- Registration is required for this event.
- Registration will close on September 30, 2025 @ 7:00pm.
Program Description
Event Details
The book "Don't Go: Stories of Segregation and How to Disrupt It" offers a powerful entry point into understanding how visible and hidden segregation continues to shape our lives and communities. In this special author talk and lecture, Social Justice Artist Tonika Johnson and Sociologist Dr. Maria Krysan will share insights from their groundbreaking book, bringing its urgent themes directly to Oak Park.. Together, they will explore how historical and present-day segregation manifests in communities like ours—and why disrupting it requires awareness, action, and collective will. Through personal storytelling, data, and community engagement strategies, the evening invites residents to reflect, connect, and imagine new possibilities for equity and integration in Oak Park.
Books will be available for sale, courtesy of our neighborhood bookstore, Dandelion Bookshop, and the author will autograph books after the program.
About the Authors
Tonika Lewis Johnson is a nationally recognized photographer, social justice artist, and lifelong resident of Chicago’s South Side neighborhood of Englewood. She is the creator of the Folded Map Project and leads UnBlocked Englewood, an artistic, housing initiative that addresses the lasting impact of racist housing policies through home repair, beautification and storytelling. Tonika also co-founded the Englewood Arts Collective and the Resident Association of Greater Englewood—both dedicated to reframing narratives and mobilizing resources for Greater Englewood. Her work explores segregation, place, and belonging, and she uses her art to document the richness of Black neighborhoods while challenging harmful media portrayals. Her impact has earned both citywide and national recognition, including being named a Chicagoan of the Year, a 2024 Gordon Parks Foundation Fellow, and a 2025 American Red Cross Social Justice Hero.
Maria Krysan LAS Distinguished Professor of Sociology at the University of Illinois Chicago, has spent decades teaching, researching, and writing about residential segregation. Her multiple award-winning book, Cycle of Segregation, offers an innovative framework for understanding the causes of segregation and served as a springboard for her engaged work, including the book Don’t Go with Tonika Lewis Johnson. Krysan has published extensively in academic and non-academic outlets, engages with the media, and often presents her work outside academia, sharing with and learning from advocates, mayors, legislators, housing agencies, real estate agents, researchers, students of all ages, lawyers, library patrons, and more.