In my mind's eye, the South Shore of my youth was pristine.
With its big old homes and apartments, four grocery stores and doctors' offices, South Shore had all kinds of residents — laborers, city workers, artists, businessmen and executives — raising their families side by side. A black child in the '80s could feel insulated from the trappings of urban life. It's where first lady Michelle Obama called home.
Auburn-Gresham, the Southwest Side neighborhood where I would later attend and graduate from grade school, was no different. My block on South Aberdeen Street felt downright suburban, with boys my age more concerned with riding bikes, watching cable TV and playing video games than engaging in gang conflict.
We never encountered anything like a little girl shot dead while jumping double Dutch, or grandmothers wounded by stray gunfire inside their homes, or young men so hardened by street life that they targeted the children of gang rivals as well as the rivals themselves.
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