Our Incredible Trip to Cairo, Illinois

The Cairo Project: A Report by the Students of the School of Journalism
at Southern Illinois University Carbondale

Journalism faculty, students expand Cairo project
Jan 19, 2007 article from SIUC

Zac and I were extremely fortunate to spend an entire day in Cairo IL on Thursday, meeting and talking with six people who live there and love the town profoundly. This was Zac's first experience with frank conversations about racism, and it affected him very deeply.

The Talk
by Alicia D. Williams

We began with the confluence of the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers, at Fort Defiance State Park. We went over the Ohio River bridge, but weren't able to go over the Mississippi River bridge as it was closed for repairs.

Fill up with gas before you head to Cairo as there are no gas stations there.

We then drove through the Cairo Historic District and visited the levee. Since this town is in the floodplain of two major rivers, it has an extremely strong levee system (note the huge gate under the railroad bridge when you come in, which closes off the third size of the triangle that encloses the town).

Then we went to the absolutely beautiful historic library, built in 1883. We spoke at length with historian & local author, Preston Ewing, and I learned the population of Cairo peaked in 1920 with 15,203 residents. It was a fantastic conversation because he was able to give us the story of Cairo over its entire span. His book is Let My People Go: Cairo, Illinois, 1967-1973.

There are two other recommended things to see in Cairo, the U.S. Customs House and Magnolia Manor, but we skipped both of those and focused on meeting the people. We spent three hours with Harry and Deena Williams, the first mixed-race married couple in town, who described the challenges with racism that they have faced over 50 years of marriage.

They talked with Zac very frankly about how things had been, how they are now, and what he can do to be an ally, ending the visit on a hopeful note. And I also asked questions about what teachers can do in the classroom. A huge takeaway for me was to not only look at the skin colors represented in the books that we read, but to look at who is coming in as a special guest. Meeting people who are different is the best way to combat prejudice.

We then spoke at length with Terri Childs, a resident of the public housing that was torn down and not replaced, who has worked as a paraprofessional at the elementary school for over 30 years. She graciously invited several more members of her family to come over and talk with us, including Dr. Lisa Childs Thomas, former principal of Cairo Junior / Senior High School.

Lisa kindly gave Zac an autographed copy of her book, I Am Somebody.

Terri explained to Zac the gut-punch feeling of being told that the public housing was going to be torn down, and how the residents had all shown up to the meeting thinking it was going to be about something different. They didn't expect to be told their homes would be razed and not replaced.

She showed us school yearbooks from before and after the buildings were taken down, so we could see how the population of the town had crashed. She gave us such an intimate personal experience of what it meant for the projects to be demolished... and then contrasted that narrative by playing footage of how tv reporters represented it. She felt they only interviewed people who matched the story they were trying to tell. And she showed us a list of the top YouTube video results for Cairo IL. It was stunning to see the video titles, and how profoundly negative they were, compared to how the people who live there feel about their town. Kaneesha Mallory told us she left Cairo and then moved back because she missed it so much. It's home.

Yes, the story of Cairo is complicated. When I asked Preston how I could teach the story of Cairo to my students he said over and over, "You can't. It's too complicated." But we both agreed that it is important for all children to learn the story of their town.

In Waldorf education, grade 4 (ages 10-11) is meant to be a time to learn the interrelationship of the geography, history, and industry of your area. I plan to teach this as a year-long theme next year (2025-2026), but because I didn't grow up in Southern Illinois, I want to take this school year to learn about it, so that I can plan our activities and field trips for next school year.

Our visit to Cairo was part of me wanting to educate myself about the region, and I'm so glad that I went.

It's easy to read articles about Cairo that describe it as a desolate ruin, a shadow of its former glory, a town destroyed by racism, a place that will never recover. But the way to learn about a place is to talk to the people. Everybody that we met was kind and friendly, gracious and giving. People who are still in Cairo are there because they love it. They want to be there.

I wish I could put words to the special kind of heart that people exuded. They are fiercely strong but in a warm way. We left every home with gifts and repeated invitations to return. Harry and Deena explained that the profound prejudice they encountered at the start of their marriage brought them closer together. Kaneesha talked about the incredible tightness of the community and the enduring importance of family. Terri told me that the tearing down of the projects made the town a better place. It's safer now. She also pointed out that she probably never would have become a homeowner otherwise.

When I asked the Childs family about the future, they told me that they think Cairo is headed back up. Yes, it needs more affordable housing, employment opportunities, and infrastructure (there's no hospital, for example). But they pointed to the success of Rise Community Market, the new grocery store. Cairo was a food desert for 7 years before Rise opened. Zac and I also were excited to see a lush community garden called The Pilot Garden: Cairo’s Food Donation Garden. And I'm sure we would have seen even more evidence of positive progess if we had stayed in the town longer. If I had to sum up Cairo in one word, "resilient" is the word I would pick.

We saw many different kinds of buildings in Cairo, from beautiful Victorian mansions and lovingly restored Craftsman and Art Deco designs to extremely modest single family homes. There are also many many structures decaying from neglect. Boarded up and burned out buildings, houses collapsing under the weight of vines, loads of abandoned businesses. But don't just drive through Cairo and think you've seen it. It is the people of a place that matter.

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