August 8, 2026 - The Chicago Journal

Amanda Williams Surrounds Washington Park Statue With Nearly 40 Other Washingtons

The Chicago Journal Staff 2 on August 8, 2026

Artist Amanda Williams unveiled “Other Washingtons” on August 6, 2026, surrounding the 1902 George Washington statue in Washington Park with nearly 40 flagpoles honoring other people who share the Washington surname. The installation drew what Williams called “an amazing turnout” of honorees, family members and neighborhood residents at the unveiling.

Key Takeaways

Amanda Williams unveiled “Other Washingtons” on August 6, 2026, around the 1902 George Washington statue in Washington Park.
The installation includes nearly 40 flagpoles, each with a flag or banner honoring a different person surnamed Washington.
Honorees range from Booker T. Washington, George Washington Carver, Dinah Washington and Grover Washington Jr. to Chicagoans like former mayor Harold Washington and Benjamin Washington, band director at Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. College Preparatory High School.
The project is part of the Chicago Monuments Project, a city initiative launched in 2020 with the Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events, the Chicago Park District and Monument Lab, funded partly through DCASE and the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.
A companion website, otherwashingtons.com, will keep collecting stories so the flag roster can change as the physical banners weather and are replaced.

The project signals a shift in how Chicago is willing to treat its oldest public monuments, not by removing them but by building new narratives directly around them. Rather than replace the George Washington statue, Williams has used it as scaffolding for a different kind of civic memory, one that asks who actually gets to stand for history in a neighborhood whose demographics look nothing like they did in 1902.

The August 6 Unveiling Drew Honorees and Neighborhood Residents to Washington Park

The unveiling took place at the statue’s site in Washington Park, where Williams’ installation now surrounds the original bronze figure with flagpoles carrying flags and biographical banners. Depending on where a visitor stands while walking or driving past, the statue is either partially visible or completely obscured by the surrounding flags, a physical effect that echoes the piece’s larger argument about which figures get foregrounded and which get buried.

bronze historical statue in park — Photo by Artan on Unsplash

Williams described the crowd in direct terms during a live interview on Chicago Tonight just minutes after the installation went up. She said the event brought together actual honorees, neighborhood community leaders, and everyday Bronzeville and Washington Park residents, and told the program she sees the piece as a “first foray” into what will become an anchor for Washington Park.

Nearly 40 Flags Mix Famous Names With Neighbors

Nearly 40 flagpoles ring the statue, each carrying a flag or a banner with a short biography of someone named Washington. The list mixes household names with people known mainly to their own block. Historical and cultural figures include educator Booker T. Washington, scientist George Washington Carver, and musicians Dinah Washington and Grover Washington Jr.

Local Chicagoans get equal billing. The banners name the late mayor Harold Washington, early childhood educator Candice Washington, and Benjamin Washington, band director at Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. College Preparatory High School, who Williams noted would be marching down the same street that weekend during the Bud Billiken Parade. The biographies were written by the Washingtons being honored or by people connected to them, which means the archive reads less like a museum label and more like a set of community testimonials.

That crowdsourced structure did not happen overnight. Williams said the project began roughly a year earlier with a banner posted near the statue, which had been fenced off since 2020, asking passersby a single question: who is their favorite Washington. She followed that with workshops around the neighborhood, including a session with a knitting group at a Presidents Day event on 55th Street, to gather the stories that eventually became banner text.

Williams Frames the Piece as Repair, Not Erasure

Williams was explicit that the goal was not to tear anything down. She connected the new work to an earlier series of painted, condemned South Side homes, saying, “Color(ed) Theory was about the injustice, George gets to be about the reparations.” She described “Other Washingtons” as tied to “a national story, a more historic story” rather than a purely local one.

Her reasoning links the statue’s original context to the neighborhood surrounding it today. Williams argued that George Washington’s relevance to the present-day neighborhood looks fundamentally different from the conditions surrounding that same area in 1902, and that the founding mythology George Washington represents helped produce the redlining, segregation and generational wealth gap the neighborhood still contends with. “It’s not an accident,” she said, calling the outcomes a direct result of decisions made under the first president’s era.

That argument gives the installation stakes beyond aesthetics. Williams has built a career on making inequity visible in physical space, from the color choices on abandoned South Side homes to a 2022 project that planted 6 acres of red tulips to mark the boundaries of historic redlining. “Other Washingtons” extends that practice from documenting harm to proposing a form of repair, built literally around a monument tied to the history she is describing.

The Chicago Monuments Project Provides the Framework

“Other Washingtons” is one output of the Chicago Monuments Project, an initiative the city launched in 2020 to review public statues and art connected to controversial figures and to fund new, more inclusive memorials. The Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events, the Chicago Park District and Monument Lab have worked together on the effort, commissioning new monuments through a partnership between DCASE and the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.

That funding structure matters because it puts institutional weight behind a question that started as an artist’s provocation. It also places Williams’ work alongside other recent commissions tied to the same review process, suggesting Chicago’s response to controversial monuments increasingly runs through addition and reinterpretation rather than removal alone.

The Archive Is Meant to Keep Growing

The physical flags are only part of the project. A companion website, otherwashingtons.com, is meant to operate as a living archive where visitors can submit names and stories about Washingtons who shaped their lives, whether famous or entirely unknown, and see extended versions of the banner biographies. Because the outdoor flags will weather and eventually need replacing, new stories submitted online are expected to cycle into the physical installation over time, meaning the roster of nearly 40 honorees is not fixed.

Williams said she hopes an institution will eventually partner with the project to house the archive on a permanent basis, which would turn a temporary public art installation into something closer to a standing community record. Whether a museum, library or university takes on that role remains an open question, and so does how long the flagpoles themselves will stay up in Washington Park before the next phase of the project takes shape. What the August 6 unveiling made clear is that a single 1902 statue can still be turned into a live argument about whose names Chicago chooses to put on a pedestal.

FAQs

What Is “Other Washingtons”?

It is a public art installation by Amanda Williams surrounding the 1902 George Washington statue in Washington Park with nearly 40 flagpoles honoring other people named Washington, unveiled on August 6, 2026.

Who Are Some of the People Honored on the Flags?

The banners include historical figures like Booker T. Washington, George Washington Carver, Dinah Washington and Grover Washington Jr., as well as Chicagoans including former mayor Harold Washington, early childhood educator Candice Washington and Benjamin Washington, a band director at Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. College Preparatory High School.

Is the Original George Washington Statue Being Removed?

No. The statue remains in place at the center of the installation. Depending on a visitor’s vantage point, the flags either partially reveal or fully obscure the bronze figure.

What Is the Chicago Monuments Project?

The city established this effort in 2020 to examine public monuments and statues tied to disputed historical actors and support replacement artworks that center underrepresented narratives, with oversight from the Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events, the Park District and Monument Lab.

How Were the Honorees Chosen?

Amanda Williams began the project about a year before the unveiling by posting a banner near the fenced-off statue asking passersby who their favorite Washington was, then held neighborhood workshops, including one with a knitting group on 55th Street, to gather stories.

Will the List of Honorees Ever Change?

Yes. A companion website, otherwashingtons.com, lets visitors submit new names and stories, and those submissions are expected to cycle into the physical flags as they weather and get replaced.

What Other Public Art Has Amanda Williams Made in Chicago?

Williams has painted condemned homes on the South Side in colors tied to Black culture and, in 2022, planted 6 acres of red tulips to mark the boundaries of historic redlining.

This Book Is Not for You Explores Daniel Isenberg’s Personal Story

The Chicago Journal Staff on August 8, 2026

By: Arlene Harris

For much of his career, Daniel Isenberg has been known for helping people work through uncertainty.

A former Harvard and Columbia professor, entrepreneur, investor, venture capitalist, and internationally recognized authority on entrepreneurship, Isenberg has been a pioneer in helping people overcome obstacles, build businesses, and manage complex economic and social change. His professional world has often revolved around identifying complex problems, challenging assumptions, and creating paths to prosperity when there is no beaten path forward.

His latest book examines a challenge unlike any he had encountered before.

This Book Is Not for You: My Loss, My Grief, My Healing is an intensely personal memoir chronicling the death of his 52-year-old wife, Carla, following a four-year battle with a rare, untreatable cancer. It is not a guide to grief, nor does it promise healing through a series of steps or lessons. Instead, it offers something far less common: a deeply and painfully honest and soul-searching account of one man’s attempt to understand a life forever changed by profound loss.

The contrast is striking.

A man whose professional life centered on solving wicked problems suddenly found himself facing an experience that offered no solution.

No strategy could reverse what had happened, no set of data could make sense of it, and no professional expertise was capable of providing a roadmap through what came next. Grief did not behave like the challenges Isenberg had spent much of his career studying. It was personal, unpredictable, and resistant to easy answers.

What followed wasn’t a professional project.

It was survival.

After Carla’s death, Isenberg began recording dreams, diary entries, private reflections, and even imagined conversations aloud with his late wife. At first, he had no intention of writing a book. He simply wrote because writing became one of the few ways he could begin to process the maelstrom of emotions that defied easy description.

Over time, those fragments began to form something larger. The act of documenting his experience created a record not only of loss, but of the ways heightened memories, love, anger, confusion, and even moments of unexpected joy can coexist after someone central to a person’s life is gone.

Only later did Isenberg realize those pages might speak to others who had experienced loss, or who wanted to better understand someone who had.

That deeply personal beginning also explains the memoir’s unusual title.

This Book Is Not for You wasn’t chosen to provoke curiosity or serve as a marketing slogan. According to Isenberg, the writing was originally meant for himself, a private effort to understand an experience that had completely reshaped his world. The irony, he says, is that many readers have since found the book deeply meaningful in their own lives.

Perhaps the memoir’s most distinctive quality is what it refuses to do.

Rather than offering advice or presenting grief as a journey with clearly defined stages, Isenberg, through his own bewildering journey, came to believe that every person’s grief is unique. Instead of prescribing how others should heal, he painstakingly shares the deep and often puzzling experiences of his own story and allows readers to draw their own conclusions.

That revealing and reflective approach also acknowledges something often lost in conversations about grief: there may be no universal timeline for moving forward. The relationship between loss and healing can shift from day to day, and the person experiencing it may discover that moving forward does not necessarily mean leaving the person they lost behind.

That philosophy extends to the way Isenberg tells his story.

He has described his approach as one of “radical candor,” believing that genuine storytelling requires complete openness rather than carefully edited memories. Looking back, he has said that telling the story honestly, including his own flaws, became an important part of living through it, and that storytelling can be as transformative for the person telling it as it is for those listening.

Isenberg’s candor also allows contradictions to remain contradictions. Grief can include sadness and gratitude, isolation and connection, despair and humor. Rather than trying to organize those experiences into a neat narrative about recovery, Isenberg allows them to exist alongside one another.

The experience has changed him fundamentally.

Reflecting on the years since Carla’s death, Isenberg says he has become more tolerant and more empathetic. Perhaps most surprising, he writes that grief and joy eventually became intertwined, no longer opposite emotions, but experiences capable of existing in an amalgam of feeling in ways he never could have imagined before his loss.

That perspective also distinguishes Isenberg’s approach to writing about grief.

The memoir doesn’t ask readers to see grief through the lens of psychology, philosophy, or self-help. It simply invites them to witness one person’s lived experience with honesty, vulnerability, and remarkable restraint.

For some readers, that may be precisely where the book’s value lies. It does not attempt to explain what grief should look like. Instead, it documents from the inside out what a grief experience was for one person, and leaves room for readers to recognize, question, or simply witness that experience on their own terms.

Many books about loss promise answers. Daniel Isenberg offers something quieter: the recognition that some of life’s most significant experiences cannot be solved, only lived.

This Book Is Not for You: My Loss, My Grief, My Healing by Daniel Isenberg is available in print and digital editions. Further background on the memoir and its author can be found on Daniel Isenberg’s official book site.

How VL Medusa Style™ Is Redefining the Art of Eyelash Extensions

The Chicago Journal Staff on August 8, 2026

By: Vita Leibiuk

The beauty industry continues to evolve as lash artists seek new techniques that combine artistry, precision, and personalization. While many styling methods focus primarily on density or dramatic effects, true innovation comes from creating techniques that enhance each client’s natural features while maintaining the health of their natural lashes.

This philosophy inspired the development of VL Medusa Style™, a signature eyelash extension technique created by international lash educator, judge, entrepreneur, and beauty innovator Vita Leibiuk.

Unlike traditional styling methods, VL Medusa Style™ is not simply another lash map. It is a complete styling system that combines customized mapping, precise spike placement, balanced texture, and advanced direction control to create a refined, dimensional effect tailored to each client’s unique eye shape and facial features.

One of the defining characteristics of the technique is its ability to create a bold yet elegant appearance without compromising the health of the natural lashes. Every extension is carefully placed to achieve harmony, symmetry, and texture while preserving the integrity of the client’s natural lashes.

Developed through years of hands-on experience, education, and work with thousands of clients, the technique reflects a combination of artistic vision and technical precision. Rather than following trends, VL Medusa Style™ was created to establish a distinctive styling approach that can be adapted to different eye shapes while maintaining consistent quality and balance.

Today, the technique is taught through Vileilashes Academy, where lash artists learn not only how to recreate the signature look but also the principles behind proper mapping, styling, lash health, and individualized design. The educational philosophy encourages artists to think creatively while maintaining the highest professional standards.

As an international beauty competition judge and speaker, Vita Leibiuk believes that innovation is one of the driving forces behind the advancement of the beauty industry. New techniques should contribute to professional education, inspire other artists, and encourage continuous improvement rather than simply follow temporary trends.

VL Medusa Style™ represents this vision by combining creativity, technical excellence, and education into a signature methodology that continues to influence modern eyelash extension artistry.

As the global beauty industry continues to evolve, innovation remains essential to raising professional standards. Through education, original techniques, and a commitment to excellence, Vita Leibiuk continues to contribute to the future of eyelash extension artistry while inspiring professionals around the world.

About the Author

Vita Leibiuk is an international lash educator, founder of Vileilashes Studio and Vileilashes Academy, creator of the VL Medusa Style™ technique, international beauty competition judge, speaker, entrepreneur, and beauty innovator. She is dedicated to advancing the eyelash extension industry through education, original techniques, and the development of future beauty professionals.