An African-American advocacy group took its concerns over the absence of black workers in highway construction projects literally onto the highway Tuesday morning, blocking traffic briefly on the notorious traffic bottleneck known as the Hillside Strangler.
About 40 members of Work-Ship Coalition, locked arms and walked across inbound traffic on the Eisenhower Expressway near Wolf Road and brought traffic to a halt shortly after 6 a.m.
Carrying banners and posters claiming, “If We Don’t Work, Nobody Works,” the protesters were attempting to draw attention to their claim that African-Americans are being excluded from required minority participation in multi-million-dollar road construction projects.
Calvin Omar Johnson, chairman of the organization, said African-American participation in large construction projects becomes diluted by construction companies run by white women or firms that employ largely Hispanic workers–both of whom qualify under the minority requirements. Also, Johnson alleged many contractors set up minority representatives to front companies that in fact are run by whites.
“This is a 200-year institution,” Johnson said. “I don’t expect to break it down in a couple of days. But I expect to chip away at it.”
Johnson and his colleagues chose the Hillside Strangler because the state is planning an estimated $100 million project aimed at easing congestion at the bottleneck where three major expressways and Roosevelt Road converge. Ground was broken on the construction earlier this month.
Tuesday’s protest was the third by Work-Ship Coalition, which was established early 1998 as an extension of the Million Man March on Washington D.C., Johnson said. The two previous protests occurred on I-55 last year and about two weeks ago, according to Johnson. Those efforts also were aimed at drawing attention to the lack of work for African Americans in large state road projects. No one was injured and Illinois State Police made no arrests.
