Your goal is to:
1. Identify a social problem.
2. Explain its causes and consequences.
3. Make the case for why it matters.
4. Propose realistic solutions.
Research Requirements
• Use assigned course material for background.
• Include at least 3 additional outside sources:
- 1 scholarly, academic source (book or peer-reviewed journal article).
- 2 other credible sources (news articles, websites, reports, or interviews).
• There is no maximum number of sources—you may use more.
• Provide APA-style in-text citations and a reference list at the end of your letter.
Artist and activist Tonika Lewis Johnson's "unBlocked Englewood" project is literally repairing the damage a racist housing practice, known as land sale contracts, has done to Chicago's Black neighborhoods.
Why it matters: Residents' lack of equity prohibited them from getting loans to perform necessary home repairs like patching a leaky roof, and it forced some to abandon their homes completely.
About 30% of the majority-Black neighborhood's homes were vacant from 2017-2021, according to the Chicago Metropolitan Agency for Planning.
Flashback: In the 1950s and '60s, many Black residents looking to own a home were ensnared by predatory land sale contracts that required large down payments and high-interest monthly payments, without the equity and protections of a traditional mortgage. (Shepherd).
References
Tonika Lewis Johnson is a photographer and social justice artist exposing the impacts of systematic disinvestment in urban communities. Johnson uses photography, maps, and multimedia storytelling to articulate the vast disparities in conditions, infrastructure, and investment between Chicago’s neighborhoods. At the same time, she creates pathways for residents to begin the process of restitution and repair.
Try searches in both the general database, Academic Search Complete and the specialized database of sociology journals called SOC Index.
Remember to limit your results to peer reviewed articles by clicking the box on the left side of the results page.
For off campus access to the Oakton Library databases, use your myOakton user name and password.
Provides a comprehensive scholarly, multi-disciplinary full-text database, with around 10,000 full-text periodicals - of which more than 9,000 are peer-reviewed journals.
Provides more than 860 full-text titles including core sociology peer-reviewed journals.