This is a really thoughtful comment. I used to live there too. I wasn't quiet about my political views and looking back I sometimes wonder how my 5'3" self didn't get into and lose a fight (mostly joking). It was a very strange place, because so many of the communities in the area - especially on the Illinois side of the river - were Black majority or at least plurality. And it still seemed very racially backward. It seemed like there was no overcoming history in Cape.
When I was very young, I did an internship in a similar place. That year, there was a similarly young seminarian doing a service project as the children's choir director at church. One Sunday, the kids sang this song from "Up with People," popular in the 1970s with what today would be called "evangelical churches." https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ARykEwdBMkc The outrage among those good people of the congregation had to be seen to be believed.
This is a really thoughtful comment. I used to live there too. I wasn't quiet about my political views and looking back I sometimes wonder how my 5'3" self didn't get into and lose a fight (mostly joking). It was a very strange place, because so many of the communities in the area - especially on the Illinois side of the river - were Black majority or at least plurality. And it still seemed very racially backward. It seemed like there was no overcoming history in Cape.
When I was very young, I did an internship in a similar place. That year, there was a similarly young seminarian doing a service project as the children's choir director at church. One Sunday, the kids sang this song from "Up with People," popular in the 1970s with what today would be called "evangelical churches." https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ARykEwdBMkc The outrage among those good people of the congregation had to be seen to be believed.