Linda Gartz, Author at Linda Gartz

About Linda Gartz

Six-time Emmy-honored Linda Gartz is a documentary producer, author, blogger, educator, and archivist. Her documentaries and TV productions have been featured on ABC, NBC, CBS, PBS, and Investigation Discovery, syndicated nationwide. Her educational videos include Begin with Love, hosted by Oprah Winfrey, and Grandparenting, hosted by Maya Angelou. Gartz’s articles and essays have been published in literary journals, online, and in local and national magazines and newspapers, including the Chicago Tribune. Born in Chicago, she studied at both Northwestern and the University of Munich, and has lived most of her adult life in Evanston, IL. She earned her B.A. and M.A.T. degrees from Northwestern.

An Era of Riots – 50 years ago

Two of the nation’s deadliest riots exploded 50 years ago–in July 1967, within two weeks of each other. July 11th 1967, The Newark Riots blew up on an early Sunday morning, after a cab driver was brutally beaten by Newark police. After four days of rioting, looting, and destruction, 26 were dead and hundreds injured. On July 23rd, 1967, Detroit erupted in a riot triggered by a police raid of an unlicensed after-hours bar, where 82 African Americans were celebrating the return of two local GIs from the Vietnam War.

Linda Gartz2020-10-05T16:41:52-05:00July 13th, 2017|Black history, Chicago, Chicago West Side, Chicago: A View Over Time, Civil Rights Movement, family history|

Civil Rights leader murdered June 54 Years ago

"Thirty-seven-year-old Medgar Evers, Mississippi’s NAACP field secretary, was shot in the back with a high-powered rifle as he walked from his car to his home on June 12, 1963. He died an hour later. Again, mass black protests, followed by mass arrests were broadcast on TV around the world. I later learned that neighbors had heard Evers’s children screaming, “Daddy! Daddy! Daddy!”[1] I thought of my daddy. What would I do without my daddy?

Linda Gartz2020-10-05T16:41:52-05:00July 6th, 2017|Chicago, Chicago West Side, Chicago: A View Over Time, Civil Rights Movement, memoir, Race, West Garfield Park|

“…threatened with Negro Encroachment.”

“…district threatened with Negro encroachment” is a direct quote from the portion shown here of a 1940 map of Chicago area neighborhoods, illustrating the color grade given to various areas by the New Deal’s creation, the Home Owners’ Loan Corporation (HOLC).

Linda Gartz2020-10-05T16:41:52-05:00June 29th, 2017|Ancestors, Black history, Chicago: A View Over Time, family history, memoir, Race, Racial change, Redlining|

Discovery in attic: long-hidden letters & diaries

Standing under naked beams in the attic’s dim light, we discovered a large box labelled in my mother’s neat printing: “Lil and Fred’s Letters and Diaries.” I ripped off the packing tape and folded back four cardboard flaps. A misty spray of dust and the odor of old paper wafted up....

Linda Gartz2020-10-05T16:41:52-05:00June 22nd, 2017|Black history, Chicago: A View Over Time, family history, romance|

When anger transforms to mental illness

Louise Koroschetz, Mom's mother: Grandma K, probably Easter 1951 Grandma K was delusional, depressed, and vicious just months before my parents were to be married. Was it mere coincidence? Or did the thought of losing her only child to marriage [...]

Linda Gartz2020-10-05T16:41:52-05:00June 15th, 2017|Chicago: A View Over Time, Mental illness|

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