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Chicago Tribune > 12/09/05

Tomorrow's leaders put today's on spot

Mary Schmich

Three young men were standing in a church making plans to make some powerbrokers just a little nervous.

"Gov. Blagojevich will sit here," said one, pointing to the first pew of the Rockefeller Chapel at the University of Chicago. "Then Judy Baar Topinka."

This was Wednesday, and by the next day the governor would wind up backing out. Even so, these three men in their twenties whom you've probably never heard of--Stephen Smith, Michael Rodriguez and Ayinde Jean-Baptiste--had helped assemble an attendance list a political pro could covet, and they stood imagining the scene come Sunday:

A would-be governor. Aldermen. Business honchos. Ministers. School officials. Union chiefs. Think of it: All these members of Chicago's clout club sitting down on the red velvet cushions of this soaring gothic chapel, then being called upon to stand up in front of 2,000 young people and commit.

Not just to talk. To commit. Commit to more financial aid. More beds for the young and homeless. Better health care. To improving relationships between the youth and police. "We want a little bit of tension between the public officials and the young people," said Smith, a tall 25-year-old Texan who went to Harvard before moving to Chicago. "Creating that tension is important: Are you going to stand with us?"

If the word "quixotic" just sprang to mind, it also seemed quixotic when the organizers of this new group invited the clout crowd to what it's calling its inaugural convention.

It was only two years ago that Smith arrived in town to take a job forming the group, called Political Action for Change Today.

"When I went to Harvard from a small town in Texas, I was so excited to be there," he says. "I thought, 'Golly, isn't this great?'"

Then he discovered that many of his classmates, who'd been granted so much privilege and power, weren't as exhilarated as he was by the chance to make change, and he wondered who was teaching people his age to engage in public life.

So he wound up here, where his employer--the Industrial Areas Foundation, a community organizing group--gave him a tiny office and a mission: Figure out what worried young Chicagoans. What made them mad. What kind of organization would inspire them to fight for what they needed. No partisan buttons and no rock stars.

For months, Smith's primary work was scouting the city for young leaders then meeting with them, week after week, face to face, urging them to recruit their peers to the cause.

Next to his desk, which was squeezed in near a copy machine, he hung a city map. On it, he posted the names of every young leader he met. He made sure the names covered the South Side, the West Side, Rogers Park and in between.

Among the people he met were Rodriguez and Jean-Baptiste, the two men who joined him Wednesday to make sure the chapel was ready for Sunday.

Rodriguez, 27, grew up in Little Village, the son of a Mexican immigrant who drove trucks and a Mexican-Puerto Rican mother who is a rape counselor. After graduating from DePaul, he enrolled in grad school at the U. of C.

Here's something that makes him mad: Because they can't get decent financial aid, few young Chicago Latinos will get a shot at a good education.

Jean-Baptiste, 22, is a Northwestern University graduate and the son of Evanston Ald. Lionel Jean-Baptiste, a Haitian immigrant. He grew up going to rallies and protests. At age 12, he spoke at the first Million Man March.

Here's something that makes him mad: activism without action.

"I'm ready to win," he says, and he's convinced this new group is the way.

"This is not a super-duper activist exclusive club," he says. "It's not a left-wing complaint party. It's a group of young adults trying to be pragmatic in their approach to power."

The first step toward getting commitments from people in power is to get their attention. Smith, Rodriguez, Jean-Baptiste and their allies may not get more than that Sunday, but I guarantee we'll hear their names again.