A Dream Deferred: Black Mobility and Housing

Join Court Theatre and the National Public Housing Museum for the newest installment in the Agora Series, an evening of art, exploration, and conversation about the history of housing injustice. In a conversation moderated by the Museum’s Executive Director Lisa Lee, housing advocates and experts – as well as scholars from the University of Chicago Crown Family School of Social Work, Policy, and Practice – will interrogate the well-intentioned narrative that homeownership is the answer to combating systems of oppression that hinder Black mobility and generational wealth.

Prior to the conversation, visit the National Public Housing Museum’s exhibitions:

• Still Here: Linking Histories of Displacement uses art, archives, and public dialogue to explore and connect histories of displacement on the land where the National Public Housing Museum is located. 
• “What Happened Next?” recreates a 1950s apartment and offers learning on how redlining, racial covenants, blockbusting, and other federal and local housing policies shaped the demographics of cities, as well as public housing. 
• Demand the Impossible questions the so-called American dream of home ownership, why it’s a potent symbol of success in our society, and why it’s often lauded as the surest path to financial security, though millions of Americans find it increasingly out of reach. 

February 13, 2025 | National Public Housing Museum (919 S Ada St, Chicago, IL 60607) | 6:30pm – 8:30pm

Rendering courtesy of the National Public Housing Museum.

Presented in partnership with