Premieres April 18, 2024 on
WTTW
&VONTv
Shame of Chicago, Shame of the Nation is a four-part documentary series that lays bare the story of how Chicago devised the nation’s most sweeping system of racially segregated housing—and how it diminished the lives of generations of Black families, creating the vast racial wealth gap that persists to this day.
Told by the people who experienced it, the journalists who documented it, and the scholars who’ve studied it, this series unpacks a pivotal part of American history that textbooks often gloss over or leave out entirely. Centering Black voices and experiences, the series also brings to life the resistance Black Chicagoans mounted throughout the 20th century in the face of systemic and often violent discrimination in the private sector and at nearly every level of government. The series shows how these policies provided the model for other American cities and towns, such that the wealth gap between Blacks and whites deepened throughout the country.
This is more than just a documentary series. It’s an urgent educational tool that will open eyes, join hearts, spark debate, and inspire action. Each episode is designed to stand alone for classroom and community use, as it unfurls a key part of a riveting larger history.
Shame of Chicago, Shame of the Nation Trailer
Meet The Featured Talent
Davarian L. Baldwin Ph.D.
Historian, Trinity College
Charles Branham, Ph.D
Historian, Northwestern University
Adrienne Brown
Literary Scholar - University of Chicago
Ta-Nehisi Coates
Journalist
Erik Gellman, Ph,D.
Historian, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Adam Green, Ph.D.
Historian, University of Chicago
Don Hayner
Journalist
D. Bradford Hunt, Ph.D.
Historian, Loyola University Chicago
Ethan Michaeli
Journalist
Dominic A. Pacyga
Historian, Columbia College Chicago
Mary Pattillo, Ph.D.
Sociologist, Northwestern University
Beryl Satter, Ph.D.
Historian, Rutgers University
LaDale Winling
Historian, Virginia Tech University
Contact The Directors
Bruce Orenstein
Contact BruceBruce Orenstein is currently Artist in Residence in the Arts of the Moving Image Program at Duke University and group leader on residential segregation at the Samuel DuBois Cook Center on Social Equity. Orenstein is a native Chicagoan and former community organizer who worked in Seattle and Chicago around race and housing-related issues throughout the 1970s and 80s.
His past film credits include the 2002 Emmy-award-winning documentary No Place to Live, which, in part, tells the internationally-heralded story of how, in 1959, white suburban residents of Deerfield, Illinois, blocked upwardly-mobile Black families from purchasing homes in their community. In 2003, Orenstein produced a short documentary about the harrowing story of Black families seeking to integrate a white public housing development, Trumbull Park, in the early 1950s. Orenstein is also known for two nationally-broadcasted PBS documentaries, The Democratic Promise: The Life and Legacy of Saul Alinsky (co-produced in 1999) and American Idealist: The Story of Sargent Shriver (2008).
Chris L. Jenkins
Contact ChrisChris L. Jenkins is an award-winning journalist and documentary film producer and writer. He is the producer and writer of the award-winning documentary, Trapped: Cash Bail in America (2020), streaming on YouTube Originals, and producer of the film Anthem, currently airing on Hulu.
For nearly two decades, he was a reporter and editor at The Washington Post where he covered and spearheaded award-winning journalism around politics, criminal justice, immigration, culture, and race. He has also served as Managing Editor for The Root.com and producer and writer for ESPN’s HBCU Football: Our Time special; the independent film Rikers: Innocence Lost; and story producer for the feature documentary, Van Jones: The First Step, which premiered at the 2021 Tribeca Film Festival. While at The Washington Post, Chris was the author of numerous award-winning stories and productions; he was also a core member of the paper’s team that won the 2008 Pulitzer Prize for its breaking news coverage of the Virginia Tech shooting massacre.