Media Works of John Rothwell

This is a multimedia production I did in January, 2016 for The Collegiate. GRCC’s newspaper.

Andre Pratcher always dreamed of leaving the savage streets of Chicago for a chance to play basketball. A basketball scholarship to Grand Rapids Community College has given him the chance to make the move.

Growing up on Chicago’s west side in the area of Cicero and Jackson, Andre, 23, was raised on some of Chicago’s toughest streets.

It is an area known for its gang activity and turf wars, where playgrounds are used for gang meetings and drug dealing. It’s an area where an innocent bystander can get hit by a stray a bullet. Several people Andre knew died this way.

“It was rough growing up, you had to know certain things living in Chicago, like what streets to walk down and what streets not to walk down,” Andre said. “Who’s out there, who’s not. What colors to wear and not to wear. Where to be at a certain time and where not to be. It was like that my entire life.”

Growing up, Andre had to wear his brother’s hand-me-downs. Never having a room or a bed for himself, he would sleep on the floor in the hallway.

“Part of my motivation growing up was to get my own room and bed,” Andre said.

When staying at his cousin’s house in the Rockwell Projects they had to sit on the floor and could not sit on the couch or the bed because of the fear of bullets coming through the windows.

There was no pizza delivery because drivers would often get robbed. The police would not come unless they arrived in multiple cars for fear they would get shot at.

The youngest son of Wanda Pratcher, Andre lived with his mother and two siblings, brother Cornelius Brown and sister Juanita Pratcher.

Cornelius took to the street life, rising up in the ranks of a local gang. He has now served 10 years of a 50-year prison sentence for homicide.

”My brother always told me not to follow in his footsteps,” Andre said.

With a mother who knew how dangerous the city was, she protected him as much as possible.

“Mom kind of overprotected me,” Andre said. “I wanted to go to a party one time and my mom would not let me go. I heard the next day it got shot up.”

With his mother insisting that he go to school every day, Andre would ride the Chicago Transit Authority 45 minutes each way to get to Roberto Clemente High School, where he also played basketball.

“Basketball kept me out of trouble in high school,” Andre said, “It was go to school and then basketball practice.”

Roberto Clemente High School not only gave Andre an athletic opportunity and a solid education, it also introduced him to his history teacher and mentor, Ozni Torres.

“I want to tell Ozni Torres thank you,” Andre said. “He is the person that changed me.”

Torres was the first person to take Andre outside of his neighborhood and show him what life was like outside of the “hood.” This included a trip to the Illinois Holocaust Museum and Education Center in Skokie, Illinois.

“He was never too proud to take and listened carefully to what was told to him,” Torres said. “He was no wide-eyed fool either, having grown up on some mean streets in his northwest-side neighborhood. It is that rare combination that made me gravitate toward him and attempt to expose him to what his city had to offer.”

That exposure, along with the life-changing moment of seeing his friend shot in front of him, fall to the ground and lie there with blood coming out of his mouth, had Andre dreaming of leaving the city even more.

“It made me look at life,” Andre said. “Live it every day, you never know when it will be taken from you.”

Andre and his cousin Elton Buie would always talk about leaving Chicago and playing basketball somewhere. Buie would leave but not the way he wanted to.

On Aug. 1, 2015, a week before Andre was to leave Chicago and head to GRCC, Elton was shot in the head. He died two days later.

“He wanted to leave so bad to play basketball,” Andre said. “I am living his legacy.”

That legacy and dream has taken him to Grand Rapids. Former GRCC student and basketball player, Greg Fleming, a friend of Andre’s, told him about the city of Grand Rapids and GRCC.

“It sounded real nice,” Andre said. “I came to visit the city and school and fell in love with it. Grand Rapids is a different vibe than the city of Chicago.”

Living just outside the city in Comstock Park, Andre shares a sparsely furnished apartment with teammates Myles Ervin and Abdul McGraw.

“All I have is an air mattress and my clothes,” Andre said. “I don’t need a TV or a Playstation, I am down about school and basketball.”

School and basketball keep Andre busy. His typical day consists of getting up at 5 a.m. so he can catch the bus to be at GRCC by 7 a.m. A part-time on-campus job, classes, practice and library study time keep him on campus until 10 p.m.

“The number one motivation is not being in Chicago,” Andre said. “I am a strong person mentally because of the things I have been through.”

In Chicago they say to keep everybody close to you because you don’t know when that last moment with someone is going to be.

Andre has had a lot of last moments and has lost count of how many people he has lost and is unsure of how many more he will lose.

“When I get on Facebook I see a lot of rest in peace for so and so,” Andre said. “I am getting tired of seeing that.”

Although he’s not sure exactly what he wants to do after college, Andre knows that he wants to help inner-city children.

“I want to show them how big the world really is and not how big their block is,” Andre said. “I want to change their perspective of how everything is in this world.”

By John Rothwell – Collegiate Staff

After growing up in the Cabrini-Green Housing Projects, on the north side of Chicago, Greg Fleming has found comfort in Grand Rapids, playing basketball for Grand Rapids Community College.

With the gang environment of drug dealing and violence, Cabrini-Green was one of the worst housing projects in the United States in the early 2000’s.

“A lot of people say that Grand Rapids is a small version of Chicago, but that is not true,” Fleming said. “Grand Rapids is a laid back city where you don’t have to walk down the street looking over your shoulder.”

The oldest of three boys, Fleming, who recently turned 20, was raised by a single mother, who took on the role of both caregiver and provider.

Fleming’s mom played a positive role in trying to keep Greg away from the negative people and environment that surrounded him. She got Greg into sports and made sure he was always doing something positive, not just hanging out in the hood.

“Mom always stressed school and kept me focusing on sports,” Fleming said. “She was always telling me to get my education. It will take you further than anything.”

Out of a group of 15 friends that hung out together in middle school, only Fleming and one other made it to college.

“Six or seven have died and most of the rest are incarcerated,” Fleming said.

At first Fleming did not take his education seriously and found himself getting into trouble in school for fighting and disrespecting teachers.

That changed with the help of a mentor, Deepak Deajva, who entered early in Fleming’s life.

Deajva is a college graduate from Texas A&M and showed Fleming what a successful life is. He also taught Fleming life skills and how to be successful in life.

“He is, to me, my father and a big brother,” Fleming said. “I am very glad to have him in my life.”

Once Fleming got a taste of success, he knew it was something he wanted. The adversity of inner city families and an environment full of negativity was something Fleming had to get out of, with the options being school and basketball, or gang banging and selling drugs. Fleming didn’t want to live the lifestyle of the streets, so he stayed motivated and graduated from high school and let his play on the court take him to new heights.

Fleming’s girlfriend, a student at Grand Valley State University, on an academic scholarship, invited him to stay with her last summer.

It was then that Fleming reached out to former GRCC Basketball coach T.J. Carnegie who gave him a tryout and offered him a scholarship.

“Greg is a great kid who came to me last summer and asked for an opportunity to tryout,” Carnegie said. “He impressed me right away with how hard he played and how competitive he was.”

With a successful season of playing basketball for the Raiders behind him, Fleming has been offered scholarships to several four-year schools to continue both his education and play basketball.

“If you surround yourself with negativity you will follow that path of negativity,” Fleming said. “Surround yourself with successful people.”

Controlling his own destiny, Fleming would like to play basketball overseas and then end up working in the medical field.

“Anything is possible, but my degree is a must,” Fleming said. “Even if it takes me 10 years, I am going to get it.”

From mid November thru the middle of December the Pere Marquette 1225, a 1941 Berkshire  steam locomotive,  leaves the Steam Railroading Institute in Owosso, Michigan for a Christmas journey north to the village of Ashley for a two-hour layover that features entertainment, hot cocoa and a meeting with Santa Clause.

The engine in the 2004 movie ‘The Polar Express is modeled  after the 1225.

A good day of fishing does not mean having to travel to that out of the way lake, pond, or stream.  Accessible fishing is available on the Grand River, in the urban setting of Grand Rapids, Michigan.

A Group of local protesters who are tying to change drivers license laws for undocumented immigrants in Michigan,  make a pilgrimage from Grand Rapids to the states capitol in Lansing.

Big trucks plus lots of mud equal a common Michigan pastime, known as mud bogging. After a tragic loss, the community of boggers came together in support of one of their own. 

Grand Rapids — The Baby Trump balloon, that has been making recent headlines made its way to Grand Rapids, Just in time for The mid-term election.  The 20-foot tall balloon, anchored down inside a small fenced-in area, brought a stream of visitors, to Rosa Parks Circle on Saturday October 27, 2018.

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Briggs Park was the site for the annual Creston neighborhood celebration of National Night Out.

Hosted by the Creston Neighborhood Association, neighbors participated in activities and games for both adults and children.

The City of Grand Rapids Parks and Recreation made available free swimming at the Briggs Park pool. Free tacos were provided by Catered Creation and Vista Springs Riverside Gardens sponsored a Monarch Butterfly release.

Representatives of Movimiento Cosecha GR listen to county officals during Monday night’s meeting.

Members of Movimiento Cosecha GR and GR Rapid Response to ICE met with representatives from Kent County on Monday, August 6, 2018 to discuss ending the County’s contract with ICE.

The meeting, facilitated by Assistant County Administrator Matthew VanZetten, brought commissioners Robert Womack, David Bulkowski, Stan Stek and Chief Deputy Over Corrections Chuck Dewitt to the table where members of Movimiento Cosecha GR and Rapid Response to ICE shared experiences that are happening in the local immigrant community.

Kent County’s Robert Womack, Matthew VanZetten and Chuck Dewitt at Monday night’s meeting

Gema Lowe, lead organizer of Movimiento Cosecha GR, suggested that the purpose of the meeting is to have clear steps going towards ending the contract with ICE.

People of color are being stopped for petty, non-arrestable offences that are leading to arrest and ultimately, deportation. Major issues of concern and perception are driving while black or brown.

“The community is scared and has lost trust in the police,” Lowe said. “Many people in the area have been separated from their families.”

GR Rapid Response to ICE member Amy Carpenter mentioned how people in the immigrant community need help, saying that the arrests have caused families to lose their breadwinner, ultimately having to go without food and or even to lose their housing.

After listening to the concerns presented by the groups, Commissioner Stek wanted to know the core issue the organization is asking the commission to consider.

“Is it rubber-stamp the resolution without doing an analysis, without doing the thinking, without doing the investigation, without doing a lot of due diligence, or are they asking to roll up sleeves and do that analysis?” Stek asked.

Stek added, “All I am saying is, equip us with as much as you think you can and let us do some analysis and thinking.”

Upset that neither the sheriff nor undersheriff was present at the meeting and feeling that the movement was being lectured to by county officials, Cosecha members walked out of the meeting before its conclusion. No decision was made, commissioners were left to discuss the issue without further input from the group.

County officials talk among themselves after  Cosecha members walked out of the meeting.

Demanding that Kent County end its contract with the United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE.) Supporters of the immigrant rights group Movimiento Cosecha GR protested at the Thursday, July 26, 2018 Kent County Commissioners meeting.

Protesters staged a peaceful sit-in causing officials to temporarily suspend the meeting.