Press Release

Chicago Black Wall Street                    For Immediate Release

                                                                            August 4, 2021

Contact: Darva Watkins 312-366-5187                                             

Ron Carter 773 595 5229

State Street Food Co-op "Resurrecting Black Wall Street on State Street”

Chicago - In addressing the need for a grocery store for targeting the Dearborn Homes of Chicago Housing Authority, the Chicago Black Wall Street (CBWS) will be presenting the State Street Initiative "Resurrecting Black Wall Street on State Street” in partnership with other community groups anchoring the State Street Food Co-op in the city’s Douglas community of Bronzeville, targeting the Dearborn Homes.

The meeting will be held Saturday, August 7, 2021 at 11am, sponsored and held at the Chicago South Loop Hotel, 11 West 26th Street, Chicago, Illinois.

   This initiative was created for its residents, by its residents. Its major directive is to empower its residents to develop and strive for individual, as well as community-wide, empowerment in business and economic development to create more jobs and raise the overall income of community residents in accordance with the Federal Section 3 Program.

 At the start of this initiative it was cited as a food desert by national assessments and studies. The neighborhood is almost exclusively African American. Therefore, the problem of food desert is not simply a public health issue, but an urgent to meet the civic needs of the community. As with most urban tribulations that disparately impact communities of color, all parties involved share, to varying degrees, responsibility compiling the many efforts made by the City of Chicago, food retailers, nonprofits, community organizations, and others to address the food desert problem of the said area.

 The community members are more poised than ever to work tirelessly to champion this mission with Dearborn Homes Local Advisor Council of CHA and the Staford Commons Condominium Association. The on-line petition to Mayor Lori Lightfoot is over 1,300 supporters. The elected officials support includes Ald. Pat Dowell (3), Cook County Commissioner Bill Lowry, State Senator Matter Hunter (3), and Congressman Danny Davis (7). Technical marketing assessment in conjunction with DePaul University and securing relations with Illinois Institute of Technology, and Black Metropolis Convention and Tourism Council with Illinois Black Wall Street, National Black Wall Street Chicago and Black Wall Street USA and a host of other organizations.

The DOP has extended to the committee technical support and its interest to work on this initiative, to lend directional support with securing the property. In additional we have a potential developer and Grocery retailer with ‘Big Box’ store financial practice, and a capital investor that will serve as financial/project manager.

Funding is sought from each sector of government from the Department of Housing and Urban Development Section 3 programs directed to Dearborn residents’ jobs and business development to city local funding of the Mayor Lori Lightfoot SOUTH WEST INVEST INITIATIVE program that supports private rehabilitation and construction projects that add economic vitality to neighborhood commercial corridors and support local needs.

 There are four (4) blocks possible sites directly across of Dearborn Homes (26th to 30th on State Street). Each site can accommodate square footage of a grocery store from 3,000 to 10,000 including parking. All properties are unused for more than 30 years, except for one that is barely used, owned by a car dealership.

  It is commonly known crime and violence is mainly in the African American communities, as witness from the public safety meeting held in Dearborn Homes July 28th.  For the most part is the lack of economic development, not just jobs to curve the violence.
Residents of Dearborn are in an exceptional interlude not to dilute their spirit of a grocery store of what they have been requesting for over 20 years. Historical of what has not been done as Mayor Lightfoot proclaimed with the South West Initiative, but a directive of what can be done in scope of DOP overview and elected officials formula to making this a reality targeting the residents of Dearborn Homes.

CBWS reported over 1,300 supporters have signed the online petition, and asking the public at large not only to be present with their expertise to help make it happen, and to extend that openness in celebrating August being National Black Business Month.