Tucked inside the Altgeld Gardens public housing project on Chicago’s far South Side, there’s a yellow brick wall filled with hundreds of names. It stands as a memorial to the friends and family members in this community who died, often due to disease or other health complications.
The Gardens, as it’s commonly referred to, stands closer to the Indiana border than Chicago’s downtown and is wedged between toxic landfills, old steel mills, chemical factories, and an oil refinery. The housing development was built for Black veterans returning from World War II.
It’s unclear exactly how the memorial wall first began.
“People just started putting up names on the wall for the people who died of cancer and other respiratory problems,” said Cheryl Johnson, who runs the local nonprofit People for Community Recovery.
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