CHICAGO INDIAN VILLAGE

 

Carole Warrington and her Menominees. Chicago, 1970 by Bruce Berman

On May 5, 1970, a group of American Indians set up an encampment behind Wrigley Field. Led by Indian activist Mike Chosa, and Menominee Carol Warrington, the Chicago Indian Village (CIV) protested against inadequate housing and social services for Chicago’s 15,000 American Indians. The occupation of Wrigley Field’s parking lot began with CIV’s when a Ms. Warrington was evicted from her Wrigleyville apartment (she refused to pay the rent claiming the apartment was substandard and that the City Housing Authority was not inspecting it and forcing slum landlords to bring it up to code). This eviction led the group to a two-month encampment at a Wrigley Field parking lot.The following summer, Chosa and Worthington led a group of fifty men, women, and children in a two-week occupation of an abandoned parcel of government land, a former Nike missile base,  at Belmont Harbor. Evicted from the site, they took refuge at the Fourth Presbyterian Church.

This action was part the American Indian Movement (AIM), which is still active and is an activist group that fights for Native American rights.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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