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HomeMy WebLinkAbout036-R-23 Designating that Portion of Leland Avenue between Church Street and Lyons Street with the Honorary Street Name Sign, “Janet Alexander Davis Way”6/5/2023 36-R-23 A RESOLUTION Designating that Portion of Leland Avenue between Church Street and Lyons Street with the Honorary Street Name Sign, “Janet Alexander Davis Way” WHEREAS, Janet Alexander Davis has been a founder, leader, and a key participant in a substantial number of organizations and initiatives for the betterment of her neighborhood, the 5th Ward, and the City of Evanston; and WHEREAS, Ms. Davis co-created a job readiness office called Strive, offering a challenging 4-week job readiness employment program with 40% of attendees being from Evanston; and WHEREAS, Ms. Davis co-developed two Mental Health Workshops to break the silence on mental illness in the Black and Brown Communities in Evanston; and WHEREAS, Ms. Davis dedicated much of her life to community service from her civil rights activism in the 1960’s to her more recent contributions in the areas of social and environmental justice; and WHEREAS, Ms. Davis has been an advocate for youth and a mover and shaker for better education for children, especially those affected by poverty; and WHEREAS, Ms. Davis is first and foremost an Evanstonian at heart and has dedicated her life to improving the city. NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED BY THE CITY COUNCIL OF THE CITY OF EVANSTON, COOK COUNTY, ILLINOIS, THAT: ~1~ Page 1 of 13 Doc ID: bdf3a2dc829e3f0c9aae27f9f2805095f2ff020d 36-R-23 ~2~ SECTION 1: The foregoing recitals are hereby found as fact and incorporated herein by reference. SECTION 2: On behalf of the entire citizenry of the City of Evanston, the City Council hereby expresses appreciation for Janet Alexander Davis by designating that portion of Leland Avenue between Church Street and Lyons Street with the Honorary Street Name Sign, “Janet Alexander Davis Way.” SECTION 3: This Resolution 36-R-23 will be in full force and effect from and after the date of its passage and approval in the manner provided by law. _______________________________ Daniel Biss, Mayor Attest: ______________________________ Stephanie Mendoza, City Clerk Adopted: __________________, 2023 Approved as to form: _______________________________ Nicholas E. Cummings, Corporation Counsel June 12 Page 2 of 13 Doc ID: bdf3a2dc829e3f0c9aae27f9f2805095f2ff020d City of Evanston Honorary Street Name Sign Application Form PURPOSE OF PROGRAM: The Honorary Street Name Sign program was established to allow citizens the opportunity to honor people who have contributed greatly to the City of Evanston through cultural, historic, or humanitarian acts. Request for an honorary designation has to originate with an Alderman and each Alderman may have one honorary designation approved each year. Honorary street name signs are displayed for a period of ten-years and the portion of a street so designated is one block long. The program is administered by the Parks and Recreation Board through the Parks and Recreation Department. Final approval is granted by the Evanston City Council. PLEASE FILL OUT THE APPLICATION BELOW: NAME OF HONOREE: Janet Alexander Davis Way (as it would appear on the street sign) PROPER STREET NAME: Leland Ave INTERSECTING STREETS AT EACH END OF THE ONE BLOCK AREA: Leland Ave between Church St and Lyons St PLEASE CHECK ALL THAT APPLY, AND GIVE A BRIEF EXPLANATION FOR EACH OF THE APPLICABLE CRITERIA. A STREET CAN BE NAMED FOR AN INDIVIDUAL, OR GROUP/DESIGNATION. ___CULTURAL IMPACT TO CITY: ___ HISTORICAL IMPACT TO CITY: _X__HUMANITARIAN EFFORTS: Janet has been a founder, leader, and a key participant in a substantial number of organizations and initiatives for the betterment of her neighborhood, the 5th Ward, and the City of Evanston. She has dedicated much of her life to community service from her civil rights activism in the 1960’s to her more recent contributions in the areas of social and environmental justice. This profile (attachment A) on the Moran Center’s website provides an excellent summary of the lifelong commitment Janet has made to making Evanston a better place to live. Another profile (attachment B) on the Evanston Community Foundation’s website, provides additional information on Janet and her contributions to Evanston. Parks and Recreation Department 2100 Ridge Avenue Evanston, Illinois 60201 T 847.448.4311 TTY 847.866.5095 www.cityofevanston.org Page 3 of 13 Doc ID: bdf3a2dc829e3f0c9aae27f9f2805095f2ff020d _X__CLOSE ASSOCIATION WITH EVANSTON: Janet has lived in Evanston for her entire life. She attended grade school, middle school, and high school in Evanston. She lived in various Evanston locations in her earlier years but returned as an adult with two children to her family’s home at 1726 Leland Ave and has lived there since 1977. She has a wide and diverse network of friends and contacts in Evanston. The organizations and initiatives that Janet has been involved with over the course of her life are in or related to the City of Evanston. She is first and foremost an Evanstonian at heart and has dedicated her life to improving the city. __X_ DISTINGUISED CAREER BROUGHT TO THE CITY: In 1998, Janet and another Evanston resident started a Howard St (Chicago side) job readiness office called Strive. This was the third office of Strive which also had offices on the south and west sides of Chicago. Strive offered a challenging 4-week job readiness employment program with 40% of attendees after 3 years of operation being from Evanston. Janet along with Delores Malone developed 2 Mental Health Workshops for Black, Brown and other people of color in Evanston. Attached (attachment C) is an Evanston Roundtable article providing more detail on these workshops. Janet was the Director of Operations for the Over the Rainbow Association sites in Evanston and on Belden Ave. in Chicago for seven years. __X_GEOGRAPHICAL RELATIONSHIP OF STREET TO FOCUS OF INTEREST The 1726 Leland Ave house, where Janet and James currently live, has been in Janet’s family for 74 years (since 1948). That house is located on the city block that would be designated with the honorary street name sign “Janet Alexander Davis Way” __X__ A LIVING INDIVIDUAL (EXCLUSIVE OF CITY OF EVANSTON STAFF) Submitted by : Bobby Burns Date: 4-25-23 (Councilmember) Applicant’s Address: Phone Email: bburns@cityofevanston.org Submitted by : Rick Nelson Date: Applicant’s Address: Phone 847-563-8800 Email: rick.nelson1199@gmail.com Submit completed form to: City of Evanston Parks and Recreation Department 2100 Ridge Ave., Evanston, IL 60201 Fax: 847-448-8051 pbelcher@cityofevanston.org Page 4 of 13 Doc ID: bdf3a2dc829e3f0c9aae27f9f2805095f2ff020d Attachment A DIRECTORS’ SHOWCASE: JANET ALEXANDER DAVIS, AN “EVANSTON-MADE” ACTIVIST AND ADVOCATE Posted on May 2, 2017 Janet Alexander Davis has been a loyal and active member of the Moran Center Board of Directors for nearly 10 years. Janet first met Judge Moran when he was serving on the Evanston City Council. She recalls that he was, “a staunch supporter of rights for youth, showing mercy and real justice.” A few years later, Janet was then introduced to the Moran Center (then named the Evanston Community Defender). Janet had seen first-hand the impact of incarceration on our community and immediately recognized the critical lifeline that the Moran Center could provide to youth by helping them stay in school and out of prison. “The Moran Center is crucial in helping troubled youth get the services they need to disrupt the school to prison pathway so many young people travel. My respect for the staff at the Moran Center is immense. These are not their children, but you wouldn’t know the difference seeing their level of engagement and the lengths to which they will go to help a client.” Janet is truly “Evanston-made” and as much as the Moran Center is fortunate to have Janet on our board, the entire Evanston community is fortunate to have Janet as an engaged citizen. Janet describes Evanston as a vibrant city with an abundance of social services available and she encourages others to get involved and make a difference. “I believe service is at the core of my Page 5 of 13 Doc ID: bdf3a2dc829e3f0c9aae27f9f2805095f2ff020d spirit and with that, a desire to work with others, accomplishing our work for the good of all. This path has led me to engage myself in myriad ways, always reaching for a higher level of engagement, service and personal growth… My time in Evanston has always been interwoven in activism, from childhood, and as I matured into adulthood, I did not slow down, did not sit down, but rather invested myself more fully into doing the right things in support of others.” As a child of the 60’s, fighting for civil rights in our public schools, Janet continued and expanded her activism and built a strong network with many other Evanston activists. She became an advocate for youth and a mover and shaker for better education for children, especially those affected by poverty. Below are some of the various roles that Janet has had in making a difference for Evanston.  Citizens Greener Evanston – Environmental Justice Committee Member  Evanston Human Relations Commission — Board of Directors  Evanston United Neighbors — Board of Directors  Evanston Youth Initiative — Founding Member  Habitat for Humanity: The Evanston Project — Board of Directors  McGaw YMCA: Honoring the Emerson Street YMCA Committee  Shorefront Journal – Contributing Author  WEST – West Evanston Strategic Team — Founding Member, 5th Ward Newsletter Committee  West End Area Block Club – Communications Management Janet has also received several honors in recognition of her community activism: West End Area Block Club, Hospitality Award 2008  Cook County 13th District Commission on Women’s Issues Awardee: Unsung Heroines 1996  Outstanding Citizen Award, 2016, Presented by the Yen Family’s Grand Re-Opening of the Evanston Holiday Inn Page 6 of 13 Doc ID: bdf3a2dc829e3f0c9aae27f9f2805095f2ff020d Attachment B Janet Alexander Davis NEIGHBORHOOD LEADER + ACTIVIST + EVANSTON COMMUNITY FOUNDATION SUPPORTER “I was born and raised here. I’ve been here 78 years, almost 79. We used to be on the lake but were pushed out. Either they moved our houses, or we had to move this way. I’m part of the West End Area Block Club, which has been around since the early 60’s. This is a very unique group – and a lovely neighborhood of people – that learned to take care of each other. When there were floods, people made sure you were okay. If you didn’t have food because your freezer was flooded, you would look up and someone had brought you food. Evanston has been a nonprofit haven to me. If there’s something you want, there are some people here who will join you to try and make that happen. So, Evanston is unique in that. I think some people don’t have empathy for others. How they got that way, I don’t know. I don’t understand not sharing. Have you thought about what you’ve done for others, other than your family? Our family is the family of man, no matter what color, no matter where you came from, or how old you are. Evanston Community Foundation represents this type of support that stretches across the community. My gift when pooled with other gifts at Evanston Community Foundation will make a difference. I believe in the power of working together. Page 7 of 13 Doc ID: bdf3a2dc829e3f0c9aae27f9f2805095f2ff020d Delores Malone, left, and Janet Alexander Davis are working to erase the stigma of mental illness in the black and brown communities.RoundTable photo by Mary Gavin July 24th, 2019 Janet Alexander Davis and Delores Malone know first-hand the pain of having a family member suffer from a mental illness. They have experienced the confusion and that accompanies the onset of an episode of mental illness, the frustration of finding the right professional and then the right medication for a loved one, and then the isolation from the unspoken rule that the topic is taboo in some parts of the black community. “Mental health is so a part of everyday life,” Mrs. Davis said, “Within our country we are not kind with understanding that ‘I have a mental illness.’” She likened the stigma of mental illness to the stigma other illnesses used to carry. “Even back in the 40s, if you had cancer people would say, ‘I don’t want to talk to you, because I might get it.’” A chilly reception to even discussing mental illness in the black and brown communities led Mrs. Malone, Mrs. Davis and four other women to “break the ice” on that topic. Mrs. Davis and Mrs. Malone met in 2008 in a 12-week family class sponsored by the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI). Attachment C Evanston Women Determined to Break The Silence on Mental Illness in the Black And Brown Communities Page 8 of 13 Doc ID: bdf3a2dc829e3f0c9aae27f9f2805095f2ff020d “The Family-to-Family class really changed my life,” Mrs. Malone said, “because at that time I really didn’t know that mental illness was a lifelong illness and that it can be so difficult to get the right diagnosis, which will hopefully lead to getting the right medication.” She also said she noticed “there were not a lot of black people coming to the classes. I think Janet and I were the only ones of 30 people. “After I took the class I was asked to teach the class,” said Mrs. Malone, by profession an early childhood educator. “And later when I was teaching the Family-to-Family class in Des Plaines, black families would tell me they wanted to get away from Evanston to talk about [mental illness] – get away from the stigma.” When she joined Sherman United Methodist Church, Mrs. Malone said, the pastor, Reverend Dr. Barbara Morgan, suggested she start a mental health ministry, which might offer workshops on mental health in communities of color. Mrs. Malone and Mrs. Davis met in July 2018 to begin discussing what to do. A month later, they were l joined by four other women of Sherman UMC. In September, some of the committee members attended two- day workshop, “Coloring Mental Health Collective”: which included, “Telling Our Untold and Unacknowledged Stories: Reflections from Black and Brown Bodies,” at Garrett Evangelical Theological Seminary. The focus was mental health in the black and brown communities. “Discussions were centered on what mental illness and mental health meant to us as people of color. That was phenomenal,” Mrs. Malone said. By November the six committee members had decided to present a workshop the following April. Talking About Mental Health Is “Normal” “We want to make talking about mental illness as a normal thing,” Mrs. Davis said. “Breaking the Ice – Unlocking Mental Health and Mental Illness in the Black and Brown Community” was born. The April session was well attended, Mrs. Davis said, but time ran short. In addition to the 50 attendees, there were mental health professionals from the Family Institute at Northwestern University and NAMI and a representative from the Moran Center. “We asked three questions,” said Mrs. Malone. The first was “What do you do for good mental health?” The second, “What happens when good mental health cannot be sustained?” was answered by the mental health Page 9 of 13 Doc ID: bdf3a2dc829e3f0c9aae27f9f2805095f2ff020d professionals, who described some signs of an onset of a mental illness. The third question reflected the genesis of the workshop: “Why do some black and brown people fail to seek help from the mental health community?” Time ran out before the planned breakout session, at which those in attendance would be able to tell their stories, “So we invited 20-30 back for the June 8 session,” Mrs. Malone said, adding, “What I saw was there were so many people needing to talk. More than anything, we’re saying, ‘People can tell their stories.’” “As Sick As Our Secrets” Some of the 20 people who attended the June 8 session broke the ice. “We talked about how mental health and mental illness have affected people,” Mrs. Malone said. “Janet opened the door; she talked about her own experiences.” Mrs. Davis said, “There was an eruption of emotion. People who didn’t plan to speak spoke. … You haven’t admitted [the problem]. … You may find yourself saying things you didn’t plan to say.” The reaction to this outpouring of emotional stories was gentle, Mrs. Davis said. “These are kind people – kind faces and that helped.” “People had been harboring their experiences,” Mrs. Malone said. “We talked about how when we were growing up, you didn’t talk about what’s going on in your home.” “We can be as sick as our secrets,” said Mrs. Davis. She also said, “I wonder if some of that comes from slavery – or later – from the 30s and 40s and 50s, when people could be killed for talking about what went on in a house.” Next Steps Mrs. Davis and Mrs. Malone spent part of the summer reviewing feedback and planning their next steps. There will be more sessions, the two agreed; the challenging part is prioritizing the options. Mrs. Malone said, “People are very positive about bringing in speakers and about having a place to come to. We plan to continue to involve NAMI, The Family Institute, and the Moran Center. We plan to provide Page 10 of 13 Doc ID: bdf3a2dc829e3f0c9aae27f9f2805095f2ff020d information on resources, such as Erie Family Health Evanston/Skokie Health Center, which is a great resource.” Other things under consideration are getting more men involved, perhaps through a men’s group, and focusing on the experiences of young adults. Mrs. Malone has applied to be a support leader through NAMI, to help facilitate the meetings. Mrs. Davis said “What I saw [at the June 8 meeting] was there were so many people needing to talk,” she said. “The feedback we’re getting is, ‘Keep doing what you’re doing,” said Mrs. Malone. Mrs. Davis added, “More than anything, we’re saying, ‘People can tell their stories.’” While mental health resources in Evanston and nearby are plentiful, said Janet Alexander Davis, not all of them are geared toward the specific cultures and challenges of the black and brown communities. Mrs. Davis said, “What happens in a lot of families is that one person breaks down, and someone thinks, ‘Oh, my gosh, what’ll we do? Where do we go? As black Americans, it’s difficult for some of us to tell the truth about what’s going on – or we don’t even know what we’re looking at. … So it’s good to put out there some examples of someone who might be having an episode or a breakdown. … “For black and brown people, do we know enough about where we could go where our culture is more understood? … Some might say, ‘She’s saying, “Only a black person can help another black person.”’ That’s not what I’m saying … I need someone who speaks the language I can understand.” Mrs. Malone added, “What you are saying is really true. There are not a lot of resources for black and brown people where our culture is understood. “One of the white women at the April workshop couldn’t understand why we needed this. I said, ‘We are the only people who didn’t come to this country because we wanted to. … We were really ripped from our lands in Africa. The whole trauma of slavery, I think, needs to be looked at … Your family could be sold at any time. Even the Emancipation Proclamation didn’t work. There were still poverty and lynching – things that didn’t affect other cultures. … Why don’t we seek help from the dominant culture? Psychologists and psychiatrists who are not Black need to study this so they can understand it.” Page 11 of 13 Doc ID: bdf3a2dc829e3f0c9aae27f9f2805095f2ff020d © 2023 Evanston RoundTable Media NFP. Proudly powered by Newspack by Automattic Mrs. Davis said, “Some might say, ‘That was 400 years ago – get over it.’ But the fear that someone could come into your home and take you – it’s those things that I know … This needs to be looked at with compassion.” Both Mrs. Malone and Mrs. Davis encourage anyone who believes there is a mental illness in the family to seek help. Even if the person with the illness will not accept help, other family members may need help in coping. Mrs. Malone recalled a facilitator’s giving “flight-attendant” advice. “As the flight attendants say ‘Put your [oxygen] mask on first or you won’t be able to help the person who is going to need help.’ Getting help for yourself might help you understand your loved one with a mental illness.” Some resources: NAMI, 1801 W Warner Ave Suite 202, Chicago, IL 60613. 312-563-0445. Erie Evanston/Skokie Health Center, 1285 Hartrey Ave., Evanston, 60202. 847-666-3494. The Family Institute at Northwestern University, 618 Library Pl, Evanston, IL 60201. 847-733-4300. Page 12 of 13 Doc ID: bdf3a2dc829e3f0c9aae27f9f2805095f2ff020d Page 13 of 13 Doc ID: bdf3a2dc829e3f0c9aae27f9f2805095f2ff020d