Nearly a hundred people attended a vigil at a South Side elementary school for the 17-year-old dancer who was killed in a car accident early Thursday morning.
Friends, teachers, fellow dancers and relatives of Boaz Flemister gathered at Warren School in the Calumet Heights neighborhood, where he graduated, carrying green, silver, and white star-shaped balloons, because he liked shopping, his aunt April Dennis-Mack said
The vigil, which saw star-shaped balloons released after Whitney Houston’s “I Will Always Love You” played, solidified Flemister’s death for Dennis-Mack, 43. “It made it feel more real,” she said.
There was choreographed dancing, a DJ, and mounted posters of Flemister where people could write loving words in colorful markers. Flemister’s mother, Angela Hongo, walked over from her red house across from the school playground and was greeted by the crowd, whom she addressed with a megaphone.
“That was my son, my blood. He came from me and we come from greatness,” said Hongo, 56, who joked about throwing some dance moves on the street that day.
Flemister was one of two people killed in a single-vehicle rollover crash on the Bishop Ford Freeway around 1:15 a.m. Thursday, Illinois State Police said. Three others were transported to a local hospital with injuries. As of Saturday, state police said they had no updates on the accident.
“It’s still under investigation,” said Hongo after the vigil. “So, we really don’t know what happened.”
Hongo previously told the Tribune that her son and the other victims were dancers with the South Shore-based Empiire Dance Company. At the vigil, she said the driver was in a coma, but that she did not know who they were.
Cook County officials later identified the other person killed as Lazarus Gonzalez, 23.
Hongo previously told the Tribune that Gonzalez was her son’s close friend, who was a dance choreographer and an up-and-coming rapper.
People who knew Flemister described him as a quiet person with a sense of humor.
“The first one that comes to mind is sassy, for sure,” said Moira Bonadonna, 30, Flemister’s 11th-grade English teacher at Art In Motion, a creative arts middle and high school in the South Shore neighborhood.
“He always had his shining sweatshirts on. He always made a splash and yet he never wanted to speak in class,” said Bonadonna, who said she saw tremendous growth from him throughout the year.
Dennis-Mack also said that Flemister was quiet but had a strong opinion on style. “He was really quiet,” she said. “He would probably be like this is too much…” said Dennis-Mack about the vigil. “He was a background type of person.”
When Flemister wasn’t dancing, he was shopping. One of his last text messages to Hongo was “Ma, I need $15,” she said.
Jocelyn Winston, a faculty member at Art in Motion, said she met Flemister the day that he died and that he was wearing a rhinestone sweatshirt that made him “glow.” “It was like an aura around him,” said Winston.
In addition to his mother, Flemister is survived by two older brothers and a sister.
