Steven Rogers wrote a famous letter to his white friends in 2021. Now he’s reclaimed a property in Evanston where Black families had been pushed out.
Evanston resident Steven Rogers penned the 2021 book “A Letter to My White Friends and Colleagues: What You Can Do Right Now to Help the Black Community.” Released on the one-year anniversary of George Floyd’s killing, it offered practical guidance on how to improve Black and white racial relations, including white people sharing generational wealth that’s been denied to the Black community by governmental policies such as slavery, segregation and redlining. He also asked that Black people use their money to support Black-owned ventures in an effort to help their own.
Now Rogers, an Englewood native, is doing just that as the new owner of Evanston’s Second Church of Christ, Scientist. Rogers purchased the property at 2715 Hurd Ave. in December 2022 after learning about the history of the land on which the church’s parking lot sat.
As reported by news outlets including WGN and Bloomberg, the Sutton family of Evanston had their home uprooted in 1929 from 2931 Bauer Place, and were moved to a predominantly Black area of town, the 5th Ward. The Suttons’ story was not an anomaly; other Black families from the block were displaced to the same area. Rogers heard the story and thought, “There’s a crime committed on this property against Black people,” and set out to buy from the church the parking lot, where the Sutton home once sat.
According to Rogers, the lot wasn’t going to be sold without the church itself, so he bought both for $1 million. (That was after plans for a for-profit school/day care met resistance from neighbors and fell through.)
“I bought it because the idea of putting land back in the hands of Black ownership was something that I wanted to do,” Rogers said. “Also, I wanted to somehow pay homage to the Black families that were forced to move. This was a story about Black people losing wealth as a result of that. That community is one where average homes range from about $700,000 to $1.4 million. Houses were moved, but if those homes stayed there, think about the value that property would have increased and what would have gone to the heirs over time. It’s a story of Black people losing land, Black people losing value.”
That value has been seen time and again in studies highlighting the racial wealth gap. “Patterns of financial stability and wealth accumulation can have 40-, 50-, or 100-year reverberations: Opportunities our grandparents (or great-grandparents) were given or denied can be felt in the present, not just in the form of inheritances (or lack thereof), but in all the manifestations of resources bestowed upon the younger generations. Thus, wealth reflects not just differences in current opportunities, but also differences in opportunities in the past that continue to reverberate and shape the present,” said the University of Illinois at Chicago’s Institute for Research on Race and Public Policy report “Chicago’s Racial Wealth Gap: Legacies of the Past, Challenges in the Present, Uncertain Futures.”
A former senior lecturer at Harvard Business School, Rogers plans to offer the church free of charge as a venue that celebrates Black culture.
“I want to make the church an asset to the Black community in Evanston, in Chicago, and the Black national community,” Rogers said. “I love the arts. I want to host choirs from historically Black colleges when they make their annual tours throughout the country. I’d like to have guest speakers, prominent speakers in the Black community, book clubs — anything that has to do with art and the Black community.”
He said he’s receptive to hearing ideas from the Black community — that means being amenable to reunions, back-to-school events, Black dance organizations, youth organizations, anything that has to do with uplifting, improving or helping the Black community. Rogers said he has put in a new electrical system, a new stage and central air for the auditorium, and new blacktop for the parking lot.
“If you go to the parking lot, you see spaces that have numbers in front of them — those five spaces that have numbers, are the addresses of the Black families who were forced to move,” Rogers said. “I’m gonna continue to do things in that parking lot in homage to those Black families. I’m going to put their names on the spaces as well.”
Rogers is inviting people to reach out to him through his website, stevensrogers.com, to book the space. So far, the Fisk University Choir performed in the space in October. The choir has ties to Evanston’s Sherman United Methodist Church, but moved the event to Second Church of Christ, Scientist due to seating capacity.
“They just rocked the house,” Rogers, a longtime HBCU supporter, said. “The windows were literally sweating.”
On Nov. 14, the Second Church of Christ, Scientist hosted Evanston musician Donovan Mixon and the D.J.A.M. World Music Quartet. Mixon holds regular free concerts from his garage during the warmer months, where folks can pull up a chair and listen in the alley. Now, the music can continue during the colder months due to Rogers’ church. The denomination is still renting out the church for its members as well, Rogers said. He said he’s reaching out to choirs of other HBCUs to help connect with local alumni groups to coordinate possible performances at the church.
Rogers, who has said “being wronged gets healed partially by some kind of financial compensation,” is looking forward to remaining devoted to uplifting the Black community and being a good Chicagoland person.
The next concert at the church is scheduled for 7 p.m. Dec. 12. Donovan Mixon will perform with saxophonist James Perkins, trumpeter Phil Perkins, bassist Jim Cox and drummer Jeff Stitely.
