On a sun-drenched afternoon in mid-May, dozens of protesters costumed in hardhats and limegreen smocks marched outside the Loop office of Friends of the Parks. The faux workers chanted their disgust with the preservation group for jeopardizing plans to make Chicago the site of the Lucas Museum of Narrative Art—and potentially costing the city hundreds of construction and tech jobs. “A small group of elitists with no commitment to the brown people of this city!” bellowed Rev. Leon Finney. “Public enemy No. 1!”
Earlier that month, Mellody Hobson, an influential financial executive and George Lucas’s wife, similarly lashed out at the group, calling it “no friend of Chicago” and accusing it of blocking an institution that would inspire the city’s “young black and brown children.” A commenter on FOTP’s Facebook page…
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Chicago (Digital) - 1 Issue, July 2016