Jan Glaz

Black People Jan Glaz

"My life has never been in color, it has always been black and white," Jannie Johnson. "Black People on White Blocks" is a profound story of racism as seen through the eyes of Jannie, a White child born at the end of World War II and raised in a low income area on the South Side of Chicago, a section of the city where poor White people felt superior to the Black race and profiteers feared the rise of the Negro. Jannie insists she was born magically and her belief instills a sense of bravery that enables her to secretly befriend Shanice, a Black child bussed to her White block school in the name of integration. When a turncoat, elected to preserve White block neighborhoods, sells his home to a Black family the crisis brings Jannie's bonding with Shanice into the open, an act that tears at the foundation of her family but not her loyalty to Shanice and her fight for social justice. As the girls travel into adulthood and beyond, Jannie's life is swept into the inhuman truths of racism, financial greed and subjugation that lead to our present day where "Black blood lines the streets".