Our Story
We give great honor to the Pottawattomie Natives at Chickagou whose land was colonized by French and English white settlers in 1835. Peace and light to their spirits. In the name of our Native ancestors, our Negro ancestors and the living community of Black folks on the South side of Chicago, our mission for the Liberated Quilombo Land Project is to create space to continue in the Black Radical Tradition of organizing, community-building, and cultivating “home” for ourselves and our People in the city.
The Chicago chapter is the first and founding chapter of BYP100. It is important to know the history of where BYP100’s members and surrounding community organized, built friendships and planned campaigns together, to understand how young Black people who are members of BYP100 have set deep roots in this city around the liberating work of abolition and Black Radical Imagination. The Quilombo Land Committee’s ultimate goal is to cultivate a space in our home community on the South side where we can be free to commune in ways that will redistribute power to Black people, particularly those that sit at the intersection of various criminalized and marginalized identities. Travel through BYP100 Chicago’s history of “home” with us, with deep gratitude toward our OG members’ and supporters’ work that has sustained us up to this point.
BYP100’s first formal meetings to organize around police and State violence and State and the original stewards of the land were held in people’s homes and at community centers. As the organization grew it sought space at the University of Chicago’s Center for the study of Race, Politics and Culture (CSRPC) with the support of our co-founder, Dr. Cathy Cohen.
Nevertheless, the University’s violent policing and displacement practices toward the Black community made the space unsafe for us and we were obliged to move into a space of our own in Bridgeport. We thrived and made a great home on 4217 S Halsted which was then the Teamsters Local 710 building. Though we weren’t in an area near our membership base and it wasn’t very accessible to get to, we had the safety needed to build campaigns and plan for direct actions and disruptions. In order to build with our folks on the South side, we held some bi-weekly General Body Meetings (GBMs) at the Arts Incubator and even outside when the weather allowed it!
Outside of GBMs, during the summer of 2017 we held meetings on vacant, abandoned land in Washington Park and Bronzeville. On Juneteenth, we responded to the Black Out Collective and M4BL’s call to action by starting a Chicago-based Black Land and Liberation Initiative (BLLI) campaign. The chapter held a Juneteenth Block Party on 51st & Calumet along with Black Lives Matter (BLM) Chicago, Ujimaa Medics (UMedics),and Build Bronzeville, and had begun to create a community garden and outdoor theater space in a vacant lot nearby. As soon as our vegetation started to bud, we returned to the community garden one morning to find that our plots were destroyed and our gardening tools broken, not stolen.
General Body meetings at 4217 S Halsted St Teamsters Union building (2018)
Around the same time, any members who drove to the lot had their cars ticketed. Police had already been circling and agitating members throughout the summer and especially as the temperature began to dwindle and participation waned, so this was their final push to keep us from bringing life and “home” to the space. In the Fall and Winter of 2017 BLLI transitioned to political education work at the office on 42nd & Halsted and wrapped at the end of the year.
Still, members wanted to be closer to gather in a predominantly Black community instead of in Bridgeport, and where they didn’t have to worry of constant surveillance from the University of Chicago Police Department (UCPD) at the Arts Incubator. At the incubator, sometimes police would sit in their cars right outside of the windows to intimidate us. Additionally, because both of these buildings were occupied by other organizations, BYP100 Chicago lacked creative control to flow freely through the space in ways that would’ve increased the capacity of our organizing and base-building. These spaces were also closed off to the public, so members weren’t able to hold events or mutual aid events, and even in order to meet we had to plan ahead of time to have access to the office. When the office was booked or no one could catch a ride there because of the distance, folks would sometimes meet at a member’s house as shown to the right.
Strategy session at Cosette’s apt in Woodlawn (2018)
From 2015-2018, BYP100’s primary work was rapid response and heavy direct action in response to police violence, and members were ready to get back to base-building, political education and community building. By the summer of 2018, we held our first community-wide meeting at Hyde Park Academy on 62nd & Stony Island, and began to settle into more long-term campaign work. From 2018 to 2019, lots of shifts in the organization both locally and nationally took place and almost all of BYP100’s OG members were now creating new organizations and initiatives, and newer members were tasked with leading and sustaining the Chicago chapters work. Members got back to basics using a Chapter Retreat at the end of 2018 to ground themselves in group-centered leadership, Black-Queer Feminism, Abolition, and Community Healing & Safety.
BYP100’s staff grew and they needed a place where they could work and meet full time, and that could support the Chicago chapter’s meeting space needs as well. Fortunately, they found a space in Bronzeville on 51st & Calumet that was close to where many members lived and was also very accessible via public transportation. Some of the amenities at the office on 51st Street included a small kitchen where members could easily store food for meetings, 2 gender-liberated restrooms, conference areas, sequestered office rooms, and an altar and meditation space. We did not share the unit with other tenants/organizations so the Chapter could also have more secure meetings here and did not have to watch our noise-levels for fear of disturbing other offices. Finally, we were in close proximity to the people we were in the trenches with and had a space where we could meet with comfort.
51st & Calumet bought us back “home” on the South side, however it still was always called “the office.” It was a small space primarily set up for day-to-day operations of BYP100 staff, and did not have the layout we needed to host community events and do mutual aid. We partnered with other organizations like Let Us Breathe and held events at the Breathing Room, at Bessie Coleman Library nearby, and in the summer, at Boxville right across the street! After all, the office was on the same street where the Chicago chapter started the BLLI campaign, so though we didn’t have the layout we wanted, we did have the community we desired.
2020 was dominated by the COVID-19 pandemic and massive uprisings across the city in the aftermath of the brutal lynchings of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor and more Black people taken by police terror. Member participation in campaigns faltered as members strove to create containers for Black rage, and mutual aid planning to help Black folks survive while big box stores and the State abandoned our communities during a pandemic. With in-person meetings and in-person work for staff being suspended for the foreseeable future, BYP100 leadership chose not to renew the lease at the 51st & Calumet office space in September 2020. Since then, the organization has mainly been meeting virtually and on-the-ground to maintain the chapter.