■ Connecting Juneteenth with reparations PAGE 8
FREE Vol. 40 No. 24
June 17, 2026 ■ Also serving Garfield Park ■ austinweeklynews.com
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Faith leaders urge reopening West Sub Page 5
City gets $22.1 Nancy B. Jefferson, early West Side million federal activist, recalled in play grant to replace lead service lines in Austin
Written by her daughter, the play comes to Austin this Juneteenth weekend
All lead lines must be replaced by 2071
By EMMA BRADFORD Intern Reporter
Nancy B. Jefferson was one of the earliest and most consequential activists on the Black West Side going back to the 1960s. Now her daughter has written a play about both her mom and other Black activists who made change real. This weekend at The Kehrein Center For The Arts, a theatrical experience blending history, culture, music and storytelling will commemorate Jefferson with special guests Congressman Danny K. Davis and State Representative La Shawn Ford. Presented by HELP-N-HANDS Organization, “The Shadow of Greatness Play! A Nancy B. Jefferson Story” tells the history of Jefferson’s 25 years of serving the West Side as a civil rights activist and community advocate. In a tribute to her mother and the underrecognized community advocates who have done a lot for the West Side, Alice Teague decided to write, direct and produce a stage production to honor Black history. “I wanted to do a play with Black his-
By IGOR STUDENKOV Contributing Reporter
two years ago and officially debuted it in Georgia, where she now resides, and sold out the show twice in an area where nobody had heard of Jefferson. Known as both “The Mother Teresa of
U.S. Sens. Dick Durbin and Tammy Duckworth recently announced that the Chicago Department of Water Management will receive a $22,119,933 federal grant to help cover the costs of removing and replacing around 650 lead service lines throughout the Austin community. In 2021, Illinois passed the Lead Service Line Replacement and Notification Act, which requires municipalities to replace lead service lines, with the deadline based on how many lead service lines a municipality has. For Chicago, which had estimated 412,000 lead service lines, the deadline is set at 2071. While the state set up grants to help cities meet the mandate, it never fully funded it – leading municipalities to look for some combination of state and federal funding sources. In the past, municipalities only replaced lead pipes as far as the property line; however, the act requires Chicago to replace it all the way up to the
See NANCY JEFFERSON on page 6
See LEAD PIPES on page 9
COURTESY OF BREAKTHROUGH.ORG/
Nancy B. Jefferson is the subject of a new play honoring her activism on the West Side. tory [in] Juneteenth, because our history is being erased and we cannot have history without culture; we cannot have culture without history; we cannot have either one of them without our ancestors,” Teague said. Teague began writing the play about