Oprah's Stealth Philanthropy

Oprah's Stealth Philanthropy in Chicago

by Natalie Moore | WBEZ 91.5

Chicago and Oprah Winfrey go hand-in-hand.

She built a TV empire here, and there’s no doubt that the media mogul has been a booster for the Windy City.

Oprah lovers make the pilgrimage to her studio, contributing to tourism with dining and hotel stays along the way.

But her legacy is bigger than an economic engine to Chicago.

Oprah's philanthropic legacy in Chicago is vast, but under the radar.

There aren’t that many places or things named after Oprah in Chicago, but one of them’s going to last a long time. I’m looking for it in downtown Chicago’s Millennium Park, a showpiece on Michigan Avenue. Here it is Oprah Winfrey name in all caps on a wall. It lists the founders of this enormous park.

Oprah gave a million dollars of her own money to make this park happen, but that’s a fraction of her largesse.

The exact figures for Oprah’s philanthropic impact in Chicago are hard to pinpoint, but one person with some insight on the big picture – is former mayor Richard M. Daley.

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'Left of Black': Episode #34 featuring David J. Leonard and Natalie Y. Moore

Left of Black #34

w/ David J. Leonard and Natalie Y. Moore

May 16, 2011

Left of Black host and Duke University Professor Mark Anthony Neal is joined via Skype by Washington State University Professor David J. Leonard, co-editor of Commodified and Criminalized: New Racism and African-Americans in Contemporary Sports.  Later he is joined by Chicago Public Radio reporter Natalie Y. Moore, who is also the co-author of The Almighty Black P Stone Nation: The Rise, Fall and Resurgence of An American Gang.

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>David J. Leonard is Associate Professor of Comparative Ethnic Studies at Washington State University, Pullman. He has written on sport, video games, film, and social movements, appearing in both popular and academic mediums.  His work explores the political economy of popular culture, examining the interplay between racism, state violence, and popular representations through contextual, textual, and subtextual analysis. He is the author of Screens Fade to Black: Contemporary African American Cinema and the forthcoming After Artest: Race and the War on Hoop (SUNY Press).

>Natalie Y. Moore is a reporter for Chicago Public Radio’s South Side bureau. Prior to joining the Chicago Public Radio staff in May 2007, Natalie was a city hall reporter for the Detroit News. As a freelance journalist, Natalie’s work has been published in Essence, Black Enterprise, the Chicago Reporter, Bitch, In These Times, the Chicago Sun-Times and the Chicago Tribune. She is co-author of the book Deconstructing Tyrone: A New Look at Black Masculinity in the Hip-Hop Generation (Cleis Press, 2006) and The Almighty Black P Stone Nation: The Rise, Fall and Resurgence of An American Gang. She is an adjunct instructor at Columbia College Chicago and is the former program chair for the Association for Women Journalists.

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Left of Black is a weekly Webcast hosted by Mark Anthony Neal and produced in collaboration with the John Hope Franklin Center at Duke University.

Muammar Qaddafi's Chicago Connection

How the feds used the Libyan dictator to bring down the infamous El Rukns gang from the city's South Side.

Muammar Qaddafi's Chicago Connection
by Natalie Y. Moore

From keeping crack cocaine off Chicago's streets in the mid-1980s to becoming the first Americans convicted of domestic terrorism, the El Rukns have had one of the most fascinating gang stories with global reach.

They sold synthetic heroin. They prayed in a mosque. They held community meetings. They got arrested for murder. In the 1970s and '80s, the El Rukns teetered among contradictions. Leader Jeff Fort, aka Chief Malik, sat on a throne at the South Side headquarters. Law enforcement and federal prosecutors zealously pursued them.

But their real legacy is a federal conviction that tied them to Muammar Qaddafi. Twenty-five years ago, the U.S. government indicted members of the El Rukns for plotting domestic terrorist acts on behalf of Libya for $2.5 million.

Lance Williams and I explore the domestic terrorism trial in our new book, The Almighty Black P Stone Nation: The Rise, Fall and Resurgence of an American Gang. Our purpose is to tell a story that looks at the social and political underpinnings of the notorious street organization.

Read the Full Essay the theRoot.com

New Book Profiles the Black P. Stones Gang in Chicago

from WBEZ

New book profiles the Black P. Stones gang in Chicago

In the 1960s the Blackstone Rangers—later known as the Almighty Black P Stone Nation—dominated Chicago’s South Side. The street gang was something of a paradox - a mix of both legal and illegal activity. They managed to attract federal funding for social work but they also engaged in shakedowns and other acts of violence. These two sides of the gang would eventually come into conflict and send Black Stone leader Jeff Fort to his first of many prison stays. Fort remains in prison today but the legend and legacy of his gang continue.

The new book The Almighty Black P Stone Nation: The Rise, Fall and Resurgence of an American Gang is an effort to delve into that legacy. Eight Forty-Eight's Alison Cuddy sat down with its co-authors, gang expert Lance Williams and WBEZ's South Side reporter Natalie Moore.

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Libyan women ground their artwork in tradition

The Libyan women also show the darker side of society.

Libyan Women Ground Their Artwork in Tradition
by Natalie Moore

To many in the Western world, Arab women are mysterious, repressed and shrouded in long black robes. And many Libyans are aware of that sweeping stereotype. But Libyan women are active in politics, academia and government. They also have a presence in the arts.

Listen to the Full Story HERE

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As the reporter for Chicago Public Radio’s bureau in Englewood, a neighborhood on Chicago's South Side, Natalie Moore covers news and issues in that community and surrounding areas.