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 history [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 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 the West Side” and “The Joan of Arc of the West Side,” Jefferson was a nurse, social worker, community organizer and civic leader.
Jefferson was born in Tennessee, and when she moved to Chicago, she started working at the U.S. Post Office, in factories and at a medical center before shifting to activist work. The turning point for Jefferson was the murder of her brother, a voting rights worker in the South.
This propelled Jefferson into a decades-long career that helped transform Chicago’s West Side.
She served as the president and the CEO of the Midwest Community Council, one of the oldest councils for justice, and led them in rebuilding the West Side after the 1968 riots following the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
Later in 1979, she was appointed as the first Black woman to the Chicago Police Board, where she devoted years to prison reform and rehabilitation of the incarcerated.
In the winter of 1979, Jefferson gathered hundreds of protesters to go to CTA headquarters and challenge the transit authority for skipping stops in Black West Side neighborhoods.
“She felt that the West Side was unserved, but she always would tell us, when we grew up, ‘No matter where you came from, whether you lived in Beverly Hills or if you lived in the projects, you are somebody,’” Teague said. “Jesse Jackson said it better than anybody, ‘You are somebody,’ and so she took that, and that’s what she stood for.”
Jefferson is recognized with a designated street, school and park named after her, including the U.S. Post Office on 2419 W. Monroe St., which was passed by an act of Congress, sponsored by Davis, on June 3, 1998.
While “The Shadow of Greatness Play! A Nancy B. Jefferson Story” centers around Jefferson, Teague also wanted to incorporate the stories of historical Black figures like Aunt Jemmima, Harriet Tubman, Claudette Colvin — who was arrested for refusing to give up her seat to a white woman before Rosa Parks was arrested — and many others.
Showings start Saturday at 4:30 p.m. and Sunday at 4 p.m.; doors will open 30 minutes before the show. Runtime will be about two hours.
Advance tickets are $25 and can be purchased through Eventbrite and through Rep. Davis’s website. Prices will increase to $30 at the door.
“‘The Shadow of Greatness’ is not just a play,” Teague said. “It’s a legacy of education. It’s a legacy of learning where we came from and where we’re going, because if we don’t know where we’re going, we don’t know where we came from.”
Emma Bradford is an intern for NEWSWELL CHICAGO through Report for America’s Local News Internship Program.