John “Oppress” Preston was a leading member of the Illinois Chapter of the Black Panther Party (BPP). His role within the party was to set up and distribute the BPP newspaper throughout the state of Illinois. Though the BPP started in Oakland,…

Jack Hart was a primary assistant to Walter “Slim” Coleman during the Jiménez for Alderman Campaign of 1975. He continues to live and work in Chicago’s 46th Ward, primarily in the Uptown Community. In the 1970s, Hart was a member of the Intercommunal…

Iberia Hampton is the mother of murdered Illinois Black Panther Party Chairman Fred Hampton, as well as Dee and Bill Hampton. Throughout her life she has been active within her church and the community. Along with Bill Hampton and the board, Mrs.…

Hy Thurman arrived in Chicago when he was seventeen years old from a small farming town in eastern Tennessee. Mr. Thurman co-founded the Young Patriots. In 1969, the Young Patriots became part of the original Rainbow Coalition, along with the Young…

Howard Alan is an architect who specializes in organic architecture, passive and active solar and alternative energy conservation. He grew up in Chicago and first learned architecture in high school before going on to attend the School of…

Hilda Frontany is a long-time community activist whose family first lived in the Water Hotel in Chicago’s La Clark neighborhood when they arrived in Chicago from Puerto Rico. In the late 1960s and 1970s she devoted her work to addressing the housing…

Higinio Lozano arrived in Chicago and settled in the La Clark neighborhood in 1947. He later moved to North Avenue and Sedgwick in Old Town, right across the street from Lincoln Park, and lived there until the 1980s. Mr. Lozano is considered the…

Helen Shiller, a Jewish American born in 1947 in Long Island, New York. Her father had immigrated to the United States from Latvia and her mother from Belarus. She moved to Chicago’s Uptown neighborhood in 1972, living on N. Malden Street. Initially…

Guillermo Martínez was born in Puerto Rico. In the 1950s he moved to Chicago, settling in the most northern and western edge of Lincoln Park, near Diversey Parkway and Ashland Avenue. Mr. Martínez describes his memories of Lincoln Park, including the…

Gregorio Gómez is known as the “G Man” at one of Chicago’s longest running underground poetry venues, “Weeds,” at 1515 North Dayton Street. Opened in 1964, “Weeds” still serves the Lincoln Park neighborhood; the building has existed there since 1928.…

Gloria Rosario grew up in Lincoln Park and Wicker Park during the 1960s, as those communities were becoming unstable, and the forced dislocations had already pushed many of the areas Latino pioneers from their homes. Ms. Rosario describes spending…

Gamaliel Ramirez was born in 1949 in South Bronx, New York to recently arrived immigrant parents. Their family moved to Chicago in 1955. Although Mr. Ramirez was never a member, he hung around with the Latin Kings and with the Young Lords. Mr.…