socioeconomic

Still Working on the Revolution

“You’ve given status to people who would ordinarily not have it…thus giving them power and ability to make change.” Rev. Dr. Gregory Jones Edited by Rebecca Werner Transcript for Still Working on the Revolution I moved to Valpo in 1988. I met Walt Reiner maybe a year before. I was running something called the South […]

Resilience of the Residents

“I’m talking about people in my neighborhood who have been in their homes for forty years—they believe in the city and believe that it can work. Transcript for Resilience of the Residents Well, you know, I used to always think and say that even in the neighborhood where I live—because Tolleston is really older than […]

Not Something That You Force

“You learn how to trust each other, you learn to assume responsibility for each other, you develop relationships… It’s something that happens in the course of time.” Rev. Dr. Gregory Jones Edited by Rebecca Werner Transcript for Not Something That You Force A good neighbor is someone who assumes responsibility for you. The example I […]

No Interest in Seeing Our City Progress

“Why don’t you come to Gary and see what Gary really is?” Transcript for No Interest in Seeing Our City Progress You know—city services are based on tax revenue and if you don’t have enough people who are paying into that tax base, then of course, you can’t provide the level of service that you […]

Remember Where You Came From

“You can never forget who you are.” Transcript for Remember Where You Came From I say to my grandkids all the time, you can never forget who you are, but you have to remember where you come from. You know what the WPA is? It was a work program that Roosevelt set up for people […]

Back Then, It Mattered

“So these are things that I kind of learned that I didn’t realize I was learning.” Transcript for Back Then, It Mattered I’m Croatian. And when I was a kid, it mattered. My dad was Croatian, my grandfather, George Davich, he was a city worker for the city of Gary. Street Department. And he was […]

Double Whammy

“Now, we talked about the white flight; we didn’t talk about what really made it worse in Gary.” Double Whammy is part of our Flight Paths initiative. Double Whammy So the white flight in Gary—there are differing viewpoints as to what caused that and what fueled it. And I think the popular one, primarily by […]

A Well-Kept Secret

“If you don’t have access to the information, you don’t know what your potential is.” Produced by Reagan Skaggs. Transcript for A Well-Kept Secret I remember going to Pulaski. Pulaski was a middle school back then. Seventh grade, we had a speech teacher. She introduced us to black poets—black poetry—and all of us kids was […]