What should education consist of in marginalized communities?
What should it look like? How should it be conducted?
What should it consist of and do?
The Dikē Project proposes confronting issues of persistent inequality and poverty on Chicago's Southside through siting a community-embedded, locally urban pilot service & labour-based microcollege in the West Woodlawn / Hyde Park neighborhood overlap.
Small micro-colleges, focused on local transformation.
In 1938, Carl Hansberry, a black entrepreneur, real-estate developer and activist, bought a house on Rhodes Avenue -- in what was a whites-only area as a result of restrictive real estate covenants. Hansberry then litigated to live in the area and have access to its society and capital, a key moment in the racial desegregation of the United States.
Post-1968, the area descended into poverty and re-marginalization. Today, homeownership in the area hovers under 25%, half the Chicago average. Property vacancy hovers above 25%, two-thirds of levels before the 1968 crisis.
Each of the above statistics chart a complex cultural history. They are a result of capital withdrawal (from credit and commerce to basic practical education to community institutions) and of capital extraction (capital outflow for the provision of goods and services).
They can be reversed. Dikē's model seeks to address the underlying microeconomic problems via a triad of projects supporting community education, home & property ownership, and socially-focused entrepreneurship.
Leadership goals: from local models to forging global interconnections to solve collective problems
- Preventing further displacement and marginalization of the communities and peoples of the Great Migration by buttressing forms of private and collective local ownership, to include:
- Practical education in home maintenance and repairs
- Establishment of a "Urban Renewal Corp" of locally trained individuals/contractors
- Mentoring in use of homesharing (STRP) to buttress local incomes & ownership
- Support and incubation of collective ownership, purchasing and maintenance programs for distressed multi-unit (rental) properties
- Restoral, restoration and maintenance of local properties in an environmentally responsible and sustainable manner
- aggressive pursuit of carbon-reduction measures as simple as insulation and white roofs
- aggressive pursuit of carbon-reduction measures as simple as insulation and white roofs
- Development of the northern terminus of the Second Great Migration as a cultural destination and national center
- support and stewardship of the Hansberry and Till Houses as cultural monuments and centers of learning and scholarship
- support and incubation of scholarship and historical narrative projects which convey the legacy of the Hansberry civil rights litigation and the teachings of figures such as Madeline Stratton Morris.
- An educational program focused on both scholarship and the practical skills necessary to take on the tasks above
- Culturally-appropriate instruction in reading and composition, as well as reading and construction of basic legal documents and texts
- Culturally-appropriate instruction in reading and composition, as well as reading and construction of basic legal documents and texts
- Bridging the divorce between communities of affluence and local communities of color via measures ranging from cultural programming to economic intervention
This is a pilot project. Dikē is intended to interoperate with a series of similar future projects in other communities around the world, fostering democratic transformation in systems of governance and education from local to international, serving as a backbone of increased international exchange and co-operation on the critical issues facing the 21st century.
Background / History
The Dikē Project is applying the educational models of Deep Springs College, one of the United States' most unique educational institutions, to solve a series of local and global problems on Chicago's Southside, ranging from urban development to education to international security to environmental crisis.
A result of industrialist L.L. Nunn's experience creating electrical power transmission companies with Westinghouse and Tesla, the Deep Springs model emphases education for lives of service split between a triad of classical study, self-governance, and labour (practical work).
At this point, perhaps unlike Deep Springs and sister efforts, Dikē is primarily focused on the practical work component of the Nunnian triad rather than academic study. Today, this primarily consists of support for homeownership, local capital accumulation, and cultural projects on the near Southside.
In an era of soaring costs and questionable results for higher education, the Dikē Project proposes a return to foundational study coupled with an absolute grounding in the economics of practical works and endeavors.
Dikē is currently exploring projects in Chicago, Milwaukee, and Mexico City.