Background for the What’s Left Behind? Documentary – South Chicago Black Mothers’ Resiliency Project
In 2013, Dr. Ruby Mendenhall was a Principal Investigator (PI) for a University of Illinois at Urbana Research Board project called the South Chicago Black Mothers’ Resiliency with Co-PIs Drs. Gene Robinson, Brent Roberts and Sandra Rodriguez-Zas. We examined how living in neighborhoods with high levels of gun violence affected Black mothers’ mental and physical health. Specifically, we wanted to understand how stress gets "under the skin" and how you get stress out from "under the skin." We interviewed close to 100 Black low-income mothers on the South side of Chicago asking about their exposure to gun violence and how it affected their health and well-being. The mothers also provided blood samples for us to see how the stress that they were experiencing impacted their immune systems (genomics). We found that mothers who perceived their neighborhoods were unsafe due to gun violence and other issues experienced greater expression of genes regulated by the glucocorticoid receptor (GR) which negatively impacts one's immune system, metabolism, inflammation and the cardiovascular system. Lisa Butler, a graduate student in Social Service Administration at the University of Chicago, helped to interview the Black mothers. Several of the Black mothers in the study had lost their children to gun violence. After the information was collected from the women, Lisa said that she would like to do a documentary about Black women who lost children to gun violence. I loved her idea and offered to support her. My role in the documentary included participating in three of the interviews, co-directing, co-producing (secured funding from the Illinois Innovation Network), script writing, and creating/performing poetry. As a result of the Black Mothers' project and funding from the MacArthur Foundation and others, we are currently creating Wellness Stores/Spaces in schools, museums and other locations. We are designing affordable housing that fosters healing for those living in it. We are also working with policy makers on issues such as training high school and young adult Community Health Workers.
Youth Wellness Project Background
The Youth Wellness Project trains high school students and young adults to be Community Health Workers. The CHWS created a song for the What’s Left Behind documentary. They will also co-create Wellness Stores/Spaces where those affected by gun violence can engage in community healing. The Youth Wellness Project is an extension of Dr. Ruby Mendenhall's 2013 South Chicago Black Mothers’ Resiliency Project that was conducted with Drs. Gene Robinson, Brent Roberts and Sandra Rodriguez-Zas. The goal of the project was to understand how stress gets “under the skin” to negatively affect health and wellness. When Black women in Chicago talked about living in neighborhoods with high levels of gun violence, they described headaches, backaches, loss of hair and sleepless nights due to the stress of their environments. Another goal of the project is to foster health and wellness using neuroscience, technology and cultural resources (e.g., meditation, spirituality, forming supportive communities, mutual aid, etc.). Several of the mothers participating in the project lost their children to gun violence. The mothers’ tragic loss of their sons motivated Lisa Butler to create the What’s Left Behind? documentary.
