Some 20 years ago, Chicago artist Samuel J. Lewis II discovered a vintage Black Americana marionette named Jambo the Jiver in his father-in-law’s attic. Built in 1948 by a company called TalenToon, along with other characters such as Pim-Bo the Clown, Toonga from the Congo, Kilroy the Cop, and MacAwful the Scot, the marionettes were packaged with music—phonograph records meant to accompany their movements. 

“I found him after watching Spike Lee’s Bamboozled,” recalls Lewis. “That movie was why I felt compelled to do something with it. It dealt with Black iconography and negative stereotypes. Jambo the Jiver is negative—he has this big wide smile, a humongous bowtie, purple jacket, gold pants. I realized I could use him to show people that this kind of thing existed and how people felt about us in this country, but also to tear that down and reclaim it, embrace that stereotype to say, ‘Come on over—come sit with us—let us work together.’”

He Worked Hard (excerpt of Everybody Knew His Place), Sun 2/19 2 PM, Art Center Highland Park, 1957 Sheridan, Highland Park, 847-432-1888, theartcenterhp.org, freeSzalon, Sun 2/26 6 PM, zalonarts.org, free

A cofounder of experimental music and performance venue Elastic Arts, Lewis began to incorporate the puppet into collaborations with other Elastic musicians such as Marvin Tate and his band Kitchen Sink, for which Lewis also sang backup vocals. In the hands of the self-described “accidental puppeteer,” Jambo the Jiver transformed into a new character named Jus Hambone (“One day for dinna, my ma says, ‘What you want fo’ dinna?’ And I say ‘Jus Hambone,’ and it kinda stuck!”). “In the [puppetry] scene, the puppeteer is usually deemphasized,” notes Lewis. “I wanted people to see that I was the one manipulating Jus Hambone: a Black man is also the puppet master in this scenario. But am I master over him or just facilitating?” 

In late 2018, Lewis’s curiosity about his heritage began to deepen. “My mother and father separated when I was three, and we moved from rural Tennessee to Saint Louis. He passed away when I was 16. I would go down there and visit but was mostly with my mom’s side of the family. I didn’t really see him unless we were intentional about it, which we always were one time during the visit: this is the time you’ll see your dad. So I never knew much about that side of the family,” he says.“I started asking questions and got on Ancestry[.com].” Through relatives who had also moved to Chicago, Lewis began to trace his lineage, starting with information provided by his cousin Stephanie Pegues. “She was reading a book that this man named John Marshall wrote—Mason: A Glimpse into the Past, a self-published book about Mason, Tennessee.” 

Lewis contacted Marshall, a white judge in Memphis, Tennessee, and they met in 2019. “The reason he had a lot of information on my family was because my ancestors were the children of his relatives,” says Lewis. “They were the people they were closest to as a family—so much so that they worshipped in the same church, which my ancestors helped build. They worshipped there at different times, but they sat on the same pews! And those pews are still there.” Lewis visited the church, known as Old Trinity or Trinity in the Field, the same year. “I have a baptismal record of my great-grandmother being baptized during the Civil War in that church. That was one of the things that got me asking, because I grew up as an Episcopalian. Whenever I asked my mom about that, she’d say, ‘I got that from your father.’ I was like, ‘How does a Black rural Deep South person become Episcopalian? Most everyone else is Baptist—it’s weird!’ Slavery: that’s why.”

Says Lewis, “John Marshall has helped a bunch of people and spoken at Black people’s family reunions, met with folks, given information–it’s a lot of work. His guidance and emails . . . there’s a lot of gold in what he has given [me]. I’m able to more intentionally find stuff. He’s had an evolution in his thinking. In earlier work, he was referring to the Civil War as the War Between the States. That goes to show that what you put into books and what you put in schools, people will take with them. You get to certain folks and the trail ends. That’s where white people came in.” He adds,” Probably the most tense moments [Marshall and I have had] are when I’ve asked if we’re related.”

He also notes that there are direct Chicago connections to Mason, which for a small town had a lively nightlife scene, composed of what Lewis calls “juke joints on a boardwalk. Little shack-speakeasy-type places. They called them cafes. But they were bars. 

Fun fact: this club called Club Tay-May on Roosevelt moved down to Mason. That’s how hoppin’ it was! So much so that they had two, they doubled their operations when they went down there. One was right next to my grandfather’s blacksmith shop, and his house was on the other side of that, the house I was born in. I was born near Club Tay-May. [There were] rhythm and blues and blues by the railroad tracks, [which were] built because of cotton. That town sprang up because of cotton. [It was] a boom town, founded in 1855.”

As Lewis continued his research, he realized he was learning not only about his own family history but also about the place, the past, and about the slipperiness of historical narrative itself. In one newspaper, he discovered the story of a great-granduncle who was shot by a coworker while working as a railroad laborer in Fulton, Kentucky (“the banana capital of the world”). In another, he found the story of a great-grandfather who was scalded during a boiler explosion in a gin and grist mill. 

“They were like, ‘He went to this doctor, and he’s being taken care of. They’re upstanding gentlemen.’ It was in a Black newspaper—then you start thinking, ‘What kind of image do they want to uphold?’ It was a paper by church folks who have business interests, so they want to portray the ‘New Negro’: successful, hardworking, enterprising. There’s a story of them buying a new buggy. Such-and-such went to visit her sister in Louisville: Black society, Black business, efforts to change and make our conditions better, because we deserve it. The other story, [which I call], ‘He Took A Knife to a Gunfight,’ was in a white paper. So I’ve learned about America through this whole thing.”

“I love the detective work,” says Lewis, recalling how a simple keyword search in the Library of Congress turned up a story of how the quick actions of his great-great-grandfather had prevented a train accident on the railroad tracks near his home. Lewis presented the story, Praiseworthy: An Intelligent and Prompt Negro—A Disaster Averted, with Nasty, Brutish & Short during the Chicago International Puppet Theater Festival this past January. 

Puppeteer, actor, and family historian Samuel J. Lewis II with puppet James Lewis, named after his grandfather and co-puppeteers sons Noah Maxen-Lewis (sunglasses) and Parker Maxen-Lewis (hoodie). Matthew Gilson for Chicago Reader

In addition to family members from the past, Lewis has been collaborating with his teenage sons, Noah and Parker Maxen-Lewis, as well as several musicians and puppet designer Grace Needlman, to develop an evening-length work with the working title Everybody Knew Their Place. “It’s awesome to work on the piece with my sons,” he says. “It’s a different way to give them this story, and hopefully they will remember.” 

Lewis first introduced Everybody Knew Their Place with a puppet of his Grandpa James at the Green Line Performing Arts Center at the first Green Line Puppet Slam in 2019. “Sam’s work is rooted in his family history and themes like legacy that Arts + Public Life was thinking about on the south side,” says Brett Swinney, then APL’s community art engagement manager, who programmed the event. “To launch this series of puppet programming and to set the tone as being grounded in cultural legacies, it seemed like the perfect fit for Sam to be one of the inaugural performers. People got a deeper sense of the research he’s putting into it. I look forward to seeing how it evolves. I hope other performers, not just puppeteers, look within for their inspiration for what they’re sharing.” 

Last December, Lewis returned to the Green Line with his sons to premiere the excerpt,He Worked Hard, which elaborates upon Grandpa James’s work as a blacksmith, with original music composed by Ahmed Al Abaca, with additional music by Hunter Diamond, performed by Chicago-based Black chamber music ensemble D-Composed at their fifth-anniversary concert. Lewis and his sons will perform He Worked Hard February 19 at the Art Center Highland Park and online at Andrea Clearfield’s Szalon February 26.

“I want to encourage other people to start asking questions. Maybe they won’t get as lucky, but they’ll know more than they knew. Sometimes it’s painful. But all in all I’d rather know these stories,” says Lewis. “I hope it’s going to solve problems, as people realize they come from a lot of cultures and places instead of being hung up on this binary people consider race. It’s a lot more layered and deeper than that. It’s like looking at a map. I see points where these stories took place; as you zoom in and look at stories, you’re learning about the place, the time in that place, like the banana capital, like gin and grist mills.” 

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Formed in 2018 in Kill Devil Hills, a town in North Carolina’s Outer Banks, Cor de Lux put out their debut album, Dream Life, in September 2020, six months after COVID hit the United States. The band’s four members had become closer during the pandemic, relying on one another for support and finding a much-needed outlet for their frustrations and uncertainties in their mutual work. Their new record, Media, channels those emotions into a mix of postpunk, indie pop, and shoegaze. There are a few dark and gothy slivers: the foreboding moods of “Whose Side” portend growing divisions between people, while “Rumors” ruminates on closed-mindedness and a media industry that manipulates rather than informs. But much of Media sounds so pretty on the surface that it’s easy to overlook the anxieties at its core (it also makes me wonder if my anxieties would sound prettier if I lived in a more picturesque corner of the country, like maybe the Outer Banks). Even when you listen deeper, the record contains plenty of hope amid the melancholy. “Futures” sparkles with lush atmospheres, while “Syncopated” radiates propulsive energy—its guitar hooks could stick in your head for weeks, and they energize its lyrics about personal freedom in a world that expects us to keep our heads down. Through all the record’s twists and turns, Cor de Lux save the smoothest moment of catharsis for last, closing out Media with the cool, shimmery postpunk gem “Ships.”

Cor de Lux’s Media is available through Bandcamp.

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In late August  2018, I was with my father at the hospital, where he was recovering from open-heart surgery, when I received a call from a representative of the Chicago News Guild asking if I’d like to buy the Chicago Reader from its parent newspaper, the Chicago Sun-Times. The Guild represents the Reader’s editorial union, and they wanted to save their jobs. I quickly stepped out of the recovery room to take the call.

Earlier that year, Sun-Times publisher Edwin Eisendrath had offered the Reader to me for $1 on the condition that I take it over immediately. I had said “no” because I did not have the money to shore up a legacy newspaper losing $1 million a year. But now the deal included two individuals from the Sun-Times ownership (Elzie Higginbottom and Leonard Goodman) putting up the funds—they just needed someone to run the paper. The Reader was just two days from being shut down. I was the call of last resort. 

I’m a sucker for leaping off cliffs without a full plan. The next day, I met with Eileen Rhodes and Jessica Stites, who were representing the potential new owners, and I was offered the job. Much to my shock, after working in LGBTQ+ community media since 1984, I was the new publisher of the legendary, award-winning Chicago Reader.

When I took over in October 2018, I knew the challenges would be immense. There were about 18 union editorial staff and a digital director, but  no one from the business side came with the deal. Morale was low, and there was a lot of cleanup to do in every aspect of the company.

I set out building a team to enhance the experienced editorial staff. We hired new editorial, sales, and business leadership. I realized by mid-2019 the Reader would have a better chance of surviving if it shifted to become a nonprofit. With the approval of the owners on February 1, 2020, I applied to the IRS to launch a nonprofit that would take over the Reader. 

Six weeks later, COVID-19 shut down the world. We pivoted, we danced for dollars, we put out coloring books, “best of” books, and merchandise. We did not lay off anyone due to COVID. And then, finally, in May of last year, after a much-publicized battle, we were able to gain independence to become a full nonprofit under the new Reader Institute for Community Journalism (RICJ). 

I am now excited to pass the reins to our new publisher. After a six-month search by the Morten Group, LLC, the board of directors last week announced that Solomon Lieberman will take over in mid-February. Solomon, who has experience in Chicago nonprofit media from his stints with the Better Government Association and a master’s in journalism from Northwestern University, is excited to take the Reader into a better future. I am grateful that he is up for the challenge.

It has been an honor to help save what I believe is among the most important newspapers in America. The Reader has broken new ground, covered all aspects of the heartbeat of this city, and been a critical part of our landscape for more than 51 years. I have been its caretaker, but no organization should have a single point of failure. So once we stabilized, I set out to make sure there were multiple strong people in leadership roles to ready for a transition to a new publisher. 

Not only do we have a solid new board of directors, helmed by incredible friend and colleague Eileen Rhodes, we have great people who will join Solomon in leading the Reader, RICJ, and the Chicago Independent Media Alliance (CIMA, my dream baby) into the next phase.

It was a challenge to get across the finish line to nonprofit independence last year. I have confidence in this team and the newer staff to bring a fresh take on what’s next. 

I want to highlight a few key people who have given me the confidence to step away. 

My former co-publisher Karen Hawkins, my ride or die, made these past four and a half years bearable. The Reader was lucky to have Karen in leadership for nearly four years, and I learned so much from her. Ann Scholhamer joined in 2021 as vice president of operations. I can’t even imagine surviving the past 16 months without Ann by my side. She helped me absorb the shocks of a tumultuous transition and manage the internal changes needed as we became a nonprofit. 

Tracy Baim and Enrique Limón Credit: Sarah Joyce

Enrique Limón is our editor in chief, a role he jumped into last fall. I first met Enrique at the 2019 Association of Alternative Newsmedia (AAN) conference in Boulder. He has a larger-than-life personality and the drive to match his big vision of a new Reader. The editorial team he has taken over has a deep bench, some with more than three decades of experience writing and editing for the Reader. This includes editorial union unit chair and music editor Philip Montoro, plus the editors, writers, art department, and more.

Amber Nettles is our senior vice president of growth and strategy. That’s a fancy way of saying she is and has been instrumental in our shifts to a more digital and sustainable revenue future. Amy Matheny and I have been partners in community media since this century began. She’s an incredible vice president of sales. Amy, in fact, was my first call when I was hired—I knew I couldn’t take over the Reader without her.

Salem Collo-Julin is among several staff (Amy, Karen, Terri Klinsky, and Kirk Williamson) with whom I worked with over the decades at Windy City Times. Salem has been a rock in editorial, most recently as managing editor, and she now moves on to help with our collaboration projects including CIMA and its codirector Savannah Hugueley. 

Vivian Gonzalez, who joined us during the tumult of early 2022, heads our terrific marketing team. Sandra Klein joined as office manager during the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic. She and I were the only ones going into the office, which is still mostly the case three years later. She holds down circulation, subscriptions, merchandise, and more. 

There are dozens more who make this staff amazing, plus our freelancers, contractors, and delivery crew—and many former colleagues including Ted Piekarz, Nicole Lane, Yazmin Dominguez, Leni Manaa-Hoppenworth, John Dunlevy, and Patti Flynn. It would be impossible to name them all here. I am, simply, grateful.

I want to also thank our funders, donors, advertisers, and readers. Many of our funders stepped up even before we fully turned nonprofit. They did it on trust, and I know what a stretch that can be. I especially want to thank Christie Hefner, a stalwart supporter of all things media and a pioneer our city is lucky to have. She has been somewhat of a consigliere to me, and has helped us so much in our nonprofit transition. Our attorneys Brecken Cutler and Brendan Healey have also guided us well. 

Since I took over as publisher, the organization has moved to strengthen its infrastructure and has diversified its revenues, distribution, leadership, and staff. It tripled in revenue, more than doubled its employees, and expanded its print and online readership. In 2018, there was one person of color on our team. Current leadership consists of 57 percent people of color, 57 percent LGBTQ+, 15 percent disabled, and 86 percent female, nonbinary, or trans. Of the overall staff, 47 percent are people of color, 33 percent LGBTQ+, 8 percent disabled, and 67 percent female, nonbinary, or trans.

Sometimes leadership is about knowing when to move on. I am now 60 years old and 39 years into my community media experience. I started at GayLife in 1984 when I was 21, cofounded Windy City Times in 1985, and have loved all aspects of journalism since I was a child growing up in a journalism family. It has been a great honor to helm this legacy newspaper and launch CIMA. And I am very excited about what is next for RICJ, CIMA, and the Chicago Reader. I will stay in their orbit, and help where I can.

Please welcome Solomon and continue to support the Reader as we deepen our work across Chicago, all while keeping the paper free for all. 

P.S.: My dad is still doing well more than four years after his surgery.

Read More

Formed in 2018 in Kill Devil Hills, a town in North Carolina’s Outer Banks, Cor de Lux put out their debut album, Dream Life, in September 2020, six months after COVID hit the United States. The band’s four members had become closer during the pandemic, relying on one another for support and finding a much-needed outlet for their frustrations and uncertainties in their mutual work. Their new record, Media, channels those emotions into a mix of postpunk, indie pop, and shoegaze. There are a few dark and gothy slivers: the foreboding moods of “Whose Side” portend growing divisions between people, while “Rumors” ruminates on closed-mindedness and a media industry that manipulates rather than informs. But much of Media sounds so pretty on the surface that it’s easy to overlook the anxieties at its core (it also makes me wonder if my anxieties would sound prettier if I lived in a more picturesque corner of the country, like maybe the Outer Banks). Even when you listen deeper, the record contains plenty of hope amid the melancholy. “Futures” sparkles with lush atmospheres, while “Syncopated” radiates propulsive energy—its guitar hooks could stick in your head for weeks, and they energize its lyrics about personal freedom in a world that expects us to keep our heads down. Through all the record’s twists and turns, Cor de Lux save the smoothest moment of catharsis for last, closing out Media with the cool, shimmery postpunk gem “Ships.”

Cor de Lux’s Media is available through Bandcamp.

Read More

In late August  2018, I was with my father at the hospital, where he was recovering from open-heart surgery, when I received a call from a representative of the Chicago News Guild asking if I’d like to buy the Chicago Reader from its parent newspaper, the Chicago Sun-Times. The Guild represents the Reader’s editorial union, and they wanted to save their jobs. I quickly stepped out of the recovery room to take the call.

Earlier that year, Sun-Times publisher Edwin Eisendrath had offered the Reader to me for $1 on the condition that I take it over immediately. I had said “no” because I did not have the money to shore up a legacy newspaper losing $1 million a year. But now the deal included two individuals from the Sun-Times ownership (Elzie Higginbottom and Leonard Goodman) putting up the funds—they just needed someone to run the paper. The Reader was just two days from being shut down. I was the call of last resort. 

I’m a sucker for leaping off cliffs without a full plan. The next day, I met with Eileen Rhodes and Jessica Stites, who were representing the potential new owners, and I was offered the job. Much to my shock, after working in LGBTQ+ community media since 1984, I was the new publisher of the legendary, award-winning Chicago Reader.

When I took over in October 2018, I knew the challenges would be immense. There were about 18 union editorial staff and a digital director, but  no one from the business side came with the deal. Morale was low, and there was a lot of cleanup to do in every aspect of the company.

I set out building a team to enhance the experienced editorial staff. We hired new editorial, sales, and business leadership. I realized by mid-2019 the Reader would have a better chance of surviving if it shifted to become a nonprofit. With the approval of the owners on February 1, 2020, I applied to the IRS to launch a nonprofit that would take over the Reader. 

Six weeks later, COVID-19 shut down the world. We pivoted, we danced for dollars, we put out coloring books, “best of” books, and merchandise. We did not lay off anyone due to COVID. And then, finally, in May of last year, after a much-publicized battle, we were able to gain independence to become a full nonprofit under the new Reader Institute for Community Journalism (RICJ). 

I am now excited to pass the reins to our new publisher. After a six-month search by the Morten Group, LLC, the board of directors last week announced that Solomon Lieberman will take over in mid-February. Solomon, who has experience in Chicago nonprofit media from his stints with the Better Government Association and a master’s in journalism from Northwestern University, is excited to take the Reader into a better future. I am grateful that he is up for the challenge.

It has been an honor to help save what I believe is among the most important newspapers in America. The Reader has broken new ground, covered all aspects of the heartbeat of this city, and been a critical part of our landscape for more than 51 years. I have been its caretaker, but no organization should have a single point of failure. So once we stabilized, I set out to make sure there were multiple strong people in leadership roles to ready for a transition to a new publisher. 

Not only do we have a solid new board of directors, helmed by incredible friend and colleague Eileen Rhodes, we have great people who will join Solomon in leading the Reader, RICJ, and the Chicago Independent Media Alliance (CIMA, my dream baby) into the next phase.

It was a challenge to get across the finish line to nonprofit independence last year. I have confidence in this team and the newer staff to bring a fresh take on what’s next. 

I want to highlight a few key people who have given me the confidence to step away. 

My former co-publisher Karen Hawkins, my ride or die, made these past four and a half years bearable. The Reader was lucky to have Karen in leadership for nearly four years, and I learned so much from her. Ann Scholhamer joined in 2021 as vice president of operations. I can’t even imagine surviving the past 16 months without Ann by my side. She helped me absorb the shocks of a tumultuous transition and manage the internal changes needed as we became a nonprofit. 

Tracy Baim and Enrique Limón Credit: Sarah Joyce

Enrique Limón is our editor in chief, a role he jumped into last fall. I first met Enrique at the 2019 Association of Alternative Newsmedia (AAN) conference in Boulder. He has a larger-than-life personality and the drive to match his big vision of a new Reader. The editorial team he has taken over has a deep bench, some with more than three decades of experience writing and editing for the Reader. This includes editorial union unit chair and music editor Philip Montoro, plus the editors, writers, art department, and more.

Amber Nettles is our senior vice president of growth and strategy. That’s a fancy way of saying she is and has been instrumental in our shifts to a more digital and sustainable revenue future. Amy Matheny and I have been partners in community media since this century began. She’s an incredible vice president of sales. Amy, in fact, was my first call when I was hired—I knew I couldn’t take over the Reader without her.

Salem Collo-Julin is among several staff (Amy, Karen, Terri Klinsky, and Kirk Williamson) with whom I worked with over the decades at Windy City Times. Salem has been a rock in editorial, most recently as managing editor, and she now moves on to help with our collaboration projects including CIMA and its codirector Savannah Hugueley. 

Vivian Gonzalez, who joined us during the tumult of early 2022, heads our terrific marketing team. Sandra Klein joined as office manager during the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic. She and I were the only ones going into the office, which is still mostly the case three years later. She holds down circulation, subscriptions, merchandise, and more. 

There are dozens more who make this staff amazing, plus our freelancers, contractors, and delivery crew—and many former colleagues including Ted Piekarz, Nicole Lane, Yazmin Dominguez, Leni Manaa-Hoppenworth, John Dunlevy, and Patti Flynn. It would be impossible to name them all here. I am, simply, grateful.

I want to also thank our funders, donors, advertisers, and readers. Many of our funders stepped up even before we fully turned nonprofit. They did it on trust, and I know what a stretch that can be. I especially want to thank Christie Hefner, a stalwart supporter of all things media and a pioneer our city is lucky to have. She has been somewhat of a consigliere to me, and has helped us so much in our nonprofit transition. Our attorneys Brecken Cutler and Brendan Healey have also guided us well. 

Since I took over as publisher, the organization has moved to strengthen its infrastructure and has diversified its revenues, distribution, leadership, and staff. It tripled in revenue, more than doubled its employees, and expanded its print and online readership. In 2018, there was one person of color on our team. Current leadership consists of 57 percent people of color, 57 percent LGBTQ+, 15 percent disabled, and 86 percent female, nonbinary, or trans. Of the overall staff, 47 percent are people of color, 33 percent LGBTQ+, 8 percent disabled, and 67 percent female, nonbinary, or trans.

Sometimes leadership is about knowing when to move on. I am now 60 years old and 39 years into my community media experience. I started at GayLife in 1984 when I was 21, cofounded Windy City Times in 1985, and have loved all aspects of journalism since I was a child growing up in a journalism family. It has been a great honor to helm this legacy newspaper and launch CIMA. And I am very excited about what is next for RICJ, CIMA, and the Chicago Reader. I will stay in their orbit, and help where I can.

Please welcome Solomon and continue to support the Reader as we deepen our work across Chicago, all while keeping the paper free for all. 

P.S.: My dad is still doing well more than four years after his surgery.

Read More