Springfield’s oldest crossing guard, Herman Hamilton, works down the block from Dubois Elementary School. He directs traffic at the corner of Monroe and Lincoln while puffing on an ever-present pipe. On Valentine’s Day, Hamilton bought an exact number of suckers for every child on his watch. He handed out the candy as he talked to […]
News
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Homeland Insecurity
Before the United States was thrown into uncertainty and grief on September 11, 2001, Springfield residents were the target of a terrorist attack. In the spring of 2001, only months before the World Trade Center tragedy, a group of terrorists were discovered on the Illinois Sate Fairgrounds during a defense department exercise. They were mixing […]
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A peace marcher’s progress report
On February 15, I was in New York City for the international day of protest called “The World Says No to War.” It was biting cold, and I had to double up on everything: two pairs of socks, long underwear plus my warm pants, earmuffs under a hood, finger gloves covered by mittens. The huge […]
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First Draft
In January, as U.S. troops massed for a possible war with Iraq, Congressman Charles Rangel (D-N.Y.) proposed something no lawmaker had done in years: legislation to reinstitute the draft. Rangel’s idea sparked several weeks of lively debate in the halls of government, on TV pundit shows, and in the op-ed pages. Proponents and opponents of […]
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Policing the police
The City Council meeting was packed with angry citizens outraged over the latest scandal in the Springfield Police Department. Mayor Karen Hasara tried pounding her gavel, she tried apologizing, and she even tried publicly admitting that, yes, “there is racism in the department.” Finally, she tried promising a citizen review board, and police chief John […]
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Homeless in winter
The homeless are often called “lazy” or “crazy.” Writer John Jermaine spent last weekend in the freezing cold, talking to homeless people as they tried to stay warm. He says there is no one type. “I have discovered men who defended this country, people who do volunteer work, and those driven to the streets by […]
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Death penalty politics
State Representative Mary O’Brien, a Democrat from Watseka, chairs the Illinois House committee on criminal justice. Given the Democratic Party’s takeover of Springfield and her own landslide reelection in November (she received 70 percent of the vote), you might suspect O’Brien and seven committee members passed a bill to abolish the death penalty last Friday […]
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Sins of omission
The only racism in the Springfield Police Department is reverse racism–the kind where blacks get better treatment than whites. That’s one of the conclusions reached by the Peoria law firm Husch & Eppenberger, which was hired last November to investigate the Springfield Police Department’s handling of two cases involving black officers. The firm’s 99-page report […]
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Mayor Davlin’s right-hand woman
The revolution is manifest in the decor of the spacious corner office overlooking Monroe Street. The centerpiece is a rocking chair on a colorful rug. The credenza holds a handmade pottery tea service. A trio of colorful papier mache birds perches on the window sill. And the bookshelf brims with volumes by Maya Angelou, Alice […]
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Why Andy Won’t Die
The homemade flyers appear all around town like a tragic folk art series. Some feature a snapshot of three smiling boys–a young father holding his two little sons. Some feature a morbid photo of that same father, bruised and bleeding, sustained by a ventilator and IVs. The text below the picture is always something sensational […]
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Don’t walk this way
In 1998 Terry Moore purchased a home in Lake Forest Estates, a new subdivision in the southeastern part of town. One day on a walk around the block, he came to a corner and stopped. Instead of finding a sidewalk leading to the street, he was left standing before only a stretch of grass. After […]
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Bottoms up for Tony Libri
So it’s Wednesday night and you’re flipping around the TV channels looking for something–anything!–worth watching, and there on cable access channel four is Republican mayoral contender, Tony Libri. Ah, let’s see what Libri’s talking about tonight. Is it economic development? Neighborhood revitalization? How to solve all the problems at the police department? No. As it […]
