Elgin News Digest: Discounted tix available for Nightmare on Chicago Street; ESO Brass Quintet holding free Thursday outdoor concerts
One thousand general admission tickets are available online at nightmareonchicagostreet.com/tickets, according to the event website. After they are sold out, the ticket price will increase to $35 online and $40 if purchased at the event, officials for the city-sponsored event said.
General admission tickets include access to the downtown fest and its attractions, scare zones, shows, special photo ops and music stages, and are needed to purchase items from general food and drink vendors.
An $85 all-access pass includes early entry to the fest and entrance into one of four special-themed pop-up bars. VIP parking passes are $50.
For more information, email nightmareonchicagostreet@gmail.com.
The Elgin Symphony Orchestra Brass Quintet will present free outdoor concerts in Elgin on two Thursdays in June.
Accompanied by local church choirs, the quintet will perform at 6 p.m. June 19 the Gail Borden Public Library's Juneteenth celebration on the main library's outdoor stage, 270 N. Grove Ave., according to a new release. Attendees are free to bring blankets, lawn chairs and picnic dinners.
The second performance is set for 7 p.m. June 26 at Lords Park, 1800 Oakwood Blvd.
For more information, go to elginsymphony.org.
The third annual Juneteenth Summer Jam Freedom Celebration will take place from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Thursday, June 19, in Carpenter Park, 275 Maple Ave., Carpentersville.
Focused on education, the arts and local businesses, the gathering's goal is to unify the community through fun and family friendly activities, according to the event website. Exhibits, contests, games, music, food, symposiums and a food drive will be held.
For more information, go to 300annualjuneteenth.com.
To celebrate the summer solstice, the Randall Oaks Zoo in West Dundee is holding a 'Sunshine Symphony' all day Saturday, June 21, featuring performances by local choirs, children's bands and dance troupes.
Not only will music be provided for the entertainment of zoo visitors, it will 'enrich' the zoo's animals, according to the Dundee Township Park District program guide.
The zoo is located at 1180 N. Randall Road. Zoo hours are 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. For more information, call 847-551-4312 or email randalloakszoo@dtpd.org.
Chicagoland Dog Rescue will hold a 'Rescue on the River at Rosie's' fundraiser from noon to 4 p.m. Saturday, June 21, on the patio at Rosie O'Hare's Public House, 702 Water St., East Dundee.
A trivia contest, wine pull and raffle baskets will be part of the event, a social media post said.
According to the Chicagoland Dog Rescue website, the nonprofit is a volunteer-based, shelterless rescue dedicated to rescuing, socializing and placing homeless dogs into permanent homes, regardless of a dog's breed, size or age.
For more information on the benefit, call 847-426-1116.
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Some historians say the moniker 'Buffalo Soldiers' was bestowed by the tribes who admired the bravery and tenacity of the fighters, but that might be more legend than fact. 'At the end of the day, we really don't have that kind of information,' said Cale Carter, director of exhibitions at the Buffalo Soldiers National Museum in Houston. Carter and other museum staff said that, only in the past few years, the museum made broader efforts to include more of the complexities of the battles the Buffalo Soldiers fought against Native Americans and Mexican revolutionaries and the role they played in the subjugation of Indigenous peoples. They, much like many other museums across the country, are hoping to add more nuance to the framing of American history and be more respectful of the ways they have caused harm to Indigenous communities. 'We romanticize the Western frontier,' he said. 'The early stories that talked about the Buffalo Soldiers were impacted by a lot of those factors. So you really didn't see a changing in that narrative until recently.' There has often been a lack of diverse voices discussing how the history of the Buffalo Soldiers is framed, said Michelle Tovar, the museum's director of education. The current political climate has put enormous pressure on schools, including those in Texas, to avoid honest discussions about American history, she said. 'Right now, in this area, we are getting pushback from a lot of school districts in which we can't go and teach this history," Tovar said. "We are a museum where we can at least be a hub, where we can invite the community regardless of what districts say, invite them to learn it and do what we can do the outreach to continue to teach honest history.' Historians scrutinize reclamation motive Beyoncé's recent album 'Act II: Cowboy Carter' has played on a kind of American iconography, which many see as her way of subverting the country music genre's adjacency to whiteness and reclaiming the cowboy aesthetic for Black Americans. Last year, she became the first Black woman ever to top Billboard's country music chart, and 'Cowboy Carter' won her the top prize at the 2025 Grammy Awards, album of the year. 'The Buffalo Soldiers play this major role in the Black ownership of the American West,' said Tad Stoermer, a historian and professor at Johns Hopkins University. 'In my view, (Beyoncé is) well aware of the role that these images play. This is the 'Cowboy Carter' tour for crying out loud. The entire tour, the entire album, the entire piece is situated in this layered narrative.' But Stoermer also points out that the Buffalo Soldiers have been framed in the American story in a way that also plays into the myths of American nationalism. As Beyoncé's use of Buffalo Soldiers imagery implies, Black Americans also use their story to claim agency over their role in the creation of the country, said Alaina E. Roberts, a historian, author and professor at the University of Pittsburgh who studies the intersection of Black and Native American life from the Civil War to present day. 'That's the category in which she thought maybe she was coming into this conversation, but the Buffalo Soldiers are even a step above that because they were literally involved in not just the settlement of the West but of genocide in a sense,' she said. Online backlash builds ahead of Houston shows Several Native influencers, performers, and academics took to social media this week to criticize Beyoncé or decry the shirt's language as anti-Indigenous. 'Do you think Beyoncé will apologize (or acknowledge) the shirt?' an Indigenous news and culture Instagram account with more than 130,000 followers, asked in a post Thursday. Many of her critics, as well as fans, agree. A flood of social media posts called out the pop star for the historic framing on the shirt. 'The Buffalo Soldiers are an interesting historical moment to look at. But we have to be honest about what they did, especially in their operations against Indigenous Americans and Mexicans,' said Chisom Okorafor, who posts on TikTok under the handle @confirmedsomaya. Okorafor said there is no 'progressive' way to reclaim America's history of empire building in the West, and that Beyoncé's use of Western symbolism sends a problematic message: 'That Black people, too, can engage in American nationalism.' 'Black people, too, can profit from the atrocities of (the) American empire,' she said. "It is a message that tells you to abandon immigrants, Indigenous people, and people who live outside of the United States. It is a message that tells you not only is it a virtue to have been born in this country, but the longer your line extends in this country, the more virtuous you are.'
