Latest news with #DivisionStreetRevisited
Chicago Tribune
19-02-2025
- Politics
- Chicago Tribune
Laura Washington: Studs Terkel had a quality today's Democrats so sorely need
Studs Terkel. It's a big name with a huge past. Terkel left us in 2008 at the age of 96 but left behind accolades that abide today. The latest Terkel homage is a podcast series launched last month by former Tribune journalists Mary Schmich and Melissa Harris. (Harris now is CEO of a Chicago-based marketing agency, M. Harris and Co.) The project expands on 'Division Street: America,' Terkel's oral history that chronicled the Chicago of the 1960s. In the seven-part series, 'Division Street Revisited,' Pulitzer Prize winner Schmich examines the lives of seven everyday people Terkel interviewed for the book, which is named after the Chicago thoroughfare. It is an apt and timely effort. No one has emerged to succeed him as the quintessential Chicago media icon, but his legacy remains. Terkel was born a New Yorker in 1912, but his family changed towns and landed in Chicago when he was 10 years old. He grew up in a Near North Side rooming house and evolved into many things: writer, historian, broadcaster, political analyst, labor commentator and all-around one-of-a-kind character. The prolific author told the stories of the working class in his 1974 classic, 'Working,' interviewing workers of all types and stripes. He won the 1985 Pulitzer Prize for his epic World War II oral history, 'The Good War.' Terkel's tales were as colorful as the ubiquitous red socks he sported. His life and stories offer lessons at a time when the nation's Democrats have lost voters and lost the presidential election. Terkel could have warned them. He had the quality today's Democrats so sorely need. He spoke authentically in the language that the working classes of America understood and embraced. When you heard from Studs, you always wanted more. He spoke to those at the grassroots who mattered. In telling their stories, he did not patronize them; rather, he elevated them. He toiled in the American tradition of supporting the underdogs who never have the resources or connections to smooth out the rough patches of life. He never put blue-collar workers on pedestals like so many on the political left. Terkel reached out to them, listened to them and shared their stories, warts and all. His cigar-filtered, crackling voice was singular, in his decades of interviews that were broadcast on WFMT-FM 98.7. He was the unofficial spokesperson for Chicago, 'the City of the Big Shoulders.' He was a national star but never left those roots. His credentials were his conversations with people famed and regular. He had his ear to the ground. Journalists followed him tirelessly. Terkel was a go-to for me and countless others here and around the world. If you wrote about Chicago, you had to check in with him to get the lowdown on our people and history, through his quirkily wise insights. I was fortunate to know and spend time with him. Whenever we talked, he would reflect on the importance of learning from history. We have forgotten our history, he would say. Americans, he would declare, suffer from 'national Alzheimer's disease.' In Terkel's heyday, working in Chicago was a different place than the industrial powerhouse that dominated the dawn of his life. Chicago poet Carl Sandburg once wrote, was the 'Hog Butcher for the World, Tool Maker, Stacker of Wheat, Player with Railroads and the Nation's Freight Handler; Stormy, husky, brawling, City of the Big Shoulders.' That was Terkel's milieu. He was always harking back to these chapters of Chicago history, nostalgic for a simpler, bygone era. Upton Sinclair's tale of the old Chicago stockyards, 'The Jungle,' had been in circulation for six years by the time Terkel was born. Sandburg's poem 'Chicago' was published two years after Terkel came into the world. Chicagoans are working today, but their livelihoods have changed. A city that was once Black and white now enjoys an intensely varied ethnic mix. When you tell the story of this city, you tell it through our outstanding storytellers, who are much more likely to be Black or Latino or Asian. Chicago is now a much more fractured place, split between so many lines that fail to capture diversity and the drama. Nailing the ethos and ecosystem of a big city is no easy feat. Terkel did, yet he was an eternal optimist. Finding an open window in the psyche of a challenged Chicago is tricky. The 'Division Street' series, Schmich said, aims to explore how the lives of Terkel's ordinary people 'can give us perspective on our lives today.'
Chicago Tribune
04-02-2025
- Chicago Tribune
Afternoon Briefing: Lake County volunteers search deep into the night for the homeless
Good afternoon, Chicago. The family of a 14-year-old boy who died from injuries sustained in a 2023 crash outside Fuller's Car Wash in Hinsdale is questioning the timing of last week's bankruptcy protection filing by Fuller's. Sean Richards was struck and killed after a teenage employee from Fuller's Car Wash, 102 Chicago Ave., hit the accelerator instead of the brake, according to police, and drove into the side of Fontano's Subs across the street. Richards was walking on the sidewalk there when the incident occurred. A statement issued Friday by Bradley M. Cosgrove and Charles R. Haskins, partners at Clifford Law Offices in Chicago, the firm representing the Richards family, said the family was not surprised that Fuller's filed for bankruptcy protection Jan. 29, 'just hours before its responsible parties were set to have their depositions taken in the wrongful death matter.' The Richards family has filed a wrongful-death lawsuit against Fuller's. Here's what else is happening today. And remember, for the latest breaking news in Chicago, visit and sign up to get our alerts on all your devices. Lake County volunteers search deep into the night for the homeless Last year's count found Lake County's homeless population had increased by 50% over the year before. Whether that trend continues is to be determined. Read more here. Jurors in Madigan trial return for more deliberations Today in Chicago History: 'A slow-motion horror' in the Loop kills 11 in CTA derailment during rush hour Howard Brown announces new CEO, during time of challenges for transgender patients under Trump Howard Brown Health announced a new CEO today — a former public health official who arrives after a time of tumult for the organization and at the beginning of a presidential term that's already posing challenges for transgender patients. Read more here. Is anyone 'untouchable'? Chicago Bulls face uncertainty after Zach LaVine trade signals beginning of overhaul. Even after years of rumors, guard Coby White said he and his teammates were caught off guard when they landed in Chicago on Sunday night to the news that Zach LaVine had been traded. Read more here. More top sports stories: 3 things we learned from the Chicago Blackhawks, including why they called up No. 2 pick Artyom Levshunov Marcus Jordan, Michael Jordan's 34-year-old son, arrested on cocaine possession charge 'Division Street Revisited' resurrects the spirit and stories of Studs Terkel A seven-episode podcast series called 'Division Street Revisited,' from executive producers and veteran journalists Melissa Harris and Mary Schmich, shares the unfinished stories of seven people Studs Terkel spoke with for his 1967 book, 'Division Street: America,' and what their stories say about the hopes and fears of everyday Americans. Read more here. More top Eat. Watch. Do. stories: Marco Rubio says El Salvador's offer to jail violent American criminals faces 'legalities' Secretary of State Marco Rubio said El Salvador's offer to accept and jail violent American criminals raises clear legal issues but described it as 'very generous' and said President Donald Trump would decide whether to move forward with it. Read more here.
