Our 2026 Healing Illinois initiative, Race Reimagined: Girls Healing Illinois, was selected as an Anthem Award Finalist among 2,500+ projects from across the globe! 🌎 Now, we wait to see if we placed Bronze, Silver, or Gold! 🥉🥈🥇

What does that mean?

Honoring purpose-driven social impact work happening across the world, this prestigious award is judged by a panel of esteemed leaders at the International Academy of Digital Arts & Sciences!

❗But here’s where YOU come in:

From now until Thursday, October 29, the public can vote online for finalists to receive an additional Anthem Community Voice Award!

You can vote for Her Voice Media by visiting celebrate.anthemawards.com! 🗳️

Thank you all in advance for your support & consideration! 💜🎙️

Create a post to help us get to know you better. You can use these sample questions to start with:

• What is your current role?

• Share some of your skills and experience!

• What's your favorite thing about working with communities?

• What are your top 3 goals for your community?

• What have you learned recently about community building/community engagement?

A collaboration between PHIMC and Youth Services of Glenview/Northbrook, this year’s Action Camp will take place from Monday, August 3 to Friday, August 7, with counselors arriving on Sunday, August 2.

Applications for campers and camp counselors are open until 9:00 pm CST on Thursday, April 30.

Learn more at bit.ly/AC26app

The first episode drops Friday, April 10. Visit Healing.Illinois.gov for more information about the initiative.

🌞 The first episode drops Friday, April 10. Click the link below to view the upcoming episodes: Healing Illinois Bridging Illinois Podcast on Vimeo

Visit Healing.Illinois.gov for more information about the initiative.

“Rebel Music! Women of Color Who Changed the Beat” showcases women who challenged norms and then changed culture and music history through their artistry, according to a news release announcing the exhibit.

Opening night is from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m. Saturday at the museum, 204 N. Ottawa St. in Joliet. Admission is $10 for the general public and $5 for museum members.

Features include a ribbon cutting, access to a cash bar and a companion short-form documentary.

Vici Howard, director Black & Brown Femme Films and exhibit creator, said she wants to educate the community on how “women of color pioneered so much of the music they enjoy.”

“I know I learned something,” said Howard, a Romeoville resident. “And now I have a deeper appreciation and understanding.”

“Rebel Music! Women of Color Who Changed the Beat” is just one part of a larger exhibit of seven installations called “The Vibe: Celebrating of Women of Color,” which launched in 2025 as a pop-up museum in Romeoville.

Howard, who studied filmmaking at Columbia College Chicago in the 1990s, said she built the exhibit with support from the Field Foundation’s Healing Illinois grant.

The exhibit helps Howard fund her own film festival to showcase stories by and about black and brown femmes anywhere in the world, she said.

“Music brings everyone together,” Howard said. “We’re using the grant opportunity to bring racial healing to the Chicagoland area.”

H’Aeneise Coopwood, membership and outreach coordinator at the Joliet Area Historical Museum, said she saw the larger exhibit and invited Howard to bring the music installation to the museum.

“When you think about grunge, when you think about punk, when you think about rock and roll, you don’t think of the women who pioneered them,” Coopwood said.

Howard likened the exhibit to visiting an underground club in terms of mood and colors.

“We have life-sized mannequins with outfits inspired by what they wore at their concerts,” Howard said. “And people can read about their stories and their history.”

The special screening of the documentary “Rebel Music, 1000 Songs on Route 66,” by Black & Brown Femme Films during the exhibit’s opening night was inspired by Howard’s 12 years of annual family road trips to Joliet and the music the family played along the way.

“We listened to all kinds of music,” Howard said. “And that music had an impact on my appreciation of music in different genres.”

The Joliet Area Historical Museum is offering a second event in connection with the “Rebel Music” exhibit.

“Lyrics and Lattes” will take place at 11:30 a.m. Feb. 28 and will include free coffee and pastries, singalongs and music trivia games.

Tickets for “Lyrics and Lattes” are $10 for the general public and $5 for museum members.

For tickets to both events, visit jolietmuseum.org. For more information, visit bbffilms.org.

While we are not blind to the inhumane atrocities unfolding across our country—and we address them daily through our personal platforms—we remain committed to guiding our readers toward the good life. For that reason, we will not give credence, power, or space in the pages of South Side Drive Magazine to the fascism taking hold throughout our nation.

We deeply appreciate your continued engagement with South Side Drive Magazine online at www.SouthSideDriveMag.com. Our brief print pause allowed us to reassess our business model and clarify our next chapter, which is now strengthened by a Journalism and Storytelling Grant from the Field Foundation of Illinois.

This support helps us grow as a community-rooted media hub — informing, inspiring, and uplifting our neighbors while creating economic pathways for local talent and businesses. The grant aligns with Field Foundation’s mission to fill gaps in local news and ensure stories reflective of Chicago’s most marginalized communities are told with care and authenticity.

We’re grateful to return to print with our Black History Month issue — though for us, Black history is every day. In fact, we’re declaring this Black History Year. February is also the month of love — of candy, flowers, thoughtful cards, and saying “I love you” out loud. It’s a time to cherish family and friends because tomorrow is never promised. With a heart for every human being, focusing on the communities we serve, lift up the phrase “Black on Black Love,” coined by our managing editor, Emma Young, as both mantra and mission.

This issue’s cover is deeply personal — a love note to my mother and our community. We lost my only brother, Steve, 26 years ago this month. Three years older, he taught me to sing, dance, and live with fairness, compassion, and fearlessness. An extraordinary artist, an oil painting he created at just 17 — more than fifty years ago — graces our cover. It reminds us of the ageless power of art to heal and to reflect the brilliance of our Black boys.

It is time for intergenerational healing. Our families carry grief, loss, and the weight of today’s world. In this issue, we lean into the healing power of the arts. House music pioneer Chip E. reminds us that we are all Americans, echoing Langston Hughes: “I, too, sing America.” His reflections ground us in pride and possibility.

We also celebrate young entrepreneurs claiming their piece of the American dream at the Legacy Awards weekend gala and feature an inspiring conversation with founder Keeana Barber, whose commitment to uplifting Generation Alpha entrepreneurs can be measured in dollars and sense.

When people think of Black history, they often think nationally, yet many groundbreaking heroes and sheroes made history right here on Chicago’s South Side. That’s why we continue documenting and preserving our local legacy. Visit us online and tell us whose stories we should include next.

The Field Foundation’s impact extends beyond journalism. In partnership with the Illinois Department of Human Services, they distributed $4.3 million through the Healing Illinois program, supporting placemaking and place-keeping statewide. Their work echoes Tonika Lewis Johnson, whose storytelling preserves neighborhood narratives. From our home base at The Quarry in South Shore, we proudly champion that same commitment.

Healing also shows up in quieter forms. The art of quilting — stitched deeply into African American tradition — brings comfort and care. We highlight Needles and Threads and spotlight Zakayia Williams respected as a community advocate, and staunch supporter of the arts.

Finally, we’re thrilled to welcome Floyd Webb to our editorial team — a prolific writer, author, and film curator guiding readers to “the good life” each month through thoughtful storytelling.

Thank you for reading and sharing out work, and thank you for continuing this journey with us — online and in print.

With gratitude,

Yvette Moyo

www.SouthSideDriveMag.com

Healing Illinois is an initiative of the Illinois Department of Human Services, in partnership with the Field Foundation. It was founded in 2020, with the mission to support organizations that do racial healing work. Some of the subgrantees include Kuumba Lynx, on the city’s North side, Chicago Neighborhood Initiatives, Inc. and the Chicago Urban League.

Maritza Bandera, Project Manager of Healing Illinois, said that although each year, Healing Illinois seeks to provide grants to organizations doing racial healing work, it feels different each year. She said the work continues to evolve and there continues to be a need for financial support for organizations that want to continue to do racial healing work.

This year, Healing Illinois received the largest number of applications for the grant than it has since it began. Healing Illinois received 600 applications in comparison to 400 applications that were received last year.

She said that while there were several organizations that had great proposals, there just wasn’t enough grant funding to fund all the applicants. She said they were very intentional to ensure that the subgrantees represented all the parts of the state of Illinois, not just a focus on Chicago, Cook County or Northern Illinois.

Bandera said what she found the most interesting was how healing looked in different parts of the state of Illinois. She said in some Southern parts of the state, that work includes storytelling, with a focus on diversity and how people build better connections with people in an attempt to better understand people with different backgrounds.

She said in Chicago, the healing looks more like racial healing circles, where people are getting interpersonal healing with an aim toward relating to the surrounding community. She said this year, there was an intentionality toward looking at placemaking and the places people call home.

“As we look into the 250th anniversary of the United States, we wanted to have a pathway for people to think about their local communities, the stories and histories that have not been told,” she said. She added that Healing Illinois wanted to look at how placemaking and interracial healing fits into the history of the United States.

Bandera said there were a lot of intergenerational projects that brought the elders and the younger generation together to share stories with each other. She said in looking at the storytelling projects from a historical context, Healing Illinois wanted to look at how to bring the stories that might have been lost back and how to elevate those stories. She said it was important for Healing Illinois to partner with the Truth, Racial Healing and Transformation (TRHT) initiative of Greater Chicago because racial healing work was started by TRHT in earnest.

Bandera said that it is important to present the stories of people from communities who are often overlooked. She said that for Healing Illinois, their end goal is to elevate the experiences and stories of people from different communities who might be silenced because of their racial background. She said that when people hear stories from people from different backgrounds it can help them begin to relate to those people in a different way. She said that racial healing work is a lifelong work that should be nurtured.

For more information about Healing Illinois and the complete list of subgrantees, visit healing.illinois.gov.