Acknowledgments

teamwork makes the dream work. i lean heavy on my community, my family forged in blood & fire. Moms, the fighter. Pops, the storyteller. Aunt Joyce, who has transitioned, my Chicago guide to the art hustle. she loved the city, its artists, put on for them & carved spaces for them to grind & shine. my Uncle Steve, the writer & historian, who loves NYC like i do this burg, a civic pride like Jane Jacobs. my brother Eric, the mensch & disciplined educator & father. my sister Elyse, the who manages to put up with my family with grace & light. Addison & Colin, niece & nephew, who are so different & hilarious & lovely & free. Cheryl & Sasha, y’all a badass, amazing duo.

Young Chicago Authors (YCA) is a home & house i built with the many who are there and who have left and who return. Rebecca Hunter, it would be impossible without your vision & dedication to the growth & integrity of this work. To the staff & team at YCA i am indebted to your belief in making the city anew, again, a more better & fresher space for all.

Louder Than A Bomb (LTAB) is a movement. And at this point there have been tens of thousands and more who have participated and made it so. If you care & believe young people, young artists can shape and shift and sing the world as it is & as it will be, this is a space for you to dream, too. This fountain of youth, of freshness & could-give-a-fuck-lessness & care the most, i rock with y’all too tough: the poets & coaches & teachers & volunteers & thousand partners & festival staff it takes to pull off the impossible, salutes.

a generous partner in this work makes this book, A People’s History of Chicago, possible, The Lannan Foundation and the residency i was able to take in Marfa, texas, where this book really came together. I had a month of isolation, to think & read & write & edit & invest in this project. It was the first time in my life someone said this space is for you to make, that’s it, no song & dance, no also teach fifty classes, just create, what a privilege & essential gift & honor.

in texas, i was writing essentially two books & Nate Marshall said to just focus on one. He is the editor, homie & partner in BreakBeats & LTAB/YCA scheming. The student has become the teacher & i am eternally grateful to learn from such an incredible poet & man.

Fatimah Ashgar put eyes on the script & clipped & made essential edits & suggestions & made it more & better. She is an artist with so many talents, who’s also an incredible cheerleader, an encourager & champion in your corner.

Jamila Woods is Bonnie. My ride-or-die aesthetic thought partner. There is more music cuz of her syntactical suggestions & presence on the planet.

i wouldn’t be alive if not for the brotherhood i share with Idris Goodwin, Hip-Hop’s August Wilson. We shit-talked & dreamed a way to change the whole canon.

there are countless other comrades & brothers & sisters in this work. Adam Mansbach, Angel Nafis are two dumb talented & dumb people i love the most.

the folks at Haymarket Books are squad. Anthony Arnove & Julie Fain trust me to create & to have such high-quality brilliant people say yes to your work, your inner turned out, is a blessing. Jim Plank is as down as they come. Sarah Grey is nice af with the editorial eye. Thank you Nisha & Rachel & Caroline & the whole team who make this book & all these words possible.

the artists who blessed these poems with beautiful tributes & portraits i’m forever down for. Hebru Brantley is the homie & GOAT. His downness astounding. His team, Max Sansing, Troy Scat & Bianca Pastel are stupid talents whose work I love & look forward to seeing more & more of. Paul Branton is a true school head whose brush & pen tribute the city of hustlers. Runsy is a former student, whose style & talent have no ceilings.

my mentors are my guides: Bill Ayers & Bernardine Dorn, Rick Kogan, Haki Madhubuti. many informally, but these Chicago institutions have paved a way for me to walk in the world: gatherers of story & song & with a sense of fairness & justice that is unbreakable.

there is a crew around me that make A People’s History of Chicago real. Brett Neiman has designed every one of my covers & is a renaissance man of the people. Mickayla Johnson, Tammy Job & Nick Ward are out here keeping me grinding & on time. Tara Mahadevan is spreading the word like bo$$ & is high-key the creative director of the whole project. It is a pleasure & honor to work with Ryan at Biz3. & there are many more i am sure i am forgetting & also they many to come. The plan to make this book utilitarian, a spoon or shank or lifeboat. I plan on doing at least 180 readings in 365 days & workshops surrounding the book to have many folk i interact with add their voices & stories to the narrative of this great & troubled city.

so i thank you, the reader, in advance, for holding it down & pushing us forward.