On Wednesday June 19, 250 public housing residents and supporters gathered to celebrate liberation and protest the continued disenfranchisement of low income residents of public housing. The diverse crowd, representing many parts of the city of Chicago, came together to demand that the Chicago Housing Authority and Mayor Daley stop the demolition of public housing and begin building the replacement housing that has been promised.

The celebratory event began at 2:30pm with the construction of a tent city at the Ida B. Wells housing project at 39 and Langley. The tent city represented the future of public housing if people are continually displaced. Children, adults and seniors from a wide range of backgrounds and culture banded together to build the makeshift village with wood, hammers, cardboard and duct tape. On a sign facing Pershing Road was written 'the future of public housing.' Slogans written on the rehabed refrigerator boxes reminded the visitor of the effects that the city's redevelopment plan is having on people. "Do you like Ida B. Wells? I Do," read one. Another read, 'bought to you as a gift from the Chicago (un)Housing Authority.'

The CHA has recently given residents of the Wells complex 180 days notice to move. The city plans to demolish the site and possibly sell it to private investors. Talk of renovation have fallen on deaf ears. The CHA claims it has no money to build of rehab.

Wells is different than the other properties that the CHA has torn down. While the other sites were the much vilified high rises, Wells is a complex of low rise buildings. Those buildings look strangely like the renderings of other sites mixed income housing plans. The buildings, while in need of complete electrical and plumping rehabs, are structurally sound, two to three story brick apartments. Half the units look boarded up and unoccupied, which begs and question of why the city doesn't rehab those units and have people remain in their community.

According to speakers at the event the reason is clear, money. The land that CHA housing sits on has become some of the most sought after property in the city. At the time the sites were developed the locations were in areas out of site of the city's elite. With the expansion of million dollar town homes in the west loop and to the south, the city's well-to-do are coming face-to-face with the problems they have tried to ignore. Instead of developing viable communities the city is offering displacement.

The fate of the families at Ida B. Wells to relocate is grim. Daniel Romero of the Community Renewal Society explained. The city has been offering residents section 8 housing vouchers when they are displaced. Section 8 vouchers are suppose to be accepted by landlords to replace cash rent payments. The landlord then gets money from the city instead of the resident. The problem is that fewer landlords are willing to accept section 8 vouchers. With the rising cost of rental housing, landlords can get more money from the private market. "It doesn't make sense to throw thousands of more people into a housing market that is already over loaded," said Romero. "The buildings are still good, it doesn't make sense."

Juneteenth has been a joyous celebration of community and life for African-Americans for the last 150 years. It was June 19 1865 that the slaves in the republic of Texas finally learned, two years after the fact, that slavery had been abolished. While the Emancipation Proclamation ended the physical apparatus of slavery inequalities for all people continue to this day. It is ironic that the celebration must also be used in a continued fight for equality. But it shows the viability and resistance of community.