Where is lealan jones now

Wells Housing Project. They speak of a 'different America. Yet, some youngsters rise above it. But too many of them don't have a chance, they are trapped. Read this moving chronicle and resolve to help a young person in need in your community to believe in the American Dream.

Powell In , the fresh, original voices of LeAlan Jones and Lloyd Newman stunned the country in Ghetto Life , a National Public Radio documentary that received more than a dozen national and international awards. Jones and Newman would go on to produce another acclaimed NPR documentary, Remorse: The 14 Stories of Eric Morse, which examined the brutal murder of a five-year-old by two young boys. With the help of NPR producer David Isay, these two extraordinary thirteen-year-olds gave America a clear-eyed snapshot of their lives within the Ida B.

Wells Homes, Chicago's most notorious public housing development. Jones and Newman report the truth as they see it with honesty and wit, showing us their world from the inside-out. Wells with an extended family that includes his grandparents, two sisters, two nephews, and his mother who suffers from manic-depression. His quiet, but always-curious sidekick, Lloyd Newman, lives with two sisters who have cared for the family since their mother died at age thirty-five.

With tape recorder in hand LeAlan and Lloyd travel throughout their community interviewing family, friends, neighbors and teachers. No topic is too tough for them to handle. From what it's like to grow up without a father, to their hopes and dreams, Jones and Newman explore it all. The murder made headlines nationwide and resulted in visits to the Ida B. Wells Homes by reporters calling for action and politicians promising change.

Weeks later, everyone was gone--except Jones and Newman: "So in January , when we were both 15 years-old, Lloyd and I decided to try to do something: to be messengers to the world about the Ida B. Wells, and let them know that something has got to change.

We picked up our microphones again to find out the story of Eric Morse. They interview the prosecutors and public defenders involved in the case, housing police officers who knew the killers, and the head of the Chicago Housing Authority.

They meet with the father of one of the defendants, who is in a correctional facility three hours outside of Chicago. Again, and again, they return to the building where Eric Morse died to talk to residents and interview members of his family. It is a courageous inquiry into a crime that the rest of the country quickly forgot.

The Diary of a Young Girl. Report Video Issue. Program Air Date: August 3, Wells, a housing development on the South Side of Chicago. It's basically transcriptions of two documentaries that we did, "Ghetto Life " and "Remorse: The 14 Stories of Eric Morse," which we had over hours of tape, and we put them in a book format and we updated it with 50 hours more tape to, you know, m--bring you up to date on things that happened in both documentaries.

I'm still in--I'm still currently the national junior spokesperson, as well as a board member. And David Isay, a indepro--an independent producer from National Public Radio, had called and asked if the organization had anybody that could talk about their community. And Mr. King, the president of the organization here, recommended me to Mr.

Isay and I talked to him on the phone. I talked to him for a couple of days, then he asked me did I had a--have anybody that I'd like to pair myself with, and then I brought Lloyd Newman, who I've known since the first grade.

We went to grammar school together. We were--since--known each other since the first grade. And I confide myself--who--who I knew very well and I felt comfortable with doing the work that we needed to do for "Ghetto Life. People--it--it shocked people. It--it caused a lot of controversy. They thought that there was no way possible that we could have known the things that we knew at the age that we were and coming from the circumstances that we were.

How far are you away from all that? I have two sisters. I have uncles. I mean, it's a--a--a typical family life, I would say. I can't, you know, sit here and wonder about what might have happened, if or could. I just have to keep living and keep stepping. She had a few mishaps in her life with her mental illness, but she's doing great now.

LAMB: Did she care that this was going to end up in a book like this? No one knew that it was going to end up in a book, not even me. When we begun thi--when we had started this, we didn't think that it would, you know, had--have--amount to this. I ha--I mean, I believe I've been blessed with friends.

I have a lot of good friends. Lloyd--I have He broke his--he broke a--a growth plate in his knee and he couldn't--he was not able to make it because the doctor thought that it was unstable for him to walk on it. LAMB: And as you know, in the book, it says that it's your voice, mostly. I'm more--I'm more--more stay-up-front than what Lloyd. Lloyd is more of a quiet person.

He's more of a seer. I'm more of a seer and a doer. I would always engage in conversation with adults when I was younger. When I was 10, I would engage in conversation with grown men because I felt as though that was the only way that I could gain knowledge and g--or gain some type of understanding of the world. Since I didn't have a father and my grandfather worked, that's the only way that I truly learned how I was and what a man was supposed to do, how a man, you know, was supposed to survive.

She's--she's very nice, very lovely lady. LAMB: And what role did she play in making you, do you think, what you are today? After my mother was declared manic depressive, when I was about four or five and we were put into state custody, me and my older sister, my grandmother, instead of letting the state of Illinois take us and make us, you know, foster kids, my grandmother stepped in and she took over, and she raised me and my sister under her care till n--till--from five till present day.

She'll be 22 on July--July 11th, I believe. We're not, you know, the--we're not, you know, a great sister-and-brother pair, but yet, we get along.

JONES: She's--I think she's--she's going to school trying to get her associate's degree, and she's trying to work and, you know, provide for herself. Me and him can dialogue. We dialogue about the world. We'll dialogue about books. We'll dialogue about people, leaders, philosophy, religion. We dialogue on a lot of things. LAMB: You've got a glossary of terms at the beginning of this book here, if I can find them, and I want to ask you about some of these terms.

Whose idea was it to put the glossary of terms in? It's not saying that we're less educated from the community that we come from, it's just that we dialogue in different terms. If you were to take a kid from Alabama and put him in Chicago, the l--the dialogue's totally different from what he's accustomed to and what I'm accustomed to.

And yet, we knew in the book it was going to be in our words, in the way that we spoke, and we felt as though to have that is so people could translate it and understand. That's--like, they--they'll go downtown and they'll--I don't know how they get the clothes they like to have, but they'll have, like, new clothes and things like that. They'll have, like, new clothes, shoes and things like that, and they'll sell them to you at a very--a very discount price.

They won't sell them to you for what the stores sell them to you for. They'll sell it to you, like, very low. JONES: Basically, you know, you find them because they--they're usually at the barber shops, where they know people are spending money, the hair salons, walking up and down the street.

It keeps them--it keeps them happy. I mean, it's something--it's--it's entrepreneurship. It's a steady business for them. They sell hair braids, socks, lighters and things like that, and it keeps them making money. You'll see great-grandparents out there selling things like that because it's a business. They might--you know, boosters might go knocking door-to-door, you know, having things that they might have to sell. That's where you stay. I mean, I got my own room.

Everybody's happy. LAMB: And if you've got time on your hands to do anything you want to do, what do you do? I--I like sports. I like athletic u--I like athletics.

I just like competitiveness. So I'll--I'll usually work out, lift weights. Wells apartments. Wells was a black abolition--not a black abolitionist, but she was a writer in the South, and she was writing to free--not free slaves, but yet end Jim Crow and things like that around , She was a writer in Chicago as well as in the South, and she would write about lynching in the South.

It's lower-income developments that were established in by the city of Chicago, and it was a great--a great community then. Now it's developed and it's something totally different. JONES: There's a lot of gang activity, a lot of selling drugs, a lot of poverty, a lot of hopelessness. And what--again, what does that mean in connection with Ida B.

It's four story high-rise apartments, and that's where they started building in Chicago around the '50s and '60s because they wanted to build people going vertical instead of going horizontal and spread them out over the city.

So Daley J--Daley Sr. Daley Sr. He built--from the 35th all the way to 55th, there's a stretch of them, about--I don't know how many buildings. But yet, they're now tearing them down because they see that they're--there's no use for them. A lot of the buildings are rundown and in bad condition. I had an aunt that stayed in there, but my grandmother and grandfather--my da--the house that I live in now has been in my family since the--since the mid-'30s.

So my great-great-grandmother lived there, and we've just--the house has just went down generation to generation. LAMB: Do you feel any differently when you're in the projects vs.

I mean, in your own head, do you feel better or worse or That's what the Darrow Homes are, the Def Homes. That's when it was, like, def--def--I can't remember the--L.

Cool J, like def. Def was a word, and it was a phrase that a lot of guys used in the community, I'm saying. That means that it look good. That's def gear, and that's around the time that that word came out to use because L. Cool J. I mean, you would know how I'm using it. I mean, I could sit here and--there's so many different ways to do it, just know by the way we're acting on what I mean. There's--it's a different way of saying what I mean. It could--it could be said many different ways.

LAMB: Are you happier using your own language that we've talked about here or being like you are now? JONES: I wouldn't say that I know the tra--I just tra--I wouldn't know--know one from the other, because when I'm around people that have to be distinguished, then I have to use the language that I'm using. When I'm relaxed and I'm at home, then I'll use--I use both of them. I don't--I don't see the transition.

It's like--What? It's not the real thing. And a hype--you might--that might be your next word--is a drug addict. A hype might buy it and it's a dummy bag. There's no really--there's not really drugs. It's a dummy bag, and they get money and they go to the next buyer. So they're really making money for selling nothing--something that's not real. I've never had to sell them, either. I mean, I was curious about them, but it was never to the point where, you know, I just went and did it.

They like it because everybody else does. It's a--it's a fad. It's a--it's a trend. LAMB: How important is to--drug taking to people you know in their lives? They do it, you know, casually at parties and things like that.

LAMB: If you took the drugs out of your s--our of our society or out of your neighborhoods or whatever, you know, the different lives you lead, what impact do you think it would have on the country? There's no way possible. That's--to some people, that's the way they relax.

If you go in--back in time, you know, a lot of different cultures in--in Japan and China, you know, they smoked hemp and, you know--and opium and things like that. And you--that's--that's w--the way people relax. I mean--and if you take out drugs, then that means you have to take out tobacco, it means you have to take out alcohol and different things like that.

And you j--that's the way people relax. That's the way people--I don't believe that it can be something done. You got some money in your pocket. Ends--you've just got ends. LAMB: Is it hard to come by, somebody at your age, 18? Did you ever have a job? So that's--this--that's my job. That's where I can come down and collect my ends. I worked with the organization No Dope Express. That was my first job. They were like DARE. Wells, Eric Morse, was thrown to his death from a 14th-floor window by a ten-year-old and an year-old after he refused to steal candy for them.

Jones called Isay and asked if he and Newman could do another documentary, exploring the killing. Kennedy journalism award.

The two stories together were adapted into a book, Our America , in and a Showtime movie of the same name in One of them, Robert Gregory—the Simeon quarterback—is a distant cousin. The other, his nephew, Jheri Jones, is now 20 and working at a car wash. Some of the residents were resettled in new mixed-income developments near their former homes, but many have been scattered across the metro area, breaking up extended families and communities.

Jones thinks the federal health care legislation signed into law in March will be ineffective. From his home in Auburn-Gresham, he and Gregory walk the mile to Simeon every day. He believes his two opponents lack an understanding of life in depressed areas. Obama, of course, supports the Democrat.

Barring a surprising victory by Jones, the Senate will again be without a single African-American. He thinks African-Americans have unique problems that are likely to be neglected without an African-American in the senate.

Throw it now! LJ: You just driving your car and — Poom! We just hit the car. Most of them going to the suburbs. LJ: Just to have some fun. LJ: It definitely aint easy growing up in the ghetto. So far me and Lloyd are okay. The poverty, the drugs, the pressures, the tragedies — it gets to people. LN: You never whos gonna get into trouble, or when they just gonna give up. LJ: My sister back here asleep in her room. What time you got in this morning? You stupid! When the last time you been to school?

LJ: My older sister, Janell. When she was my age, thirteen, she was an honor student. She won the spelling bee. She was the salutatorian of her class. Hanging around with the wrong crowd.

Staying out all night. Stopped going to school. LN: The week before we did our recording, Janell almost died. She drank too much, and had to be rushed to the hospital. LJ: Can I interview you?

Janell, tell me about yourself. I like to have a lot of fun. LJ: How old were you when you had this child? LJ: How many close friends of yours have got killed through the years? Been a lot though. Janell: Probably somewhere in that area. Maybe a little less than thirty.

LJ: Do you know who killed or murdered these people? LJ: My grandma sleeps across the hall from my sister, where she keeps an eye on Janell and all the rest of us. She spent a lot of years worrying about her children, and now she has to worry about her grandkids.

Sometimes I think about what might happen to the family if my grandmother dies. I get onto the bed with her and grandfather, and talk about all kinds of things. Like what my granddad was like before he had all his strokes. Grandma: He was wild, liked to stay out in the street all the time.

LJ: He over there batting his eyes, acting like he sleeping. I see those eyes going, trying to find out what you thought about him. Grandma: He go to work all day, and stay out in the street all night. Grandma: Stock yards, he worked at the stock yards as a lugger — he would carry the cows on his back.

Grandma: He lug it. Hed carry half of it and put it up on the hook. LJ: How you carry them cows, granddad? LJ: My grandmother says she gets her strength to carry on, her wisdom, from the Bible. She loves gospel music. LJ: Could you please sing that song for us? Grandma sings : Do you remember when you walked among men? Lord, for my sake, teach me to take one day at a time. So help me today, show me the way, one day at a time.

LJ: She was hoarse but she still can blow. Thank you. LN: Peace out. No good bye. A salaam aleikum. Armed Forces, and the challenges of his service.

Isabel and Juan Pablo Encinias remember their father, Lt. Miguel Encinias, a Hispanic combat pilot that served in the U. Siblings Fritzi and Bobby Huber remember the first time they celebrated Halloween and how their circus performing parents made it a night they never forgot.

Support StoryCorps and help preserve the stories of our time in America Donate. Toggle navigation. Subscribe Support. Share Replay. Link to story. Embed story. Door opens. Music fades up. Bark LJ: I see the ghetto every day walking to school. I live here. This is home. Music crescendos, then begins to fade. LJ: Like your head take up yours. LJ: We been friends since first grade. Teacher : Be seated.

No, no. Student : Good morning Vietnam. LN: Monday morning at Class giggles. Sound of bus LJ: On the bus, some one tells us that there are professional basketball players staying at the Hyatt Regency.

LN: Yeah. LJ: Thank you. Can I have your autograph? Everyone laughs. LN: Dale Ellis, thank you. Downtown Chicago street sounds. Tape recorder clicks off. LJ: My house, day two. Mom: Okay. JERI: Hello. Grandma : Hello. LJ: What we gonna talk about? LJ: Get you! They laugh. LJ: I had blue eyes or brown? LJ: Well how was I named? LJ: My name is sentimental.

LJ: How old are you? LJ: What do you think about your mother? Jermaine: She okay. LJ: You love her? LJ: Who is my father? LJ: What do you think happened to him? Mom: He probably dead. Sound of knocking. Kicking on the door. Sound of kicking. I hope she hurry up and open it. Door opens up. Now we walking into my house. Chill: My name is Michael Murray. Chill: Oh, food. What you eat? Chill: L-O-O-F? LN: Why are you drinking? LN: Do you think you going to stop? LN: What do you drink? LN: I have no further questions.

Fade up on sound of card game. Music, outside sounds. LJ: How the card game go last night? Waiter: Alright what else? LJ: And I want the juice. Waiter: Hold on a minute, just hold on. Restaurant sounds fade out into outdoors sounds. LJ: Man, that was one good breakfast. LN: LeAlan ate the whole store up!

Music LJ: We take bus rides whenever Lloyd wins playing cards, or if either one of us gets a little money. LN: There go the bus. Sound of getting on bus and paying fare. LN: Dinner food. LJ: This is what I be doing G. Refrain of music washes away conversation. LN: Uh uh — I just love you!

Boys laugh. LJ: Oh God. Oh God. Laughter Refrain of music washes away conversation. Sound of bus horn honking. Sound of telephone conversation. Street sounds. LJ: Gary!