A dozen or so people gathered around Cheryl Johnson for a grim kind of story time.
Altgeld’s proximity to the southeast side’s slew of factories, landfills, dumps, and polluted waterways has left its residents exposed and vulnerable for more than 30 years. And although Johnson has been preaching this gospel for decades her audience was unexpected. A gaggle of professional environmentalists and longtime community activists were joined by a small handful of bona fide celebrities. Among them was Antonique Smith, an actress and singer who played Mimi in the Broadway production of Rent and Faith Evans in the B.I.G. biopic Notorious, and Malik Yusef, a poet, rapper, and filmmaker who writes tracks with Common and Kanye West and who wrote and produced a short film that was an official selection at Cannes. Altgeld was just one stop on a cross-country bus tour of environmental justice sites around the country. The tour, which is sponsored by the Hip Hop Caucus and People’s Climate Music, includes stops in New Orleans and Ferguson, Missouri, among other cities.
But that was far from the worst of the effects. Johnson inherited this fight from her mother, Hazel.
Smith smiled wide and joined in. In unison they shouted, “We multiply!”
