Shemuel Sanders suffered a tragic loss and channeled his life-changing experience into an opportunity to help others.
Shemuel Sanders suffered a tragic loss last June when his daughter, Shemilah, became the victim of a fatal shooting in their hometown of Decatur, Illinois.
Sanders, who often served as an informal mentor to youth in the Decatur middle school where he works, felt compelled, now more than ever, to do more.
“I never want another parent to have to feel what I’m feeling,” says Sanders, who does landscaping work during the summers, “so I started small — pulling a few young men into my landscaping work and paying them for their time.”
Once the community heard about what Sanders was doing, his phone wouldn’t stop ringing with calls from parents and young men who wanted to be involved.
In just a few weeks, his landscaping program, which started with 10 young men, quickly grew to 70 — the maximum number of participants that donations to the program could support.
When they returned to school in the fall, Sanders refocused his outreach on helping the men navigate e-learning, recruiting a team of retired teachers who volunteered their time to help students who were struggling outside of a traditional school setting.
Provided photo.
This year, the program has grown to include 200 young men and women and many more offerings for the youth, who can now learn forensic science taught by the local police department, take music or dance classes, and of course, continue to participate in the popular landscaping program.
The only limitation to the growth of the program is funding, and Sanders continues to fundraise to be able to support more participants.
“I’ve had to turn youth away, and that kills me,” says Sanders. “I believe I could easily reach 1000 youth with the community’s support – there is that much need for this work.”
Murder charges have been filed against a second man in connection with a shooting last year on the Wabash Avenue bridge downtown.
Police say Deandre Lewis, 23, participated in the July 19 murder of 35-year-old Gregory Crawford, Chicago police said.
Another murder charge had been filed in January against Charles James, one of the shooters who killed Crawford and wounded a woman, police said.
The victims had been driving across the bridge early that morning when men on a sidewalk opened fire while arguing with another man on the street, police said.
Crawford was shot in his neck and died at Northwestern Memorial Hospital, authorities have said. The woman, 25, was hospitalized in serious condition with gunshot wounds to her arms.
Lewis was arrested Thursday in Rockford and was expected to appear in Cook County court Friday, police said.
LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA – JUNE 24: Craig Kimbrel #46 of the Chicago Cubs celebrates with teammates after throwing a combined no hitter against the Los Angeles Dodgers following the ninth inning at Dodger Stadium on June 24, 2021 in Los Angeles, California. The Chicago Cubs won, 4-0. (Photo by Michael Owens/Getty Images)
The Chicago Cubs had a very big win over the Los Angeles Dodgers on Thursday night. They had a combined no-hitter to earn the victory. It was a very impressive pitching performance from Zach Davies, Ryan Tepera, Andrew Chafin, and Craig Kimbrel to not allow a single Dodger to have a hit. This is a loaded lineup with superstars like Mookie Betts, Cody Bellinger, and Max Muncy amongst others so seeing the Cubs dominate like that was impressive.
The Chicago Cubs had a very good pitching performance from their staff.
Zach Davies earned the win as the starter. They also defeated Walker Buehler who went into the game without a loss on the season. They did, as a team, allow eight walks which is a bit of a hit but that doesn’t matter. They didn’t allow one of the best batting lineups to have a single hit over nine innings which is incredibly fun.
There is one stat that sticks out from the night that is incredible. The Chicago Cubs threw their first combined no-no in franchise history but that isn’t the impressive stat. The impressive stat is that the Cubs are the first visiting team to ever throw multiple no-hitters at Dodger Stadium. That is a very tough building for opposing pitchers to throw in and the Cubs have two of these there.
Some people might not like combined no-hitters but they are at least a little impressive. They don’t happen often either so that adds to the hype around them. If you include the no-hitters from individual pitchers this season, this Cubs one was the seventh on the season. If you include the one that Madison Bumgarner threw for the Arizona Diamondbacks, it is the 8th of the season.
The #Cubs are the first visiting team ever to throw multiple no-hitters at Dodger Stadium.
Zach Davies has to get most of the credit for this win. He went six of the nine innings and was very good. He has been up and down so far this season but the Cubs have to love seeing an outing like this from him. Every reliever that came in gave up exactly one walk but did their job otherwise. Seeing someone like Craig Kimbrel continue his success by dominating the 9th inning was very cool. If it had to be a combined no-hitter, this was the perfect quad for the job.
The Cubs now have three more games at Dodger Stadium this season. Los Angeles is now a loser of four straight so you have to imagine that they are angry with the way things are going. Seeing the Cubs no-hit them on their field has to be very annoying to them. Jake Arrieta is going to be on the mound for tonight’s game and he will face Tony Gonsolin.
ChicagoBulls (Photo by Mitchell Leff/Getty Images)
As we are now down to the remaining four teams in the 2021 NBA Playoffs, things are getting more and more intense. For a team like the Chicago Bulls, a postseason run like, say, the Atlanta Hawks, is a mere pipe dream right now.
But, the Bulls aren’t too far away from being able to surprise some folks just as the Hawks have been doing. The pieces they have in place include a duo that should be kept around for the long haul.
Ensuring the Bulls keep Zach LaVine around on a multi-year extension should be priority number one for Vice President Arturas Karnisovas. That would mean he and big man Nikola Vucevic would remain in Chicago for the foreseeable future.
From there, all the Bulls need is one more piece to contend. One more stud player should launch the Bulls from a playoff outsider to a playoff contender.
The Chicago Bulls should pursue one of the top players from this year’s eliminated postseason teams.
This summer, we could see some big shakeups amongst some of the playoff teams from the 2020-2021 season.
The Philadelphia 76ers, for example, have some serious questions to answer about their franchise going forward. They might be one of the teams who make an enormous change.
If the Bulls wanted to continue being aggressive as they were this past season in acquiring Vucevic, they could opt to engage with a team like Philadelphia — or even one of a couple other squads.
Which of the following trades would you most like to see happen?
Full disclosure: Mike Lust has recorded a handful of records I’ve played on. I also played in a band with him for a while. But there are probably a few hundred local musicians who could say the same thing. Between his prolific career as a recording engineer, his nearly 20-year tenure as the high-kicking, guitar-shredding front man for local outfit Tight Phantomz, his countless stints as a sideman for all sorts of punk and rock bands, and his reliable presence as a larger-than-life, always-on, out-and-about personality, Lust is ubiquitous not only in Chicagomusic but in Chicago life. His decades of solid musical output have led to his first-ever solo record, Demented Wings, out June 18 on long-running local DIY label Forge Again. Coming from such an over-the-top character, this collection of simple, introspective pop music is a pleasant and welcome surprise. Performed almost entirely by Lust, the mostly minimal songs on Demented Wings include warm, fuzzy, lo-fi forays into synth pop, introspective plays at shoegaze, and catchy takes on bedroom psych. Lead single “Danceteria,” which is anchored by a straightforward keyboard melody and mellow, hooky vocals that sound a bit like Bob Pollard, could play on a loop for an hour and I’d be thrilled. The stomp of “Chrome Intentions” hints at the kind of sleazy swagger you’d expect from Lust, while album highlight “Distort It, Pony” sounds like it could be a lost Ride demo. An album this heartfelt was the last thing I expected from someone as out-there as Mike Lust–a guy I once saw spike a bass guitar onto the venue floor from the stage. These songs can easily get stuck in your head, which is par for the course for Lust, but they also feel deep and sweet, which definitely isn’t–and that just goes to prove he can do it all. v
A poem about an adventurous sailor helped inspire Alice Clark Brown to see the world, though not from “the rolling deck” described by writer Langston Hughes.
She saw it from the rolling back of an elephant.
She was one of the first Black women to work as a showgirl, dancer and aerial acrobat with Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus.
Mrs. Brown, 68, died June 6 of pulmonary fibrosis at her Oak Park home, according to her husband Geoff Brown.
She was a 19-year-old Andy Frain “usherette” at the old International Amphitheatre when the circus came to town.
Growing up, she wasn’t athletic and was scared to even ride a Ferris wheel. She once told the Chicago Daily News, “I was the worst student in my gym class.”
But she fell under the spell of the circus and decided to audition.
Despite her inexperience — she had no formal ballet training — her smile and charisma impressed Antoinette Concello, the circus’s aerial director, a legendary trapeze artist and member of the Flying Concellos who appeared in the 1952 film “The Greatest Show on Earth” and trained Betty Hutton, its star.
A determined young Alice learned some choreography from a helpful dancer with the circus and asked for a second audition. She aced it and signed a Ringling contract in 1971.
The circus was split into two touring companies, denoted the Red Unit and the Blue Unit, each with its own headliners. Mrs. Brown is believed to have been the first Black showgirl in the Blue Unit, according to Heidi Connor, chief archivist at The John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art in Sarasota, Florida.
Mrs. Brown traded her Andy Frain uniform for sequinned and feathered costumes that cost $1,200 half a century ago. She left wintry Chicago for Florida, where she could reach out the windows of the circus train and pluck oranges off the trees and wave at people who came to greet the performers passing through.
The train chugged across America and Canada, filled largely with European acrobats, clowns and animal trainers. Heading to the cafe car, “You might pass through the Romanian car, the Hungarian car, the Polish car. They would be someone cooking, and you get all these smells from the different countries. It was very exciting,” Mrs. Brown said in an interview for a Ringling oral history.
Alice Clark Brown said riding on the elephants was “kind of scary for me because I was afraid of heights.”John H. White / Sun-Times file
Riding on the elephants was “kind of scary for me because I was afraid of heights,” she said.
When the animals performed headstands, she said, “If you’re not careful, you’ll topple right over the elephant’s head.”
At first, “You were way up high because they’re standing up on their hind legs,” she said in the oral history interview. “They would topple down and do their headstand. You had to just stay pinned on. I had noticed other circuses where the girls held on, but, in the Blue Unit, you could not do that because our tricks were so hard to do. You had to let go. I had to learn how to let centrifugal force work with that so that I could stay on.”
Looking at old photos, she said: “As you can see, it looks like I’m defying gravity.”
Years later, as elephant acts fell out of favor amid calls to leave them in their natural habitat, she maintained the animals were always treated well at her circus.
Mrs. Brown also learned how to do the Spanish web aerial act. Showgirls climbed a rope, did acrobatic tricks and spun around, sometimes upside-down, holding onto the spinning rope by only a foot, a knee or a wrist.
“When you get 24 girls doing that at the same time, it’s an aerial ballet,” said retired circus clown Peggy Williams.
On the road, her family said, she met famous people including Coretta Scott King, football star Roosevelt Grier and singer Chaka Khan.
Mrs. Brown was fascinated by Ringling Bros. animal trainer Gunther Gebel-Williams.
“He had such a magnetism, almost like the Michael Jackson of the circus,” she said in her interview.
She worked with choreographer Richard Barstow, who also created dance numbers for the 1954 Judy Garland-James Mason film “A Star is Born.”
She had so much fun at her job, she said: “I felt like sometimes I should be paying the circus.”
Mrs. Brown was often featured in news stories. TV’s Barbara Walters once interviewed her. “She was good P.R. for the circus,” said her sister Anna Clark.
Growing up, “I was the worst student in my gym class,” Alice Clark Brown once told the Chicago Daily News.Sun-Times file
In a 1972 article in the Philadelphia Daily News, Mrs. Brown said, “I think the circus is fun, and I’m glad to be here not only for myself but Blacks in general. It is important that they be represented in every aspect of American life.”
Circus glamour didn’t safeguard her against racism. While visiting a Texas restaurant with other performers, everyone else at her table got served, but her order, despite repeat requests, never arrived. At a Florida restaurant, she had to wait for her dinner. And when it came, “She had ants on her plate,” her sister said.
The King Charles Troupe, the first all-Black act with Ringling Brothers, kept a protective eye out for her, said retired member Floyd “Sweets” Harrison. When men asked if she was a relative of the unicycle-riding, basketball-dunking group, troupe members fibbed and said ” ‘She’s my little niece.’ They thought she was related to those crazy King Charles guys,” Harrison said.
She grew up on the South Side, the daughter of Charles Clark from Meridian, Mississippi, who insisted on buying his daughters boys’ shoes because he thought they’d last longer than girls’ footwear. The result, her sister said, was being chased home by kids who taunted them with cries of “Boy shoes! Boy shoes!”
Little Alice, Anna and their brother Gerry Clark “explored Washington Park from one end to the other with bread and baloney and Kool-Aid,” her sister said.
Young Anna (from left), Alice and Gerry Clark.Provided
After Burke grade school, she attended DuSable High School, where her art teacher was Margaret Burroughs, who co-founded the DuSable Museum of African-American Art.
The children’s mother Mattie, who was from what’s now known as Weir, Mississippi, introduced them to the city’s museums and the Hall Library at 4801 S. Michigan Ave.
Young Alice loved to read. Hughes was one of her favorite writers. She said his poem “Sailor” captured the wanderlust she felt.
And she loved going to the old Regal Theater to see and hear the Five Stairsteps, Patti LaBelle and the Bluebelles, the Temptations, Jackie Wilson and Aretha Franklin.
After three years on the road with the circus, Mrs. Brown decided to come home to hone her singing and acting, her sister said.
She worked as a tour guide at Johnson Publishing, 820 S. Michigan Ave. That’s where she met her future husband, Geoff Brown, then an entertainment writer with Jet magazine.
“She looked up at me and smiled, and, I’m telling you, love at first sight for me,” he said.
When she died, they’d been married for 44 years.
Newly married Alice Clark Brown and Geoff Brown.Provided
While raising a family, she also did theater, played piano and sang in nightclubs under the name Brandee Brown.
When she auditioned for the Black Ensemble Theater to portray Nettie Dorsey, wife of gospel legend Thomas Dorsey, his niece — famed music teacher Lena McLin — “started crying and said, ‘That’s Nettie.’ She figured that’s what got her the job,” her husband said.
Mrs. Brown and her son Geoffrey worked as extras in the 1988 Judd Reinhold-Fred Savage movie “Vice Versa.”
Alice Clark Brown (in hat) with (from left) her son Geoffrey, daughter Christina and Geoff Brown, her husband of 44 years.Provided
“She was in the ‘greatest show on Earth,’ but she was always the greatest mom on Earth,” her son said.
“She was able to take risks and put herself out there in a way I was always in awe of,” her daughter Christina said.
Mrs. Brown was a vice president of the DuSable High School Alumni Coalition for Action, a group that helped get landmark status for the school, her family said.
In 2004, she fulfilled a promise to her mother and got her college degree, in English, from the University of Illinois at Chicago.
She made delicious pineapple upside-down cake and macaroni and cheese, her children said, loved Fashion Fair cosmetics and wore red lipstick always.
Services have been held.
Family members said that, at the end of her life, Mrs. Brown asked them to play two songs for her — “You Make Me So Very Happy” and “Alice in Wonderland.”
MONTREAL, QUEBEC – JUNE 24: Robin Lehner #90 of the Vegas Golden Knights warms up prior to Game Six of the Stanley Cup Semifinals against the Montreal Canadiens in the 2021 Stanley Cup Playoffs at Bell Centre on June 24, 2021 in Montreal, Quebec. (Photo by Vaughn Ridley/Getty Images)
The Montreal Canadiens are going to the Stanley Cup Final. They defeated the Vegas Golden Knights on Thursday night to advance to the Final for the first time in 28 years. It has been a remarkable and unlikely run for them but now the Golden Knights are out. It has been a very good first few years for the Golden Knights but they are eventually going to want to win the Stanley Cup. The Chicago Blackhawks can take advantage of them during the summer if they want.
Vegas is set up well for the future but there are some players that are currently free agents. They have some tough decisions to make with a few of them but all of their top players are signed up for a while. Players like Mark Stone, Alex Pietrangelo, and Max Pacioretty amongst others are going to be there but some of their depth players might be on their way out.
The ChicagoBlackhawks could take advantage of the Vegas Golden Knights this summer.
The Chicago Blackhawks sound like a team that is going to be busy this summer. They believe that they are a good team trying to get better but that is a debate for a different day. Stan Bowman is probably so excited to take a stab at some free agents this summer. The Golden Knights have a few that would fit in on the current Blackhawks like a glove.
If the Blackhawks were smart, they would be very careful this summer. There are not game-breakers on the Golden Knights that are available but there are a few players that would be okay on the team next season. These are the three Golden Knights free agents to consider this summer:
Earl Casteel, 39, was found dead at 1:22 a.m. June 11 on a porch in the 4900 block of West Wrightwood Avenue in Belmont Cragin of a gunshot wound to the chest, police said.
Cecilia Bonilla, his 41-year-old girlfriend and the mother of his children, who was shot in the chest and arms, died at a hospital on June 20.
Brendan Deenihan, the Chicago Police Department’s chief of detectives, said the deaths appear to be a murder-suicide based on interviews and other evidence, though investigators are awaiting the results of forensic tests, and the Cook County medical examiner’s office hasn’t ruled yet on Casteel’s death.
The police said they found one of the couple’s sons walking about two blocks away after the shootings. He isn’t believed to have anything to do with the murder-suicide, officials say.
Earl CasteelChicago police arrest photo
Casteel’s children were removed from his home last year by state child welfare investigators, who determined that Casteel and other adults were putting the children at risk of abuse and neglect, officials say.
At the time of his death, Casteel was free on bail while awaiting trial on a 2020 charge of being a felon in possession of a gun and also was awaiting trial in a separate 2020 domestic battery case.
In 2015, Casteel was shot in the legs by Thaddeus “T.J.” Jimenez, the Chicago gang leader at the center of the 2019 “Motive” podcast, who was driving a convertible Mercedes while a fellow gang member in the car recorded the attack on his cellphone.
The video of the shooting, which went viral, was evidence in the trial that sent Jimenez to federal prison for more than nine years for illegal gun possession. Jimenez is still awaiting trial in Cook County on state charges in Casteel’s shooting.
Thaddeus “T.J.” Jimenez celebrates his freedom in 2009 after winning release for a killing he said he didn’t commit.Rich Hein / Sun-Times file
In 2019, “Motive” examined the life of Jimenez, who was charged with murder at 13 and released from prison in 2009 after witnesses recanted. Jimenez won $25 million from the city of Chicago in a wrongful-conviction lawsuit, then squandered most of the money he got on his gang, the Simon City Royals, authorities say.
Casteel sued Jimenez over the shooting and in 2016 won a $6 million judgment that Casteel’s lawyer Kevin O’Brien says he still hopes to collect as he tries to seize a west suburban home belonging to the mother of Jimenez’s children.
Casteel’s death won’t end the lawsuit, according to O’Brien, who said Casteel’s kids are now the beneficiaries.
“We’re not going to give up the litigation until it’s proven there’s no money there,” he said.
In a 2018 interview for “Motive,” Casteel described getting shot by Jimenez:
“And the first thing he said is, ‘You tell me why should I blast you?’ And he pulled a gun out and pointed at me. So I told him, I said, ‘You know, I got, I don’t have a problem with you. You know, what’s your problem? You know, what’s going on exactly?’ Then, he tells me I got to shut up.
“And then he fired a shot, and the first one hit in my leg, it hit me in my left leg. So I knew I was hit. I didn’t know my leg was broken. And, as he drove off, he fired another shot, and it hit me my right leg.”
Three years after the shooting, Casteel said, “I still have pain — like there’s only a certain amount of time that I can stand up without it start throbbing and aching, and then I have to sit down. It’s bad.”
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