SSW Radio: Black History Month, Public Housing, and Valentine’s Day

This week on SSW Radio we got reactions on Black History Month, talked with Ben Austen about his new book on public housing, and began celebrating Valentine’s Day with the first in a series of interviews about love and marriage

February is Black History Month, so we asked South Siders what it means to them.

Coinciding with South Side Weekly’s special issue on housing, contributors Adam Przybyl and Erisa Apantaku interviewed Ben Austen about the creation of his new book High-Risers: Cabrini-Green and the Fate of American Public Housing. “This is not just an important Chicago story,” Austen explains, “but one of the most important Chicago stories, and you could really tell that the whole history of the city exists within it—and really the history of cities across the country.”

Helen Wakefield and Beatrice Watson answered our open call for submissions to the housing issue with spoken word poetry. In “Whatever Happened to 75th Street?” Wakefield questions her changing neighborhood and mourns the loss of staple people and places within her community. In “A Hot Summer’s Day” Watson recounts the events of a nameless day in summer, highlighting pleasures and pains.

The Weekly Read began a series on love, marriage, and commitment this week with the first of four interviews with Sean and Dorian H. Nash, the Extraordinary Everyday Marriage Duo. They’re the authors of the book Do You Love Me Still? about how to make marriage and long-term romantic relationships last. They’re not psychologists. They’re not therapists. They’re not doctors. But these self-proclaimed love gurus say they have a sense of what works from their relationship and want to share that with you.

And in between, the Read talks about her cure for the common cold.

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