Past and future of diversity in 
Oak Park addressed in video

By ERIC LINDEN

A documentary video getting regular play on cable television in Oak Park
is telling the story of Oak Park's history as and efforts toward
becoming a racially diverse community.

Emphasizing past housing programs and history and giving brief looks at
the future, the 21-minute, 17-second video titled "Oak Park: A Diverse
Community" was produced for village hall's Community Service Department
and is getting plenty of showings on public access cable Channel 6, the
recently premiered government-access channel.

Oak Park's history of policies to address diversity, integration and
other racial matters began in the 1960s when rapid resegregation
occurred in the Chicago community of Austin on Oak Park's east. The Oak
Park village board then passed a Fair Housing Ordinance and over the
years has taken many other programs to promote racial diversity and to
counteract residents' fears that blacks moving into the village would
property values and other conditions in Oak Park.

Residents in the 1960s and 1970s had "concerns and fears" about the
possibility of racial resegregation, it was remembered on the video by
Sherlynn Reid, who recently retired as director of village hall's
Community Relations Department. Reid had been hired to head the then-new
department to be in charge of enforcing the Fair Housing Ordinance and
to take other measures that work toward racial balance.

As a result of that department and a host of other programs in Oak Park,
the racial population has stabilized, property values have risen
dramatically and Oak Park is viewed largely as one of the few
communities that has been successful in its diversity goal. The host of
housing loan programs, the Housing Center that works toward long-term
residential diversity, the Residence Corporation that buys and
rehabilitates substandard property, the Diversity Assurance program to
insure property values in the event of racial change and many more
programs remain in existence--if not expanded on in recent years.

While at least acknowledging the diversity successes, officials across
the village also have cautioned that Oak Park--its institutions and its
residents--must continue to be vigilant because market conditions and
historical forces often work against multi-racial communities. Also, as
the video notes, many residents believe that "more needs to be done" for
Oak Park to become a truly diverse village.

The following comments are made on the video about what the following
Oak Park residents believe are the main and now-unaddressed issues to
address in the future.

"I think one of the issue now is how are we going to share power, how we
not only welcome different racial groups into this community, but how
are we going to share power with them and not just say, `It's fine as
long as you do it the way we (in the "old guard" or establishment) want
it to be done." says Sue Powell, who has been involved in the Village
Manager Association political group and other community organizations in
the village.

Many in Oak Park believe African Americans, other people of color,
newcomers and others in the village do not have the same influence as
whites who have long been connected to or involved in various positions
of authority in the village. Renters have also periodically complained
that they also are often treated similarly by Oak Park's establishment.
That attitude led to the following comment on the video.

"What do you do about the rental people?" asks John Philbin, a former
village president, village trustee and board member of the Oak Park
Residence Corporation. "There are people who just want to rent. What do
you do (with) people who are not owners of single-family homes, who
can't afford condominiums."

A sharp increase in recent years of apartments being converted into
condominiums also raised a concern for the future.

"I think it's fortunate that some of the people who have been doing the
condo conversions are making phenomenal profits out of those situations,
but what is the residual impact for the community? asks H. Kris Ronnow,
an apartment building owner and former employee of village hall's
Community Relations Department.

"I'd say that Oak Park has a wonderful image of being a participatory
community, but that's not my experience," says John Mayes, among other
things a board member of the Oak Park Area Arts Council, which works to
promote the arts and artists in Oak Park, River Forest and Forest Park.
"I think it has a long way to go and a lot of work to do to be more
inclusive."

Mayes stated a sentiment not uncommon among other blacks in the village.
And then, the village's public elementary schools brought out different
reactions on the video, reactions mirrored by many in the village. Some
residents believe increased efforts must be made to insure against
racially identifiable schools, and some believe that school officials
need to better address the existence of many races in the District 97
school district.

"I think that balancing the schools racially is an important issue,"
says Dan Haley, publisher of the weekly newspaper Wednesday Journal in
Oak Park. "There needs to be some fundamental racial balance among our
schools. I don't think the school district perceives that."

"The schools have to be more aware of cultural differences." says
Harriet Robinet, an author of children's books.

There clearly are other topics about diversity in Oak Park, and some of
those were addressed by other residents interviewed on their options of
the future. Included were the following.

"Whenever anyone finds themselves in a position of no longer being a
sizable majority it becomes a question of what do I think about
diversity?" asks Charles Whitaker, who writes an occasional opinion
column in Wednesday Journal. "Diversity is easy when you've got one of
two people (of different races); it's much harder when you've got larger
numbers of different people coming in. I don't think we've really begun
to address that ... in any appropriate or adequate way."

"Every major institution in this community ... has to continually see
whatever decisions they make through the prism of what is the impact on
diversity," says Barry Greenwald, currently the president of the Housing
Center board of directors.

"I think the future requires us to think regionally," says James J.
McClure Jr., also a former Oak Park village president. "Oak Park is not
an island. ... Regional approaches to the issue of racial diversity are
where we've got to go."

In more than 40 years of addressing racial matters, Oak Park nearly has
been acting alone. McClure, in the video, points out how the neighboring
and predominantly white communities of River Forest, Elmwood Park,
Berwyn and Cicero largely have not been interested in public discussion
of racial issues, With that regional thinking in mind, the Oak Park
Regional Housing Center in recent years has offered a program called New
Directions. In that program, the Housing Center's practice of referring
blacks to predominantly white areas is expanded to other suburbs. The
program has gained much praise, but also some objections from African
Americans, who have complained that the program wrongly encourages them
not to move to Oak Park.

Rogene Hill, director of village hall's Community Services Department,
said the video was done last fall to be shown at a public forum held
last November to have residents and officials address the issue--and
future--of racial diversity in Oak Park.

That forum resulted in no actions, and village government suggested
formation of a so-called leadership council for officials to discuss and
decide on the future of various public race-related policies. The
District 97 school board has been among those that have shied away from
an alleged elitist notion behind the council, and their position has
drawn both criticism and praise--which traditionally has been the case
regarding race and/or diversity in Oak Park.

"As the 21st century begins, Oak Park is left with new decisions," the
"Diverse Community" video concludes, "What solutions will be developed
to maintain racial balance in the schools, in the neighborhoods and in
the power structure? Can today's Oak Park capture the spirit of the many
people who started the diversity movement? The answers to these
questions will shape the future of families in Oak Park for generations
to come."