Raymond McDonald / Shaq
Lived at Cabrini Green from 1993–present.
There’s a lot that I didn’t know growing up about my neighborhood that I was living in, but what I did know it was resilient. We marched. We fought. To see the Black power. Just to see our people have a voice, something to hold on to. It made a difference to me growing up, it gave me a sense of self, seeing in knowing what they wanted. Home stability, stability with itself in life. A community.
H. Demetrius Bonner
Lived at Stateway Gardens from 1958–1989.
What you have to understand is that growing up in that era the thing was to be proud of blackness, proud of who you are. We didn’t know what poor was. I didn’t anyway. Because if you need it you got it. Some people were less fortunate, but the public housing I grew up in, see my grandmother was the Candy Lady and if you had an issue, your mother would come talk to the Candy Lady and my grandmother would try to help them work it out. She wasn’t the only one — there was a lot of Candy Ladies around.
