October marks National Arts and Humanities Month, a celebration highlighting the impact of the arts on communities across the U.S. It’s a time when individuals and organizations are encouraged to engage in creative activities that inspire reflection, dialogue and social change.
The One Lawndale Arts and Activism Incubator (OLAAI) empowers Black and Brown youth in Chicago’s Lawndale neighborhood by blending art, activism and racial healing through programs like the Artivism Project, Youth Design Squad and healing circles, offering paid opportunities for creative and community-driven work.
Founded in 2021 by Cecily Langford, OLAAI provides a space” where young people can create, reflect and build solidarity while addressing social issues through art and cultural engagement.
Langford served as an assistant principal at Farragut Career Academy before founding OLAAI. The police killing of 13-year-old Adam Toledo in 2021, which deeply affected the school community, was a pivotal moment that led her to leave Farragut and create a new “third space” for young people focused on art, activism, and healing.
Drawing on more than 20 years in Chicago Public Schools, Langford designed OLAAI to blend art, activism and racial healing, offering programs like the Artivism Project, Youth Design Squad and healing circles.
The incubator pays youth for their creative and activist contributions while fostering unity and solidarity among Black and Brown communities in Lawndale.
For Langford, the killing of Adam Toledo highlighted ongoing struggles with gang violence, racism and tensions between Black and Brown students, pushing her to confront difficult questions about how to foster understanding and address harmful language within the school community.
“In my time at Farragut, I had buried several kids, and we faced constant challenges with gang violence and racism, where tensions between Black and Brown students often ran high. As a leader, I had to ask myself: how do we address this? How do we deal with the fact that the n-word is used so often in our hallways? I was hearing it every day,” Langford said.
Though Adam was still in middle school at the time, he was on track to eventually attend Farragut. Langford reflected on the importance of conversations about racism and solidarity in schools, describing how Adam’s balloon release became a moment for the community to grieve, remember him and engage in reflection about unity and understanding.
She heard repeatedly that Adam loved to draw and recognized him as an artist, which inspired a shift in her thinking. She realized she needed to create a new way to lead and build a supportive environment for Black and Brown youth in the Lawndale community.
“I want to devote myself to a different type of space for young people. I feel like my abolitionist spirit, the belief that we need to dismantle some of these systems and replace them with very different ones, became clear to me. I was ready to take this journey and work with the community I had built relationships with for five years,” Langford said. “So, I did it: I left Farragut with the hope of creating the Lawndale Arts and Activism Incubator in 2021, and since then, it’s been a pathway to where we are now.”
The organization runs several youth-focused programs in Lawndale, including the Artivism Project, Youth Design Squad and racial healing initiatives.
“Our goal is to secure the funding and build the capacity to interweave all three strands and pilots into a cohesive program for the upcoming summer,” Langford said.
The Artivism Project engages youth in participatory action research, combining art and storytelling to document community histories and experiences, culminating in public showcases.
“So, we had the families come, partnered with others, and held one big showcase. The art remained on display, and that concluded the project. This will serve as one of the building blocks we’ll continue to develop and incorporate into upcoming programs,” Langford said.
The Youth Design Squad engages young people in “artivism,” blending art and activism through hands-on projects. Participants collaborated with the Chicago Park District and Resolver Studios to design a sukkah
The Chicago Sukkah Design Festival pairs community organizations in Chicago’s North Lawndale neighborhood with diverse architectural designers. Sukkot installation for the Chicago Sukkot Design Festival. Their work will be showcased at the Lawndale pop-up and incorporated into the festival on Oct. 5.
The racial healing component, developed in collaboration with Maraliz Salgado, the author of “F.L.Y. L.I.B.R.E.: A Guide for Healing and Liberation” engaged 12 Black and Brown youth from Lawndale in solidarity circles to explore their experiences of racial trauma in school and their neighborhoods.
Participants reflected on healing and liberation while discussing how to process and respond to systemic inequities. The program incorporated creative practices, including rudimentary instruction in Puerto Rican Bomba music, to honor community members and victims.
“We conducted a small honoring and provided basic instruction in Bomba. Neither I nor the other facilitator are experts, but we experimented and trained the young people, who then led their own circle with a different youth group, the Lawndale Children’s Discovery Center Youth Council, during the summer. They applied what they learned from our pilot, were compensated for their work, and guided other youth in reflecting on their racial identities and connecting across differences,” Langford said.
Langford emphasized the importance of engaging young people in Lawndale on issues like deportation and mass incarceration, encouraging them to channel their energy and wisdom into building solidarity and creative resistance. She believes youth perspectives are crucial, noting that historically, young people have driven major social change, and stresses the need to continually elevate and support their voices.
“How do we continuously join forces, put aside our divisions, the false divisions we’ve learned and really focus this resistance in a place of love and creativity? We need to honor young people’s wisdom, even though they are adolescents, because if we look at history, it’s often young people who have driven the greatest social change. At this moment in history, elevating, supporting, and amplifying youth perspectives is incredibly important to me personally,” Langford said.