After the Great Migration, Black Southerners suffered in Northern cities, restricted into slums by fierce segregation. In response, Chicago’s government constructed the massive Cabrini-Green housing project, an ambitious promise of opportunity and prosperity. This dream soon collapsed as governmental neglect and flawed implementation created an environment of insecurity and despair, symbolizing a momentous failure in public policy. The public housing era reshaped the debate over the government’s role in protecting the vulnerable in society, catalyzed the rise of organized crime, and ultimately reinforced systemic inequality and concentrated poverty in America’s cities.

"[Cabrini-Green] shaped my belief system, about poor and oppressed people, public housing, public accommodations, welfare, and the human rights that people are due and deserve."

~ Tara Stamps, Cabrini-Green Resident