photo because you are a friend or a relative or you do your research independently and find a good photo to send us or some interesting, sweet thing about somebody’s life or a case you see that we don’t have on there, send it to us.”

Supported by grants from the Field Foundation, Illinois Humanities, and the Hyde Park and Kenwood Interfaith Council, “Say Their Names” is looking for more funding to keep the map up to date with the help of paid researchers, Ayman-Nolley said.

Knowing there are similar projects out there, Browne wants this new site to be as inclusive as possible, with no intention of diminishing the work of any other group. “We’re not in competition with anybody; we do like to think we’re a little bit unique with this interactive map. But if you ask, ‘Why is Johnny not on there?’ Well, tell us about Johnny. He might belong there,” Browne said.

Ayman-Nolley said Breonna Taylor’s case is the one closest to her heart. Taylor, a 26-year-old Black woman, was fatally shot in bed in her apartment in Louisville, Kentucky, during a botched raid by plainclothes narcotics detectives; no drugs were found, and the “no-knock” warrant used to enter her home by force was later found to be flawed. She died March 13, 2020.

“The system has to change. This cannot go on,” Ayman-Nolley said. “One of the reasons I was so insistent on doing this project is that cases like Breonna Taylor’s goes on for months and years before anything is done, meanwhile when police officers are on desk duty until it’s resolved, they continue to get paid. Meanwhile, the husband, the wife, the mother, the child of the person who got killed, they’re not getting paid, they lost somebody who was part of their family, who was a resource to the family.”

Ayman-Nolley said the memorial is not just an educational tool that can be used to start the healing in communities, but it can give voice to the voiceless.

“All of these people on the map don’t have a voice to say what their hopes and wishes were that got cut off. We have to be that voice. And we have to stand beside those family members so they don’t feel like their loved ones are forgotten,” she said. “We’re hoping to be able to connect to the families more effectively with this and to get them to realize this memorial exists for their own healing, but also we want them to look at it and tell us if there is something else we should say or something we’re saying they don’t want us to say.”

Although doing the job she calls “amazing” was not physically taxing — she admits to working on it while in bed on many occasions — the constancy of being a seven-day-a week sage and never really being able to step away from it has proven challenging. Dickinson is looking toward other adventures closer to her home in Freeville, New York.

“Maybe I’ll be the first advice columnist not to die at my desk,” she said jokingly. “Ann Landers (the columnist Dickinson succeeded) — they ran her column after she died. She had banked a bunch of columns. Mad respect for her, but I am not built like that.”

Dickinson will be handing the reins of syndicated column writing to R. Eric Thomas, a Black male playwright, screenwriter, bestselling author and a former columnist for Elle.com and Slate.com. His new column will be called “Asking Eric.”

Dickinson said that as someone who hasn’t ever “left” anything — a person or a job — the decision to walk away from her advice column was not an easy one, especially because people may want to frame her departure as retiring. “I am leaving, not retiring,” she said.

Dickinson’s friend Julia Keller, a Pulitzer Prize-winning former Chicago Tribune journalist and author of “Quitting: A Life Strategy. The Myth of Perseverance — and How the New Science of Giving Up Can Set You Free,” had offered her these words of wisdom: “You may run out of money, but you may not. But you know you’re gonna run out of days.”

“I have incredible ideas and goals,” Dickinson said. “I want to fulfill them.”

Dickinson’s last column will run June 30, and in it she hopes to offer what she calls “big picture” wisdom. She’s learned a few things over the years through her experiences as a single mom, as a reader of self-help books, as the youngest in her family, as a partner in a 16-year marriage whose wedding and Hallmark Channel-esque relationship was covered by The New York Times, and as a bestselling author of “Strangers Tend to Tell Me Things: A Memoir of Love, Loss, and Coming Home” and “The Mighty Queens of Freeville: A Mother, a Daughter, and the Town That Raised Them: A Memoir.”

Let’s not forget her regular appearances as a panelist on NPR’s weekly news quiz “Wait, Wait … Don’t Tell Me,” which she plans to continue.

Dickinson’s fascination with human behavior has served her readers well through the years, with some viral moments along the way, including homophobic parents and notable pranks. And it’s the connection with readers that she’s going to miss the most, Dickinson said.

The road to becoming one of the few nationally syndicated advice columnists all “started as a joke that got very out of hand,” she said.

“I had written a column for Time magazine for a couple of years, but I’d never written personal advice, Q&A type stuff. Jim Warren, who was the D.C. bureau chief at the Chicago Tribune had always said to me, ’If you ever want a job … or … be a newspaper reporter …’ But I had a young child at home and there was no way.”

But then Ann Landers died. “She died and I wrote Jim an email. The subject line was ‘Now there’s a job I’d take … ha ha ha.’ All caps,” said Dickinson. “A few weeks later, he contacted me and said, ‘We had decided after Ann Landers died, we were getting out of the game. But we’re going to launch a new column and we want you to try out for it.’”

Now, Dickinson is pivoting to opening a library in her hometown. Remember the “A Book on Every Bed” initiative she kick-started with the Family Reading Partnership 14 years ago? It encourages readers to leave a wrapped book on their children’s beds on Christmas morning, birthdays or other holidays, so kids wake up to the gift of reading. Dickinson says the library that she is creating, the Freeville Literary Society, is the next step in her childhood literacy campaign.

“I’m no Dolly Parton, but I feel so strongly about literacy,” Dickinson said. “I grew up in a pretty hardscrabble environment. But we had books and books and books, and we got them from the library. To put a book in the hand of a kid … children who already love books, love getting books. Children who don’t know about having books, these become really treasured artifacts.”

The Freeville Literary Society will have membership cards, where a person will use those old-school stamps that make the thump sound when books are being checked out.

She envisions the Freeville Literary Society being a safe place where kids in her small town of several hundred residents can visit on their bikes, after school, on Saturday mornings, by themselves, to enjoy board games, puzzles and movie nights with their families. The building she bought for the library has two sections, so she plans to rent out the other side to a grocer.

“Like every little town in the world, this is a food desert. … If kids could come in and buy a popsicle, that would be amazing. So that’s what I’m doing,” she said. “I’m going to sell penny candy. I want to be that place where you can feed your mind, rot your teeth.”

You can hear how psyched Dickinson is about creating a community hub for children. She’s going to poll the youths to make sure the grocery store sells their 10 favorite candies. She’s looking to open its doors around the time she ends her column. She plans to hold a movie series that features books made into films.

“I really wanted kids to enjoy some of the physical experiences of taking out a book,” she said. “It’s a great place to gather.”

And when she’s not opening worlds and minds with literature, Dickinson will be continuing an advice newsletter and working on a novel, one that is as close to fiction as she can get, she said.

“I’ve never written fiction before. I am finding it incredibly exciting and fulfilling. … I got a lot going on,” she said. “When I decide to come back to advice, I’ll do it under my own steam.”

Looking back, Dickinson said the world has changed since readers started asking her for advice. Early on, she made it a point to win over her haters by replying to negative feedback in ways that were “always very respectful, very measured.” She said that was good practice.

“I went into this job as a really scrappy, mouthy, reactive person,” Dickinson said. “And I have taught myself to be much more careful, measured. I think I’m a much better listener.”

And while she admits to not being perfect and making her share of mistakes, showcasing her readers’ voices in her column with her strong writing is what distinguished her columns from others.

“The thing I have learned to do, which I appreciate, is I let the readers correct me. The third letter in my column is always a reaction to a previous column,” she said. “I have learned to be much less defensive about standing my ground behind my point of view, and I have really been happy to turn part of my column over to readers who want to take issue with or want to correct me. Receiving critique has been a lesson that I needed to learn.”

Dickinson is excited about focusing on the relationships in her life. And as she gears up to “go do those for a while,” she’s passing the syndicated columnist duties to Thomas, who has been heard on a variety of NPR shows himself, including serving as a host of “The Moth” StorySlams in Philadelphia.

Thomas loves audiobooks, dinner parties and cooking; he’s still trying to perfect his bouillabaisse, he said. Thomas’ husband is a pastor with a green thumb. “I don’t really have a green thumb, but he grows the rhubarb and I make the cobbler, so it all works,” he said.

For those not familiar with Thomas’ work, he gravitates toward projects that have people going through hard things in life and negotiating the ways that all identities intersect. It’s “who you are in various places in your life,” he said.

“It’s always gonna be this mix of pathos and humor,” Thomas said of his approach. “There’s this line from ‘Steel Magnolias’ that Dolly Parton’s character says: ‘Laughter through tears is my favorite emotion,’ and that is very much how I like to operate.”

Thomas said a lot of people got to know him through his Elle.com column. “That was very voicey, fun and focused on pop culture and politics,” he said. “But, there was a certain remove to it and what I love about doing advice is that you get to have a fun, little brunch conversation with a friend, but we’re talking about things that are going on in their lives, as opposed to what celebrities are doing.

“As we’ve come out of the pandemic, I’ve been hungering for that human connection,” he said. “I want to talk to more people. So when they approached me about doing this, I jumped at it because … it was sort of like the universe was conspiring to make it happen.”

Thomas’ column will premiere in early July. He said he’s proceeding with excitement but a fair bit of caution.

“There are times that it seems a little bit daunting — the exposure — but I’m really excited that I have this kind of opportunity and that people can see that somebody like me also has something really valuable to give, and I think that’s really important,” Thomas said.

He’s already started to get questions from people through his website. “I’ve read ‘Ask Amy’ for years,” he said. “One of the things I think that’s great about the long tradition of advice that “Ask Amy” has modeled, Ann Landers has modeled before me and so many others, is that this is somebody’s compassionate opinion. I’m a listening ear and somebody who has been through a lot of different things. The thing that I’m most expert on is empathy, living life and making mistakes, which I think makes for the best advice.

“I don’t know if anybody is an expert on being a human,” he said. “It’s really helpful for me to see other people being honest about muddling through, trying to figure it out, getting it wrong and then trying again, because it allows me to have grace for myself, too.”

Thomas wants his advice column to feel like hanging out with a friend, an approach that he has taken with his many writing projects. He is eager to make more friends in this new venue, and if that means spending more time on radio or TV shows like Dickinson, then so be it. He’s here for it all: Weddings, neighbors, office drama … nothing is taboo.

“Sometimes the best advice that we can get is rooted in things that we saw, read or listened to,” he said. “Sometimes you get life coached by a Whitney Houston song: ‘It’s not right, but it’s OK.'”

Thomas says he’s a good listener and he takes the “Yes, and” improv approach. “So you say, ‘Hey, I’ve got this problem with my boss.’ And I’m, ‘Yeah, I hear you. Maybe you’re right, maybe wrong. But also maybe you want to take a look at this,'” Thomas said. “I think people started asking my advice more as I’ve gotten older, and that’s a testament to being a different kind of person, growing and maturing.”

Although Dickinson didn’t weigh in on who would succeed her, she did say it would be great if the columnist were a man, so as to reduce any confusion about whether the successor is related to Ann Landers, something that happened with her. She’s delighted that Thomas, a Baltimore native now based in Philadelphia, is onboard.

Her words of advice for anyone who wants to help others in a syndicated column: “Lead from compassion and ‘to thine own self be true.’ That has served me really, really well.”

Lacey had spent years trying to prevent others from experiencing the trauma and grief that follows a life cut short by violence because she, like many others, had lived through it. She lost her daughter Elonda Lacey in a 1994 slaying.

So she founded the nonprofit organization Not Before My Parents in 2012 to support parents seeking counseling, attending grief support groups and aiding families with funeral expenses.

Then, in 2016, Raydell Lacey lost her grandson, Erick Lacey Jr., in a Back of the Yards shooting. That death and Chicago’s violence led Lacey’s eldest son, Erick Lacey Sr., to move to North Carolina.

“Behind that happening with my son, my escape was chess. I used to play chess all the time,” Erick Lacey said. “That was the only thing that got my mind away from stuff and when she found that out, just seeing it, she came up with the idea: Chess Moves Against Violence.”

Raydell Lacey told the Tribune in 2019, “I was looking at him and I noticed he was so calm, he was smiling and having fun and I just thought that’s a tool that could be a solution to some of the violence.”

She started a chess club in September 2016. Erick Lacey recalled his mom proposing the idea of using the chess club to collaborate with police, and he laughingly rejected the concept. But she persuaded him to do it. Looking back, he said it was one of the best decisions he ever made.

The initiative brings police together with residents in the Englewood neighborhood, especially youths. The club meets regularly at the Englewood District police station with participants playing chess against police officers in the community room space inside and outside the 7th District facility.

The bridge-building endeavor garnered Lacey awards from the American Red Cross of Chicago and recognition from the FBI Chicago Citizens Academy Alumni Association.

“It went beautifully — it went from people seeing police to speaking to them, having a brief conversation with them; it started really changing things,” Erick Lacey said.

Raydell Lacey, aka Rae/Nana/Mama Rae, died on April 17. The loss left a hole in the neighborhood.

Sgt. Oneta Sampson, a friend and chess collaborator with Lacey spoke at the standing-room-only homegoing services May 4 at the A.A. Rayner and Sons Funeral Home, reminding those in attendance that when one remembers Raydell Lacey, they should remember the word intention.

“Everything that she did was intentional; Not Before My Parents was intentional,” Sampson said. “Englewood at that time was suffering. The city was suffering as a whole. What better place to make something incredible happen that can translate across the city? Chess.”

Sampson said she brought chess into people’s lives because she needed “people to learn not to move before they think.”

Family and friends say that Lacey touched hundreds, if not thousands, with her organization. Before she was in hospice, she was planning on bringing chess to Millennium Park, around the Bean.

Englewood native Pha’Tal Perkins said Lacey’s death was hard for the neighborhood. She was always genuine with her love and care of those she encountered. He remembers their talks, the first time she called him son. She gave him a chess set.

As executive director of Think Outside Da Block, a nonprofit focused on youth development, violence prevention/ intervention, trauma awareness and civic engagement in the Englewood neighborhood, Perkins would go to Lacey’s chess events and interact with youths or play against officers.

“Chess … it could be looked at as this nerdy thing, so for her to bring this into a space and have people who you would see and say, ‘Wait, you know how to play chess?’ made it OK to learn,” Perkins said. “She was always making sure everybody felt welcome at the events. She created spaces where it ain’t typically the thing to do to interact with law enforcement. She bridged that gap in a lot of different ways. To be riding up 63rd Street and see all these people in front of the police station, playing chess, eating and playing music. It was a super dope environment.”

Michelle Rashad, executive director of Imagine Englewood if, a West Englewood nonprofit that offers year-round enrichment opportunities for youths and support services and skill-building opportunities for adults and families, met Lacey in 2018 at the Greater Englewood Unity Day, a day the organization hosts annually to clean and beautify the community. Rashad, a West Englewood native, thought that Lacey’s funeral services coinciding with the 11th annual event this year was very much in sync with the theme of the day: support.

“Showing up for each other and collaboration will always be something that I think about when I think of Ms. Raydell,” Rashad said. “She was always about showing up for other people and really had the spirit of community. Ms. Raydell is a beacon of unity and community and that legacy of hers will live on forever.”

Lacey’s legacy was honored with a moment of silence at the cleanup event. Rashad said Lacey’s organization opened the doors of police stations in a more positive light, one of community.

“When we think about violence prevention, we have to think about creating those safe spaces where young people understand that they’re loved and supported so that they don’t take a different route that leads to a loss of life,” Rashad said. “In doing her work of making sure we as parents and grandparents are not burying children and grandchildren, we’re creating spaces where children feel loved and celebrated and connected to role models … that was a very unique approach of Ms. Raydell.”

Keith Harris, a volunteer football coach with the Chicago Park District since 1991, lost his son in August 2020. He said Lacey was one of the first people to give him words of encouragement, to be a shoulder when he needed it. Lacey’s sincereness was her secret sauce, Harris said. And she loved the great big family that was Englewood.

“You got people where you can actually tell where their heart is, and where their spirit is, by the work that they do. It was never about her, it was always about the people she was serving,” Harris said. “She left a big impression on a lot of people … the people in the park district, the police department, the CAPS Department. … She was a mother to everybody, everybody who knew her, embraced her as a mother.”

At the funeral, Raymone Lacey thanked his mom for who she was for the community, saying that although she was not perfect, she was perfect for him and his family.

The daughter of Samuel Hanchett and Delores Lacey, Raydell Lacey’s life “epitomized love, resilience and service.” Traveling to New York to attend Broadway shows, and breaking bread with family and friends are things she enjoyed when she wasn’t working as a construction flagger until she retired in January.

Raydell Lacey was a teenage mom who, by the time she was 20, had four kids and her own house on the South Side, because she worked at a bank and a gas station. But her life would eventually take a different path, Erick Lacey said during the services. His mom served time in prison twice — six years in Illinois state prison, and federal time in Iowa, serving 7½ years of a 10-year sentence. When she came home from Iowa, Lacey turned her life around.

“I’m not saying that like it’s great; I’m saying she’s been gone twice and she had a better job than the average person, making good money and doing this (Not Before My Parents),” he said. “My mother had police friends and now has a son who loves them. What I’m saying is whatever is going on in your life, it can be changed. One of the things she always said was, ‘Don’t nothing beat a failure but a try.'”

With Not Before My Parents, Lacey garnered national recognition, as CBS News correspondent Adriana Díaz attested at her funeral. She crossed paths with Lacey while doing stories on the nonprofit in 2016 and 2018.

“We visited the district and saw some police officers being beaten in chess by little kids,” Díaz said. “It’s because she adopted the community, was a mother and grandmother to the community, that aldermen and alderwomen from Englewood are planning to introduce a resolution into the City Council on May 22.” The resolution honors Lacey and extends sympathy to her family and friends.

Stanee’ Wills considered Lacey her second mom. The pair bonded after Wills’ father was a victim of violence in the Hamilton Park neighborhood. Wills started volunteering with Lacey’s organization, helping run its social media and writing grant proposals.

“She was always about building connections. She was all about unity,” Wills said. “She would always talk about if a kid is stealing out of the candy store, maybe if an officer knew him through her program, they would know that he was hungry and that they wouldn’t arrest him for stealing. They will try to find resources for him to get money to eat. It was her mission to make sure that youth understood that they didn’t have to resort to violence when they’re in situations where they feel they need to fight.”

Wills nominated Lacey for the Red Cross award. As a youth services coordinator with the community policing arm of the Chicago Police Department, Wills read an honorary commendation from the CPD’s Office of Community Policing at Lacey’s homegoing — an honor recognizing her past contributions to make the city a safer place. Sgt. Janie Wilson Brown and Rashanah Baldwin, both collaborators with Lacey in her nonprofit work, thanked the Lacey family for sharing their mother with the greater Chicago area.

“Miss Rae brought us all together. … As you can see, we’re all here,” Wilson Brown said. “Those relationships that were built with the police, we never thought was possible before Miss Rae made it happen. Erick made it happen … all of the coaches and everybody who came to spend their time with the children in the 7th District made that happen.”

“She believed in her program, in the power of chess because people need to think strategically before they act,” Wills said. “That was her thing.”

A nephew stood before the congregation on a spring Saturday to say that before Lacey passed, he made a commitment to her that Not Before My Parents won’t end. Instead, the family is looking to expand the program to other states.

“We definitely have to continue it,” Erick Lacey said. “She’ll come back and haunt me if I don’t.”

Lacey is also survived by her daughters Ericka Lacey, Dominique Thomas and Dakaria Thomas; 28 grandchildren; 18 great-grandchildren; three sisters; and two brothers.

Andria Goss, associate vice president of clinical and community services at the Erikson Institute, a graduate school for social work, early childhood education and child development programs, said people are astonished when they learn and appreciate that fact.

“Babies experience everything as a bodily feeling: If a parent is stressed, depressed and/or anxious, the baby is picking up on that,” she said. “Imagine a mom who has her own stresses and sometimes she’s able to focus on her baby and other times there’s an interaction, she’s angry, or not attuned to the baby, not doing the stuff that engages the baby. They have this on-off, on-off repeatedly. The baby doesn’t know what to do with that because the baby is working hard to get smiles, elicit cooing and it’s not happening. At a certain point, with all those failed attempts, the baby stops trying … and withdraws.”

Goss said that although that’s an extreme example, it illustrates how babies pick up stressors from their environment and don’t know what to do with them. When such interactions become chronic, that can create challenges in the parent-child relationship.

The Erikson Institute’s Center for Children and Families offers in-person and online mental health services to children as young as newborns and their families in and around Chicago from its River North and Little Village locations, and has been doing so for decades.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 1 in 6 U.S. children ages 2 to 8 years has a diagnosed mental, behavioral or developmental disorder and among that group, boys are more likely than girls to have such a disorder.

“What we do at the Center for Children and Families is more a preventive measure,” Goss said. “The expectation is that babies are going to assimilate into my life. But that’s not their job. That’s our job (as adults and parents).”

When families and schools identify that something may not be working for a child, they get in touch with CCF, whose focus is relationship-based therapy. The center tries to connect the dots when there is a disconnect and a child is unable to regulate emotions and less able to explore and learn.

“When we’re looking at mental health and psychiatric difficulties, it’s a nature-nurture situation — we call it a vulnerability stress model,” said Sally Weinstein, licensed clinical psychologist and associate director at the University of Illinois Center on Depression and Resilience. “We all are born into this world with some biological vulnerabilities that we inherit. And these may interact with our environment in ways that are either protective for our development, or may be harmful for our development. It is that combination that affects development, even of young kids.”

The goal of therapy is to strengthen attunement — a person’s ability to be aware of and respond to a child’s needs — to strengthen the child’s and caregiver’s capacities, their relationship and how a caregiver is able to experience and parent the child.

“What you want for your baby, being attuned to where your baby is and what he/she needs? We’re unpacking those types of things,” Goss said.

CCF gets to the heart of that through play. Licensed clinical social worker and CCF Director Sara Phou said the bulk of the families they serve have children age 3 to 6 who get 18 months of therapy. The center connects caregivers with therapists to glean the challenges in the caregiver-child relationship prior to the child being brought in. When the child comes to a CCF location, therapists observe the child playing with their caregiver as a clinician takes note of how play is unfolding, the themes, the feelings involved.

“(Children) use play to develop, to understand the world, but also as a way to help share how they’re thinking and feeling,” Phou said.

If, for instance, a child plays with cars and races through a city knocking down blocks featuring a good guy and a bad guy, the child may be trying to make sense of good and bad in the world. “We can join them in their play, and help the car be regulated,” Phou said. “Using play as an extension of themselves and working through it there might provide a port of entry, a way for them to internalize it.”

Every behavior is a communication, Goss said. “We try to pull insight into what the kid is struggling with,” she said. “We want to evaluate cognitive skills, motor skills, social and emotional skills … it’s not a one size fits all.”

Goss said the center meets families where they are and works with them from perspectives that consider race, culture and their environment. By following their child’s lead and putting in the work in therapy, caregivers enable change in their child’s life.

Engaging in therapy aids caregivers in regulating themselves so they can help regulate their child. And caregivers and parents feel more confident in understanding what’s happening with their child. Once family units feel empowered, parents can feel a sense of efficacy, and feel like whatever happens, they can deal with it.

“Play is so important for development. … It’s that power of connection for the little one around who they are, you want to connect with them around something that is of value to them,” Phou said. “There’s research around 10 minutes a day: If you follow your child’s lead and play with them for 10 minutes a day, that is all they need to build that connection. … That is going to be a huge protective factor for their mental health.”

Weinstein agrees that the short amount of time can help children build trust with parents and help parents build confidence and competence. Phou said 10 minutes of daily play can be more beneficial than hours of planned family time every couple of months.

“Finding moments where there’s joy and delight, in who they are, and it feels good for both of you, is going to help the relationship and help that connection,” Phou said.

But how does a parent know when an issue escalates to something that needs intervention, especially when there’s such a broad range in how kids develop and so many symptoms of mental health difficulties that resemble what normal childhood looks like: mood variability, big emotions, irritability, all which can be part of a child’s experience?

Weinstein said parents should be looking for any sort of disruption or deviation from typical milestones, like toilet training, talking and walking, and keep in mind feedback from those around your child such as preschool teachers or day care staffers who may notice if your child is struggling.

“While kids brains are changing so much and that’s why they are having these big emotions and having a hard time regulating emotions, the great news is that the brain is still developing and very malleable,” Weinstein said. “So the more intervention, love and support, the more we can modify some of the difficulties.”

Early in the pandemic, Weinstein and Goss both noticed an uptick in referrals for mental health help and youths reaching out to access support themselves without their parents’ urging. The shift shows a growing acceptance of therapy, they said.

“When there’s a challenge around mental health for a young child, the treatment isn’t just for the child,” Phou said. “We’re working with both the caregiver and the child together and supporting that caregiver to help them think about what they might be bringing to the equation and how they can support their child and what their child is bringing to the equation.”

Goss added that can be challenging because caregivers have to look at themselves in relation to their child and how they are engaging and connecting in order to effect change.

For first-time parents, who may face sleep deprivation, burnout or a lack of feeling effective, Weinstein said their mental health is key. She suggests parents consider getting support by talking with other new parents or with their pediatrician. Since parents are the experts on their children, they are also the first line of defense when it comes to intervention.

“There are no hard and fast rules, even if a teacher says I see your child is struggling, that is not a reason to panic, but always a reason to seek out and gain support and more understanding about ways you could help your child,” Weinstein said.

These days, the West Garfield Park native is at the helm of the boats that are part of Chicago’s First Lady Cruises fleet as the company’s youngest boat captain at age 26.

Gibbs, now a mother of two boys, Kameron, 9, and Zion, 2, has been rocking the four bars on her epaulets, signifying her role as captain, since August 2023. The CFL family welcomed her promotion and growth by inviting her onto one of their vessels and, as Gibbs recalls, 10 people were standing in a circle in the salon waiting for her.

“I’m thinking: What did I do? As I walked up on the boat, I was going to back on out, but I saw the owner, Captain Tim Agra standing there. I was like I can’t back out now,” she says laughing, thinking back to the day.

The group was there to congratulate Gibbs on passing the captain’s course. She said she almost teared up, but kept it together.

“I still wake up every day saying, ‘Yeah, I’m a captain!’,” she said. “Officially having the keys to the vessel, it’s nice. Being a part of the captains meeting is like, ‘I’m there! I finally made it!”

Gibbs navigates the official Chicago Architecture Center River Cruise down all three branches of the Chicago River. Five years ago, her eyes were on the prize of being a captain. Now that she has her captain’s license, she’s working toward getting the keys to all of the cruise company’s vessels, five more to be exact.

And while she’s working toward that, she’s also trying to bring more people of color and more women into the world of boating — people like Attia Gray, a Hammond resident who was serving aboard the vessel with Gibbs as first mate on a sunny April afternoon.

“I actually never did a river cruise before applying here,” Gray said. “But I just feel like the way that these boats look, the care they take, it looked like the best company to choose.”

Gray started on the recreational side of boating before transitioning to the commercial side. She already has her captain’s license, which according to Gibbs, requires the holder to have hundreds of hours and days working on the water. And that’s aside from going to school. The schools have varying requirements to get a license.

Once a captain’s license is obtained, one joins a commercial boating company, which has its own program that pairs potential captains with current captains to train them on how to run a particular ship. Both women agree it’s a process that takes time, and Gray is waiting for a spot to open up in the cruise line’s program. Gibbs said she is one of two female captains, out of 18 total captains, with Chicago’s First Lady Cruises. Gibbs can hardly wait to welcome Gray into the fold to make it a trio.

“Another female Black captain … I’ve been trying to help her get to the same level I’m on,” Gibbs said.

As members of the Ship Masters’ Association, Gibbs and Gray are doing community outreach to get more diversity on the water. Gibbs said she’s reaching out to high schools, clubs and youth groups to recruit more people.

Maritime life found Gibbs when, after a year at Malcolm X College, she was studying to be an emergency medical technician. She needed a job that allowed her flexibility with her young son. When she applied for a job with the cruise line, company officials saw on her resume that she was CPR certified and said, “Instead of working on the docks, how about giving it a try on the boat?” The rest is history. Gibbs has been with the company since 2017.

Gibbs still can’t swim, but she can stay afloat and tread water. She’s contemplating taking swim lessons with her sons. Days before Mother’s Day, Gibbs said juggling motherhood with her full-time job is a bit tough, but she said she wouldn’t have been able to do it without the assistance of her mother and the understanding and support of her colleagues in the company.

“They understand my situation. … I’m still a mom, so I have to be able to take care of the boys and help the company as much as I can,” she said. “Working here is pretty much like my second home. When I’m not at home, I prefer to be at work. I don’t even want to go anywhere else.”

Ninety-minute cruises explore both the lake and the river, and passengers hear information about Chicago’s buildings and history from tour guides. Official architecture tours, on the river only, with volunteer docents from the Chicago Architecture Center are also 90 minutes.

“As the senior female in our fourth-generation family-owned business, I am so proud of the hard work and dedication Diamond invested to become a U.S. Coast Guard licensed captain aboard our ships,” said Holly Agra, executive chairman of Chicago’s First Lady Cruises. “Her commitment to safety first, coupled with her ability to work together with fellow crew members, docents and passengers, demonstrate qualities we celebrate as a company.”

Chicago’s First Lady’s season begins in early spring and ends in November. The year-round, full-time job also entails maintaining the boats in the Dolton shipyard during the offseason. Gibbs is on the team that ensures the wood on the boats is maintained.

Gibbs has made a home for herself on the water, so much so that she’s had offers from other companies enticing her to leave CFL. But Gibbs stands firm.

“I’m very happy where I’m at,” she said.

Much fanfare was made in July 2023, when the Dallas pastor agreed to take the helm of the civil rights organization headquartered in a former temple in Chicago’s Kenwood neighborhood.

On April 16, less than three months into the job, Haynes resigned from the position that Rainbow/PUSH President Emeritus the Rev. Jesse Jackson Sr. founded through its predecessor, Operation PUSH.

Since then, conversation about why he resigned has picked up, with a number of Black leaders weighing in. Roland Martin, a journalist and CEO of Black Star Network, told CBS 2 that Haynes did not have the autonomy to lead the organization as Jackson’s successor.

“You had the friction there,” Martin said to CBS. “He did not have the full authority to actually do the job.”

Former Illinois senator and senior pastor of Salem Baptist Church Pastor James Meeks is a Rainbow/PUSH Coalition board member. He offered a statement after Haynes stepped down: “Transitions can be very difficult. We respect Dr. Freddy Haynes and appreciate the time that he was able to give to Rainbow/PUSH. As an organization, we will continue our national search for a replacement for Rev. Jackson.”

Atlanta-based attorney and Rainbow/PUSH Coalition board chair, CK Hoffler, said she was surprised by Haynes stepping down. Hoffler has worked pro bono with Jackson for 37 years.

“Of course we’re sorry it didn’t work out because this is who we envisioned would be the next person to be the immediate successor,” she said. “It didn’t work out but in this movement, we expect things will happen. But we have to regroup. The good thing is Rev. Haynes remains a great friend and supporter of Rainbow/PUSH and Rainbow/PUSH remains a great friend and supporter of Rev. Haynes. Now both have to continue with their mission.”

An April 23 statement from the Rainbow/PUSH Coalition said that a strategic planning committee has been appointed by the board to lead the process to appoint an interim president. Hoffler said the search for a new leader of the organization “will be efficient and swift, but not rushed.”

In the meantime, Jackson’s youngest son, Yusef Jackson, will serve as chief operating officer with day-to-day operational oversight.

Rainbow/PUSH Coalition has long been an advocacy platform to promote economic, educational and political change. Hoffler said people continually seek out the organization’s help for basic needs such as food, clothing and scholarships, and that mission will continue.

“Rev. Jackson always said that Rainbow/PUSH has never been a vessel for a single person. It’s a vessel for a movement,” Hoffler said. “Dr. Haynes is a friend of Rainbow; we all stand in solidarity in this movement. He and Rev. Jackson. So we didn’t lose a friend. He’s just no longer our leader. But he is still working in solidarity, just as we are.”

When asked if a new leader will be selected before the Democratic National Convention, to be held in Chicago Aug. 19-22, Hoffler said she hopes it’ll happen sooner rather than later.

“It is a setback not to have a leader for this moment, but when you have a setback, it prepares you for a hell of a comeback,” Hoffler said.

In his resignation letter, Haynes said he made the decision to step down from the role as chief executive officer and president after continual prayer and deliberation. But he didn’t offer further explanation.

“I extend my heartfelt gratitude to all who have expressed their support since my appointment in July of last year,” Haynes wrote in the letter. “I remain committed to honoring the rich history of Rainbow/PUSH Coalition and the legacy of its esteemed leader, the incomparable Rev. Jesse Jackson Sr., and most significantly, to the calling and pursuit of social justice.”

Haynes, a senior pastor from Friendship-West Baptist Church in Dallas, embraced the presidency of the civil rights organization at Rainbow/PUSH’s annual conference last summer.

Jackson accepted Haynes’ resignation in a written response, and said the board of trustees as well as Rainbow/PUSH staff and members are grateful to Haynes for his service and leadership. Jackson said he looks forward to the continued collaboration between Haynes and the organization in the pursuit of justice and equity.

When asked if medical issues led to Haynes’ departure, Hoffler said she’s not aware of anything along those lines and will not discuss details of any former employee’s tenure with the organization. Calls to Haynes went unanswered.

When Haynes, 63, was formally installed as president and CEO in February, he told The Associated Press he appreciated what Jackson “poured into” him. In 2023, Haynes said it was an honor to be chosen for the role, even though it was a lot of pressure to take up the mantle after Jackson, who ceded day-to-day operations in 2022.

Hoffler said filling the role is challenging. “Anytime you’ve got the organization’s founder, who is huge and iconic, and when that person stepped down from the day-to-day leadership, as the reverend did (he wore so many hats), of course, it creates challenges to be able to find someone who’s going to step in to be on his shoulders,” she said. “There’s only one Rev. Jesse Louis Jackson Sr., so when we’re looking at his successor, it’s someone who’s going to stand on his shoulders. We take that very seriously.”