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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

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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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?

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

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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

Here's how things worked....

Here’s how things worked...