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Chicago Plantation is a social justice project involving three creative properties:

A 60,000 word non-fiction manuscript
A 60-minute documentary in progress
A based-on-a-true-story screenplay

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Read the ProPublica Investigation

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“So I was trying to get people to run for the different offices. So every time I tried to get someone, they would back out because they were fearful about what happened to Ben Lewis.”

RICHARD BARNETT

Political organizer

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Here’s how things worked...

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On February 28, 1963, Ben Lewis, the 24th Ward’s first black representative in the Chicago City Council, was found on the floor of his office, handcuffed with three bullets in his head. The case is still unsolved.

Scroll down to learn more about “plantation politics” and the racial and political conflicts behind the murder.

In 1963, Alderman Ben Lewis was the 24th Ward's first black representative in the Chicago City Council, and the city's most promising black leader.

On February 26, 1963, he was re-elected with 96% of the vote.

Two days later, somebody walked into his office with a 32-caliber pistol…

…handcuffed him, made him lie down on the carpet and put three bullets into his head.

The case is still unsolved.

Lewis’ murder set back the cause of black political representation on Chicago’s West Side for twenty years.

Click to Play Audio

“So I was trying to get people to run for the different offices. So every time I tried to get someone, they would back out because they were fearful about what happened to Ben Lewis.”
RICHARD BARNETT
Political organizer

It was clearly a professional murder, so the question is not so much who killed him, but who ordered the hit– and why?

Did Lewis get into of some kind of conflict with Lenny Patrick, the 24th ward’s crime syndicate boss?

Or was Lewis killed because he challenged Izzy Horwitz, the 24th Ward’s political boss?

Lewis rose to power in the 1950s, as the 24th ward was changing rapidly from Jewish to black.

Although Horwitz moved out of the ward, he needed to recruit reliable black precinct workers who could persuade black voters to support the white political machine.

The 24th became what was often called a "plantation ward" because blacks supplied the votes and whites got most of the political benefits.

Other West Side plantation wards were controlled by white politicians with Italian and Irish heritage.

The biggest beneficiary was Mayor Richard J. Daley, who controlled 45 of the 50 votes in the Chicago City Council.

Lewis was one of six black city councilmen. They were called "The Silent Six" because they were subservient to the political machine that had put them in office.

But shortly before his death, Lewis saw a way to break free of his white political overlords. The West Side’s U.S. Congressman, 83-year-old Thomas O’Brien was on his deathbed.

Lewis told his followers at a political meeting that he was “ready and willing” to run for O’Brien’s seat.

Click to Play Audio

“The meeting was about, ‘I've got enough votes in my back pocket to take me to Congress.’ Two weeks later he was gone.”
ROBERT WOODS
Democratic precinct worker

“He know that he grabbed that power and somebody didn't want him to have that power. So they killed him.”

Click to Play Audio

“You know the old saying it doesn't matter who pulled the trigger. It's who paid for the bullet.”
DON ROSE
Political strategist

“There was this long symbiotic relationship between the Jewish machine ward politicians and the mobsters there.”

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“The mafia controlled the 42nd ward, the 25th ward, the 27th Ward, the 28th Ward, the 29th ward, the 24th ward... The guy who controlled them was Izzy Horwitz.”
BENNETT JOHNSON
Newspaper publisher

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