Weekly Roundup: new Black photography exhibit, few primary voters, inside a 24-hour childcare facility and a Southside garden feeding more than a food desert

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[00:00:00] spk_0:  From Illinois Soul, this is Dialogue. I'm Reginald Hardwick, news and public affairs director at Illinois Public Media. Dialogue is an exchange about culture straight from the soul. A new exhibit at the university YMCA in Champaign highlights photographs of local black leaders. IPM's Emily Hayes has
[00:00:28] spk_1: more. One of the people featured in the exhibit is Barbara Suggs Mason, who grew up in Champaign, Urbana. She worked at schools in the Chicago suburbs and when she was appointed superintendent of Madison's elementary school district, she set out to give the black and Hispanic student body the same high quality education she had seen elsewhere. Suggs Mason made sure they could succeed in activities like chess, music, and underwater robotics. She once ran into a colleague from the northwest suburbs. She goes, I know your district. Your underwater robotics team beat my son's underwater robotics team at the shed aquarium, and I thought, that's what I want to hear that our kids can compete with everybody and they can display their excellence. Suggs Mason retired back to her hometown where she co-founded the Champaign County African American Heritage Trail. The photography exhibit featuring her and others will be up at the university through the summer. I'm Emily Hayes with IPM
[00:01:26] spk_0: news. The primary election took place in March and in Champaign County, only about 1 in 4 eligible voters turned out. IPM student newsroom's Cooper O'Kelly reports turnout was on par with past midterm primary elections.
[00:01:43] spk_2: Out of nearly 124,000 registered voters in Champaign County, about 29,000 cast ballots, making turnout about 24%. Anne Prisland leads the League of Women Voters of Champaign County's voter ready team. She says that she was surprised that this year's turnout was so low, especially given contested races at the state and federal levels. We only had one contested race for the county, but I was thinking that other state and federal contested races would have brought out more people. Champaign County Clerk Aaron Ammons says his office has been working with local civic and social organizations. To try to increase voter turnout. Ammons says he'd like Illinois to join the 8 other states that mail ballots to every registered voter.
[00:02:31] spk_3: All the data shows that if the voters are allowed to receive the ballot at home, it increases their participation, whether they're Democrats, Republicans, older or younger, it doesn't matter.
[00:02:42] spk_2: This year, about a third of voters cast ballots by mail, up from about 20% in the most recent midterm primary election in 2022. I'm Cooper O Kelly, I. news. A
[00:02:53] spk_4: Supreme Court ruling could alter election maps across this country. On
[00:02:57] spk_5: Wednesday, the court's conservative Republican supermajority made it much harder to apply the Voting Rights Act. Voting rights advocates have long considered the law the crown jewel of the civil rights movement.
[00:03:07] spk_4: NPR's Hansi Lo Wang covers voting rights and is with us. Hansi, good morning. Good morning, Steve. OK, so this is a ruling concerning a specific congressional district, just one in Louisiana, but what is the most important thing to think about as this is applied elsewhere? This ruling reinterprets longstanding protections against racial discrimination and redistricting, and it's going to make it much, much harder to challenge voting maps, not just for Congress, but at all levels of government with claims that the maps unfairly weaken the collective voting power of racial minorities in places. white majority voters and minority voters of color tend to prefer different candidates. Yeah, OK, so the idea of the Voting Rights Act in the 1960s was if black voters had their voting power diluted by gerrymandering, you could draw new black majority districts to correct that. That was the operation before. What's the rule after the Supreme Court opinion? Well, the conservative Justice Samuel Alito wrote the majority opinion for the court, and Alito said, The focus of Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, which is a section at the heart of this Louisiana case, li said the focus of it should be intentional racial discrimination, intentional racial discrimination. That's the change. Yes, Congress amended the Voting Rights Act decades ago to say that Section 2 should focus on any discriminatory effects of a redistricting plan. you know, one legal expert I talked to yesterday was Ativa Ellis at Case Western Reserve University. And Ellis said that proving intentional discrimination, this new standard, is notoriously difficult. We
[00:04:39] spk_6: in essence, are asking plaintiffs now to find a smoking gun, the proof of the racist intent that is sort of objectively and consciously articulated. In order to prove their case, the problem with discrimination cases is that most legislators in this context know better than to say that.
[00:05:03] spk_4: So in practice, Atiba Ellis and other legal experts say these Section 2 protections may now end up being basically impossible to enforce. So you could have a discriminatory effect but still struggle to prove that it was a discriminatory intent. Is there an immediate effect ahead of the midterm elections we have this year? Well, Republican controlled states, especially in the South, could try to eliminate some Democratic represented House districts that the Voting Rights Act was likely protecting, but it is late April and we are past most state candidate filing deadlines for this year's midterm election. Now that hasn't stopped Republicans in places like Louisiana, Georgia, and Tennessee from urging their state's maps to be redrawn as soon as possible. I should note there's a request in for the Supreme Court to speed up certifying its rulings so that Louisiana can try to redistrict. But again, The timing makes this tricky to do this year. This could be a multi-year redraw in the end. And whenever this redistricting happens, part of the bottom line here is that with a further weaken Voting Rights Act, the United States may be headed towards seeing the largest ever decline in representation by black members of Congress. This ruling comes just as Florida is the latest state to redraw its or try to redraw its maps. That's right. And this is a map that the governor's office in Florida has cited the ruling to make a case for it. It was unveiled early this week, and we'll see how it plays out. Hansi, thanks so much. That's NPR's Hansi Lo Wang.
[00:06:26] spk_0: Parenting is hard, and not everyone has a support network they can turn to when the need arises. It's whyrisis nursery exists. It's the only 24 hour year-round emergency childcare facility in Champaign County. IPM student newsroom's Adely Moy takes us there.
[00:06:46] spk_7: The McLennon family lives in Champaign. Parents Alexandra and Christopher and their two daughters. We got our 4 year old, well, 4 in May, Alison McLennon, and then the newest addition of the family is little baby Mackenzie, who is 6 months old. The McLennons keep busy with nature walks at Allerton, visits to family in the Chicago suburbs, and gymnastics and swimming classes for Alison. But things looked very different in 2024 when Christopher was deployed overseas with the Illinois Army National Guard and Alexandra suddenly found herself with the full weight of parenthood on her shoulders. She was a full-time student at the time and decided not to wait for things to fall apart before she reached out for help. you know, instead of waiting for after the fact and seeing if there was, you know, Anything that was concerning us then catching it in the moment. And so we just kept that connection while he was gone. Once a week, Alexandra would drop Alison, then a toddler off at the nursery. She'd run errands, catch her breath and pick her up a few hours later. Being able to have crisis nursery was like big, fundamental to that entire year. The McLennons are just 1 out of hundreds of families served each year atris nursery. Russell Zillman is the nursery's assistant director of development and marketing. He says thatris nursery aims to provide an island of safety. And I think there's some stigmas that if you bring your child in, You know, um, you might lose custody or something like that, and that's not what we do. We're just there to help you when things are tough and we're there to be a preventative measure. The most common reason parents come to crisis nursery is because they're stressed out by work, school, or parenting. Other reasons include housing emergencies and medical crises. Sarah Scully helps lead Crisis nursey childcare program. One moment that stays with Scully happened during an overnight intake. A child walked in with their family that had been without stable housing and looked at the bedroom. The little child said, Yay, we get to sleep in beds. And that just really hung with me larger than life. that is why we're here. One of the many benefits a resource likerisis nursery provides is protection from the long term impacts of stress on a child's well-being and development. That's according to Rachel Jackson Gordon, a postdoc at the University of Illinois Family Resiliency Center. She says the nursery can function as a buffer, providing children with a break from the stresses of life. Having a place likeris nursery gives this quiet space to allow that regulation, especially with trained childcare providers, and so that they're not constantly feeling like they're in survival mode. It allows the hormones to regulate right. Having a safe place for children to go also helps parents and when a family receives support, it can change the trajectory of their lives. But sometimes Zillman says the nursery has to turn people away because they don't have enough help on hand. You know, one day we'll we'll be a full staff and then we won't be again. and that's just, that's just how it goes in childcare. Zillman says the goal is to serve as many families as possible and community members can be partners in making that happen. If you can't give monetarily, that's OK. If you can't spend time volunteering, that's OK too. But if you can just get the word out there about us, you can, if you can just talk to people about whatri nursery does, then we'll be able to serve more families. And with that comes more safe children and less child abuse, which is really our, our main mission. Scholy says, looking forward, Crisis nursery hopes to train staff members to provide more specialized care for kids with developmental delays and other needs because they can go beyond just babysitting or daycare care to truly developmentally appropriate care that helps to get kids ready for kindergarten when they're in our care. Alison McGlennon is now about to turn 4. When she visited Crisis Nursery for an interview for this story, she kept insisting to go visit the play floor and asked for a special treat chocolate cake. Holding newborn Mackenzie in his arms, Christopher tells me Alison just loves this place. She saw the staff that she recognizes and They're waving at her, she's waving at them all excitedly and then she off she ran to go play. Alexandra says she'd tell anyone feeling the stresses of parenthood to reach out for help. Needing help is not a failure. Something likeri nursery takes so much off your shoulders and off of your mental weight that It's so worth it after like you've taken that plunge and just, and it's not even that much of a plunge. It's really just you go and meet them, you'll get the feel and just, you'll immediately be put at ease. Crisis Nursery is located in Urbana. The crisis line is open 24 hours a day. I'm Adely Moy, IPM news. You're
[00:12:15] spk_0: listening to Dialogue from Illinois Soul. I'm Reginald Hardwick. Something powerful is growing out of vacant lots on Chicago's South Side. An urban farm is turning empty spaces into an oasis, and it's more than a garden. It's a place where community takes root, where volunteers show up and neighborhoods are nourished. IPM's Tanisha Spain takes us there.
[00:12:41] spk_8: In the middle of Chicago's busy and bustling South Side, there's a farm, but not just any farm. We've got some little green ones at Precious Blood Ministries Farm, the goal is to cultivate relationships through engagement, education, and access to fresh, whole foods. Father David Kelly is the executive director of Precious Blood Ministries. He's lived in the South Side for more than 20 years. His mission was to help families cope with violence and loss in their community, and it grew from there.
[00:13:12] spk_9: So it started early on. Sister Carolyn Hoing, a sister of the precious blood who grew up on a farm, created a small plot here in this parking lot of raised beds and where she was able to produce a lot of vegetables and produce out of what looks like a pretty barren space. But over the years with Mary Harnreiter who is our Gardener, she joined Sister Carolyn early on. It's become what it is today, a real safe place.
[00:13:40] spk_8: That was 13 years ago. Now Mary manages the farm, and most of the farms and gardens that I've worked with had to do with the justice system. Once I found this garden and helped somebody bring the bees here, I was hooked the whole mission of precious
[00:13:56] spk_9: blood in our neighborhood. There are no fresh produce stands. There are no grocery stores. there's no place for people to access fresh produce and so this space becomes part of that ecosystem of really offering people fresh produce, but it also offers people gathering space
[00:14:13] spk_8: Urban farming shortens the distance from farm to fork, saving consumers money not just individual but an entire neighborhood's carbon footprint and that helps reduce emissions and improve health outcomes for people who take advantage of the harvest. Alfredo Chavez is one of those people who took to farming right away. He met Sister Carolyn by chance one day and he's been a regular at the farm ever since. You kind of lose track of time or like what's happening around you. You just feel like you could just do something and just focus on it. He's seen the positive effects locally grown food has on his community. People stop by over here they see and they're like wow like what's let's see let's stop and let's see what's going on right here they'd be surprised every time they see all different types of varieties of vegetables. But the real effects of climate change have become a more destructive force on the farm over the past several years. Climate change has affected our farm just like it's affected everywhere else. We've noticed that our springs have gotten a little cooler at times. Sometimes the falls last longer. We have a lot more drastic weather in the summer. That conflicts with the farm's mission to grow even more food than it already does. Powerful straight line winds, torrential rain followed by scorching sun and long periods of drought take a toll, and that means those who depend on this inner city oasis are at the mercy of Mother Nature. We've had a lot of microbursts in our farm where we've lost full crops and this idea of drought followed by rain is really hard on our crops and they are fruition as community need increases. Last year 3 tons of produce came from this tiny farm. Growing food is a very visceral experience and sharing food is a very visceral experience. Building community is so important and relationships are so important in terms of restorative justice. So any time that we are able to share our produce, talk about and share recipes with people and discover new things together, community is built.
[00:16:35] spk_0: That was IPM's Tanisha Spain reporting from Chicago's South Side. I'm Reginald Hardwick. Thank you for listening to Dialogue. Dialogue and Illinois Soul are part of Illinois Public Media, a service at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. Our theme was composed by Lamont Holden. Thank you for listening. We'll talk with you again next week.