Open, Clear and Free

For TTTTBBBB Choir. Duration - 25 minutes. Commissioned by Constellation Men’s Ensemble.

The origin story of Chicago’s parks lies in an obscure map created just before the city’s founding – a space on the lakefront is labeled as “Public Ground. A Common to remain forever Open, Clear, & free of any buildings, or other Obstructions Whatever.” These are noble sentiments, preserving nature and leisure for citizens, regardless of origin or status.

The Balbo monument immediately challenges those lofty founding ideals. This monument from the 1930s, still standing in a public park, proclaims the glory of the Italian aviator Balbo, who flew a squadron of seaplanes from Italy to Chicago, and the superiority of Mussolini’s fascism. Does this park really feel open and free?

Monuments of all kinds liberally dot Chicago’s parks, especially Lincoln Park along the lake, honoring famous people from scientists and artists to Christopher Columbus to Civil War heroes. These statues stand mute, often overlooked by citizens going about their days and nights. Lincoln Park’s own origin story begins as the city cemetery. With the explosion of growth after the Great Fire of 1871, the graves were removed further out from the city center to make way for the park. One rich citizen still remains in his mausoleum, relatively undisturbed off of North Avenue. Meanwhile, skeletons of paupers buried without grave markers are still discovered occasionally during construction.

Chicago’s conservatories stand as oases of quiet and beauty amid the bustle. Greenhouses in Lincoln Park and Garfield Park create evocative microclimates, where the air is heavy with humidity, rich with the smell of earth, decay and life even as “winds whistle and the snows descend.”

Access to these amenities is open to all as enshrined in law, but practice often differs. Formal and informal segregation has been the norm in Chicago for decades. In 1919, the “race riots” of white-led violence began when a young African-American man, Eugene Williams, was killed after crossing the informal color line on a Chicago beach. The violence was investigated after the fact by a bi-racial commission, which produced a report highlighting discrimination in housing, employment and more in the city. This discrimination remains today in a city that is still profoundly segregated decades after the Civil Rights Act.

However, the park serves as an immense reservoir of hope – as a parent, I can’t help but feel hopeful watching my own son and the children of others find their footing and their confidence in parks like Legion Park, Douglas Park and hundreds more. As a city, as a country and as a species we owe it to our children to afford them “the stage of opportunity and freedom” to find themselves in a park, surrounded by trees, fresh air and the light of the sun.