Brian McCammack and Courtney Joseph on Landscapes of Hope

The Union League Club of Chicago Invites you to attend this program

Courtney Joseph

Brian McCammack

Two Lake Forest College faculty members, Courtney Joseph and Brian McCammack, discuss how and why nature matters — and has mattered — to Black Chicagoans. Chicago’s natural and landscaped environment has been racially contested space, from the time the Black trader Jean Baptiste Point Du Sable became the city’s first permanent non-native settler in the late 18th century to the 21st century’s persistent racial segregation and discrimination that continues to negatively impact communities of color’s access to and enjoyment of Chicagoland’s lakefront, waterways, parks, and forest preserves. Joseph and McCammack examine some notable moments in this long and ongoing history of Black Chicagoans challenging racial barriers in order to forge productive relationships with nature.