The Chicago Journal

The Chicago Journal
The Chicago Journal

Samara Beth Discusses Why Many Brands Sound Alike and the Ideas Behind Her Book

The Chicago Journal Staff on September 17, 2026

Branding advice often follows a similar pattern regardless of who is delivering it. Find your niche. Meet your audience where they are. Soften your edges so nobody is turned off. Sand down the parts of your personality or perspective that might make someone uncomfortable. Present the most agreeable and accessible version of yourself and watch the audience grow. The logic is sound enough on the surface, and the result, as Samara Beth has observed across three decades of working with entrepreneurs and brands, is a marketplace full of voices that sound almost exactly alike.

Win Your Brand: The Unapologetic Playbook for Becoming Iconic is a direct and specific argument against that approach. Samara makes it from a position of having paid the price of going the other way, of having built a brand rooted in honesty rather than palatability, and of having watched the difference between those two approaches play out in real business outcomes over time.

What Unapologetic Actually Means in Practice

Unapologetic, in Samara’s framework, does not mean aggressive or contrarian or deliberately polarizing for the sake of attracting attention. It means saying the truth even when it costs you some people in the short term. It means building your brand around what you actually believe rather than around what will make everyone comfortable. It means accepting that losing the audience that wanted the polished, agreeable version of you is not a failure but a necessary clarification of who you are actually building for.

Short-term, that is expensive and uncomfortable in ways that most entrepreneurs underestimate. Some people will not like you. Some will leave. Some will make their preference for the softened version of you explicitly known. For entrepreneurs who have spent years trying to be likable because likability felt necessary for survival, that experience is real and difficult. Samara does not soften it.

Long-term, it is the only approach that pays off at the level she is describing. The people who stay after the unapologetic version of you shows up are the ones who actually trust you. They are not there for a brand aesthetic or a pleasant vibe. They are there for you specifically, for your particular perspective and your particular way of being in the world. That is a fundamentally different and fundamentally stronger business than one built on being inoffensive to the widest possible audience, because inoffensive is infinitely replaceable and specific is not.

Why Story Is Strategy, Not Decoration

One of the more important distinctions Samara makes in the book is between what a framework does and what a story does, and why both are required for a brand that actually holds people through difficulty.

A framework tells you what to do. A story shows you that it is survivable. She could hand someone ten steps to build a brand, and they would nod along and feel equipped. But the moment they hit their own hard chapter, the moment the business stalls or the client disappears or the identity gets shaken by something unexpected, a list of steps doesn’t hold anyone up. A story does. When she shows readers exactly where she hit the bottom and how she got back up, she is giving them permission to do the same thing with their own version of that experience.

People do not trust polished advice from someone who has never been genuinely tested. They trust someone who has been in it, who has sat in the difficulty and come out the other side with something real to say about what happened. That is the entire difference between visibility and trust. Visibility gets attention for a moment. Trust gets loyalty across years. Story is how you build the second thing, and strategy without story produces the first thing at best.

In-Person Connection in an AI-Saturated World

Content is everywhere now and will only become more abundant as AI makes production easier and faster. That means content alone no longer makes anyone stand out from the noise. It just makes them louder in an already crowded room where everyone has roughly equal access to the same generation tools.

What cannot be automated is a room full of people who showed up for you specifically, who drove somewhere or made time or bought a ticket because they wanted to be in your presence. An intimate dinner, a live talk, a retreat, a gathering where people can see your face and shake your hand. That experience is becoming more valuable exactly because it is becoming more rare in a landscape dominated by digital interaction.

Samara pushes entrepreneurs to stop measuring their brand only in likes and impressions and start measuring it in real relationships built in real rooms. Her specific and practical advice: put something on the calendar this quarter that gets people in a room with you. That is where trust compounds fastest and most durably, and the trust built there is qualitatively different from anything a digital platform can produce.

If your brand sounds like everyone else’s, Win Your Brand by Samara Beth is available now on Amazon. The unapologetic version of you is the only one that builds lasting trust.

Miss Freddye Has Lived the Blues, So Don’t Ask Her to Pretend

The Chicago Journal Staff on September 17, 2026

By: Jack Bandy

The problem with the blues is that too many people want to make it respectable.

They want the tasteful guitar solo. The heritage festival. The expensive reissue on 180-gram vinyl. They want to talk about authenticity while drinking a twelve-dollar craft beer and applauding politely when the song ends.

Forget all that.

The blues was never supposed to be polite.

The blues is what happens when life kicks your door down, empties the refrigerator, breaks your heart, scares the hell out of you, and then discovers, much to its annoyance, that you’re still standing there the next morning.

Which brings us to Miss Freddye.

Pittsburgh calls her its “Lady of the Blues,” which sounds almost too dignified for somebody whose real qualification for the job is that she’s actually lived enough life to know what those words mean.

Miss Freddye didn’t arrive through some record-company laboratory. There wasn’t a stylist standing around saying, “You know what this woman needs? More authenticity.”

She already had it.

Before the charts, awards and applause, there was church. Gospel. That magnificent American contradiction where sorrow gets dressed up in its Sunday clothes and somehow turns into joy before lunchtime.

That’s where Freddye learned the first rule of singing: you better mean it.

Then came life.

For more than 30 years, Miss Freddye worked as a nurse. Think about that for a minute. While generations of musicians were desperately attempting to manufacture tortured-artist biographies, Freddye was walking into hospital rooms where actual human beings were afraid, sick, grieving, and hoping somebody might make things a little less terrible.

You want a blues education?

Try that.

Then she survived breast cancer.

Twice.

And COVID.

So when Miss Freddye sings about survival, there’s no need to consult the press release.

You can hear it.

Her voice doesn’t politely knock on the front door of a song. It walks in, sits down at the kitchen table and starts telling you what happened.

Sometimes there’s gospel in it. Sometimes there’s soul. Sometimes there’s the raw muscle of traditional blues. You can hear why names like Koko Taylor and Etta James come up whenever people try to describe her musical neighborhood.

But Miss Freddye doesn’t need to be anybody’s second coming.

She’s already the first Miss Freddye.

Her career began taking shape in Pittsburgh’s blues scene in the 1990s, and over the ensuing decades she did something increasingly revolutionary in the music business:

She kept going.

Gig after gig.

Song after song.

Year after year.

No viral dance required.

Eventually, the rest of the world started paying attention. Her music has reached international audiences, including charting on the UK iTunes Blues Chart. Her rendition of “Wade in the Water” also reached the iTunes gospel chart, which makes perfect sense because gospel and blues have always been arguing siblings living in the same American house.

One says, “Lord, save me.”

The other says, “Lord, you wouldn’t believe what happened last night.”

Miss Freddye understands both.

She’s also accumulated awards and recognition throughout her career, including honors from Pittsburgh’s Iron City Rocks Awards and acknowledgment from the wider blues community. Nice things to have, certainly. Put them on the shelf.

But trophies don’t sing.

Miss Freddye does.

And the most interesting thing about her isn’t where she charted. It’s what happened before she ever got there.

The cancer.

The nursing.

The family.

The church.

The disappointments nobody puts in biographies.

The ordinary Tuesdays when you get out of bed even though you’d rather not.

That’s where the blues actually lives.

And then there’s Pittsburgh.

Of course she’s from Pittsburgh.

Look at the place.

Three rivers colliding beneath bridges built by people who understood that your hands are supposed to get dirty occasionally. Hills stacked with houses. Old mills haunting the horizon. Neighborhood bars where somebody will explain exactly what’s wrong with your football team whether you asked or not.

Pittsburgh doesn’t specialize in delicate personalities.

Neither does Miss Freddye.

But toughness isn’t the same thing as hardness, and that’s where her music gets interesting.

Her work carries enormous warmth. She has devoted considerable energy to community causes, cancer awareness, veterans, young people and those who need somebody in their corner. The nurse never completely disappeared when the singer walked onto the stage.

Maybe that’s the secret.

Miss Freddye isn’t singing at people.

She’s taking care of them.

For three minutes, five minutes, an evening, however long the song lasts, she’s saying: I’ve been hurt too. I’ve been scared too. I’ve wondered what happens next.

And I’m still here.

That’s blues.

Not the costume.

Not the mythology.

Not the guitar somebody bought because Eric Clapton once played the same model.

Survival.

Miss Freddye has survived enough to understand something most of us spend our lives trying not to learn: joy means more after you’ve seriously considered losing it.

So call her Pittsburgh’s Lady of the Blues.

Give her the awards.

Put the chart numbers in the biography.

Just don’t mistake any of those things for the reason she matters.

The reason is simpler.

Miss Freddye lived.

Then she opened her mouth and told us about it.

Turn it up.

Can You Recover Damages If You Partly Caused a Chicago Crash? Illinois Modified Comparative Negligence Explained

The Chicago Journal Staff on September 17, 2026

A single percentage point can decide whether an injured driver collects a reduced award or collects nothing. That turns an early fault dispute into far more than an argument over who caused a Chicago collision.

Yes. Illinois, as of 2026, still lets an injured person collect in a negligence claim as long as their fault is 50% or below. The catch is that the award shrinks by that percentage, and above 50%, recovery is barred. Fifty and 51 are night-and-day numbers.

Under 735 ILCS 5/2-1116, the statutory line is 50%, and the fight in most Chicago injury claims is over which side of it you land on. That fight is the core of Illinois modified comparative negligence disputes, and it is why an insurer’s first fault number warrants review rather than automatic acceptance.

How Illinois Modified Comparative Negligence Changes Your Compensation

Under Illinois modified comparative negligence rules (735 ILCS 5/2-1116), a plaintiff is barred from financial recovery if they bear more than 50% of the responsibility for their injury. For fault assessed at 50% or less, the total compensation award is reduced by the plaintiff’s exact percentage of fault.

Contributory fault is the statute’s term for the injured person’s share of the blame. Two terms need clarification here. Damages are the losses the law recognizes, such as medical expenses and lost earnings. Compensation is what you actually receive after the fault reduction and any other limits are applied.

After damages are established, the assigned percentage gets subtracted. What remains is the illustrative recovery. The arithmetic could hardly be simpler; the whole fight is over the percentage itself.

Fault percentages at work: 20%, 50%, and 51%

Two qualifications matter. “Established damages” refers to the figure a factfinder lands on, or that the parties settle for, before your percentage is applied, so treat every dollar demanded as unproven until it clears that bar. The illustration leaves out policy limits, disputed damages, medical liens, litigation costs, and collectability.

Photo Courtesy: Unsplash.com

People stumble on the 50% line itself. A claimant assessed at exactly 50% recovers half of the proven damages, with no bar. One point higher and the statutory bar applies. The claimant cannot recover damages.

How the math plays out at a Chicago intersection

Take a two-car collision at a Chicago intersection. One driver rolls in while glancing at a phone; the other is over the posted speed limit. If the speeding is assessed at 20% of the cause and damages are established at $100,000, the potential award lands at $80,000.

That percentage is hypothetical. Speeding carries no fixed value in a fault allocation. Identical conduct gets weighed one way with one set of facts and another way with different signal timing, visibility, or impact point.

Who Decides Fault After an Illinois Car Accident?

Insurance adjusters make the first practical fault assessments, but their percentages are negotiating positions, not binding judgments. If a lawsuit reaches a verdict, the judge or jury sets the legally controlling percentage based on the evidence admitted in court.

Your carrier and the other driver’s carrier can reach opposite conclusions about the same crash. A denial letter or a percentage spat out by a claim system is one company’s evaluation, nothing more. No judicial allocation has occurred.

The Illinois Courts publish the Illinois Pattern Jury Instructions, Civil, which set out how negligence, ordinary care, proximate cause, and comparative fault are presented to a jury. Adjuster file notes do not constitute a judicial application of that standard.

What evidence can change a fault assessment?

Several types of evidence can change a percentage:

  • Photographs of the scene and vehicles, plus any dash-camera or surveillance video
  • Independent witness accounts and sworn testimony
  • Signal timing and road markings, along with vehicle data or phone records obtained through lawful procedures
  • Medical records and expert analysis when causation or injury severity is disputed

A court can consider an item as evidence only after it meets authentication and admissibility requirements. An insurer may review a summary, screenshot, or secondhand account informally, but the same item can later draw an evidentiary objection and never reach the jury. Video and phone records are not handed over automatically, either. Footage gets overwritten, and records generally need consent or lawful process.

How does a disputed police report affect fault and compensation?

A disputed police report can sway an insurer’s initial evaluation, but it does not conclusively decide civil fault or compensation. You can challenge factual errors with any of the materials listed above, or through testimony from an officer who personally observed the vehicles, skid marks, or debris field.

The difference between an officer recording what a bystander said and an officer personally observing the scene is meaningful. A traffic citation can color an insurer’s evaluation, but it does not settle a civil negligence claim on its own. Regardless of admissibility, the report assigns no binding civil-fault percentage.

How Shared Fault Works for Passengers and Multivehicle Crashes

Comparative fault looks at the injured claimant’s own conduct, not everyone else’s in the car. A passenger does not inherit the driver’s negligence by riding along.

Can an injured passenger recover?

An injured passenger may pursue compensation from one or more drivers whose negligence caused the injuries. The recovery shrinks only if the passenger’s own conduct contributed to the injury under an applicable legal theory.

A passenger ordinarily controls neither steering nor speed. Still, evaluators assess any alleged contributing conduct from the evidence, not a fixed formula. The same analysis covers rideshare passengers hurt in a Chicago crash.

What if several drivers contributed to the collision?

Fault can be divided among many participants. Consider a three-vehicle expressway sequence: the lead driver brakes abruptly, the middle driver follows too closely, and a third changes lanes without a safe gap. Each decision can carry a piece of the cause.

A factfinder assigns percentages from the evidence and may allocate shares totaling all the fault at issue. For the comparative-fault bar, the relevant percentage is your own. If it exceeds 50%, the statute bars recovery even though other drivers were careless too.

Should You Accept an Early Settlement When Fault Is Disputed?

An early settlement can resolve a disputed claim quickly, but accepting one usually means signing a release that ends the claim. Before weighing an offer against a case’s potential value, you need a reasonably complete picture of your damages and the evidence bearing on fault.

An opening position can shift. Newly located video can move a percentage. So can a witness nobody interviewed, a corrected detail in the crash narrative, or medical evidence that clarifies causation. Not every early offer is unfair; early payment cuts delay and uncertainty, and the trade-off is finality.

Apply the percentage reduction only after estimating the full supported damages. A $40,000 offer means little in isolation. It looks completely different if the carrier values damages at $50,000 with 20% fault than if it values them at $100,000 with 60% fault and is paying to compromise a potentially barred claim.

Before signing anything irreversible, keep the offer letter and proposed release, together with the claim correspondence, photographs, and any secured video.

Common Questions About Comparative Fault in Illinois

What does comparative negligence mean under Illinois law?

As the statute breakdown above explains, your damages are reduced by your fault share up to 50%; beyond that, recovery stops.

What is the “50% rule” for an Illinois negligence claim?

The “50% rule” is informal shorthand, not statutory language. A claimant at exactly 50% recovers half of the damages proven. A claimant at 51% recovers nothing.

What are the three main approaches to comparative or contributory fault?

Contributory negligence, in the jurisdictions that still use it, can bar recovery outright. Pure comparative fault allows a reduced recovery even when the claimant carries most of the blame. Modified comparative fault cuts recovery off at a designated threshold, and Illinois sets that cutoff at claimant fault greater than 50%.

The divide between pure and modified systems shows up above the halfway mark. A pure system still permits a proportionally reduced recovery there. A modified system bars it.

What must an injured person prove in an Illinois negligence case?

An injured person must establish the claim itself. Comparative fault governs how the claimant’s own contributing conduct affects recovery.

What to Do When the Fault Percentage Is Contested

Wherever the fault line sits in your claim, test the adjuster’s number against the evidence, not acceptance as a judgment. Keep the crash materials you have. Correct factual errors promptly, in writing. Calculate the full supported damages before applying any reduction. When a release or a contested cutoff could end the claim, seek case-specific advice from an Illinois-licensed attorney.

Disclaimer: The information provided in this article is for general informational purposes only and should not be construed as legal advice. Each case is unique, and legal outcomes may vary based on the specific circumstances and laws of your jurisdiction.

Chicago Celebrates Mexican Independence Day with Overnight Festivities Across Pilsen, Little Village, and Downtown

The Chicago Journal Staff 2 on September 17, 2026

Chicago marked Mexican Independence Day with overnight celebrations across Pilsen, Little Village, and downtown on September 15 and 16, 2026, carrying on a tradition that positions the city alongside Mexico City itself as one of the largest venues for El Grito de Independencia outside of Mexico. The festivities, which extended well past midnight, came at the end of a multi-day stretch of parades, festivals, and cultural programming that drew tens of thousands of participants across the city’s Mexican American neighborhoods and coincided with the opening of National Hispanic Heritage Month.

Key Takeaways

  • Overnight Mexican Independence Day celebrations took place across Pilsen, Little Village, and downtown Chicago on September 15 to 16, 2026, with street gatherings, live music, car caravans, and cultural displays extending into the early morning hours.
  • The El Grito Chicago festival returned to Grant Park on September 12 and 13 after organizers canceled the 2025 edition, bringing live music from local and international artists, a mercadito of artisans, a family area, and fireworks to the lakefront.
  • The 55th annual 26th Street Mexican Independence Day Parade in Little Village drew thousands of spectators along the commercial corridor on September 13, featuring folkloric dancers, horseback riders, quinceañera floats, and performances honoring Mexican heritage.
  • Pilsen hosted its own El Grito ceremony on September 15 at St. Paul Catholic Church, organized by community leaders who framed the event as both a cultural celebration and an affirmation of community resilience.
  • The Chicago Police Department canceled one day off for officers to ensure adequate staffing across celebration sites, with Interim Superintendent Fred Waller outlining increased downtown and neighborhood presence during the holiday period.

El Grito Returns to Grant Park After a One-Year Absence

The El Grito Chicago festival, the city’s flagship Mexican Independence Day event, returned to lakefront Grant Park on Saturday and Sunday, September 12 and 13, after organizers canceled the 2025 edition. The two-day outdoor festival featured live performances from local and international artists, authentic Mexican food vendors, a mercadito showcasing artisans, a dedicated family-friendly area, and fireworks. Tickets started at $15, and organizers encouraged attendees to use public transit, with Jackson Boulevard closed from Columbus Drive to DuSable Lake Shore Drive for the duration of the event.

Mayor Brandon Johnson attended the pre-event press conference near the Arch in Little Village and said he hoped the celebrations could help the city “reclaim some of the joy that was lost last year and deliver a moment of healing.” The 2025 cancellation had followed heightened concerns about federal immigration enforcement operations in Chicago’s Latino neighborhoods, a dynamic that hung over this year’s planning but did not prevent organizers from proceeding with the full slate of events.

Korina Sanchez, one of the El Grito Chicago organizers, joined the press conference alongside Jennifer Aguilar of the Little Village Chamber of Commerce and Ambassador Reyna Torres Mendivil of the Consulate General of Mexico in Chicago. The joint appearance underscored the scale of coordination involved in staging the city’s Mexican Independence Day programming, which spans multiple agencies, neighborhoods, and days.

The 55th Annual 26th Street Parade Drew Thousands to Little Village

The 26th Street Mexican Independence Day Parade, now in its 55th year, stepped off at noon on September 13 from the historic Little Village Arch at 26th Street and Albany Avenue, proceeding west along the commercial corridor to Kostner Avenue. The parade is one of the largest in the Midwest and annually draws thousands of participants and spectators to the heart of La Villita, the neighborhood’s longstanding local name.

The route passes through the core of Little Village’s two-mile commercial district, a stretch of 26th Street that has historically generated retail sales rivaling North Michigan Avenue. The parade featured folkloric dance troupes, horseback riders in traditional charro attire, quinceañera floats, marching bands, and displays representing the cultural breadth of Mexico’s 32 states. For small business owners along the route, the parade weekend is one of the most commercially active stretches of the year.

Jennifer Aguilar, Executive Director of the Little Village Chamber of Commerce, called the parade “one of the proudest traditions in Little Village” and noted that the event’s 55-year history makes it among the longest-running Mexican Independence Day parades in the United States. The Far South Side also hosted its own parade on September 13, stepping off near East 87th Street and South Commercial Avenue, reflecting the geographic spread of Chicago’s Mexican American community across the city.

Pilsen Hosted Its Own El Grito Ceremony at St. Paul Catholic Church

On the evening of September 15, the actual date of El Grito de Independencia, Pilsen hosted a community-organized ceremony at St. Paul Catholic Church at 2127 West 22nd Place. The event began at 5 p.m. and centered on the traditional reenactment of the independence cry, echoing the ceremony performed annually at the National Palace in Mexico City. Organizer Teresa Fraga described the event as rooted in community identity. Javier Yanez, executive director of the Pilsen Chamber of Commerce, framed the celebration as not just a holiday but a recognition of “the people who continue that legacy through their work.”

Pilsen, one of Chicago’s neighborhoods with deep cultural diversity, has been the center of the city’s Mexican American cultural life since the 1960s. The neighborhood is home to the National Museum of Mexican Art, one of the largest Latino cultural institutions in the country, and has more murals than any other Chicago neighborhood, many of them reflecting Mexican history, migration, and identity. The Pilsen celebration’s location at a parish church connected the holiday to the neighborhood’s longstanding intersection of faith, family, and civic life.

The overnight celebrations that followed across Pilsen, Little Village, and downtown are a fixture of Chicago’s September calendar. Street gatherings, car caravans, live music, and impromptu celebrations continued well past midnight and into the early morning hours of September 16, the official date of Mexican Independence Day. The overnight dimension of the holiday is culturally rooted: El Grito traditionally takes place at 11 p.m. on September 15, reenacting Father Miguel Hidalgo’s 1810 call for Mexican independence from Spain.

Public Safety Planning Reflected the Scale of the Celebrations

Chicago’s Office of Emergency Management and Communications issued public advisories ahead of the celebrations, recommending public transportation and warning of potential road closures around Grant Park, Little Village, and Pilsen. Interim Police Superintendent Fred Waller said the department canceled one day off for officers to ensure adequate staffing during the holiday period. The increased police presence was concentrated downtown and in the neighborhoods hosting the largest gatherings, reflecting the logistical demands of managing multiple simultaneous celebrations across the city.

Marcos Carbajal, owner of the Carnitas Uruapan restaurant in Little Village, marked the occasion with a mural unveiling before the 26th Street parade and hosted an after-party at the restaurant. The gesture captured the way Mexican Independence Day functions in Chicago’s Mexican American neighborhoods: as a civic event, a cultural tradition, a family gathering, and a commercial moment, all layered into the same weekend.

The celebrations opened a stretch of Hispanic Heritage Month programming that will continue through October 15 across Chicago. Upcoming events include Sabor Taco y Tequila Fest in Pilsen from September 25 to 27, Chicago Humanities’ Pilsen/Little Village Day at the National Museum of Mexican Art and Thalia Hall on September 26, and heritage nights at Wrigley Field, Soldier Field, and Rate Field.

FAQs

When Is Mexican Independence Day Celebrated in Chicago?

Mexican Independence Day is officially September 16, but the El Grito ceremony traditionally takes place at 11 p.m. on September 15, reenacting Father Miguel Hidalgo’s 1810 call for independence from Spain. Chicago’s celebrations span multiple days, typically including the El Grito Chicago festival in Grant Park, the 26th Street Parade in Little Village, and overnight gatherings on September 15 to 16 across Pilsen, Little Village, and downtown.

What Is El Grito de Independencia?

El Grito de Independencia, or the Cry of Independence, refers to the moment on September 15, 1810, when Catholic priest Miguel Hidalgo rang the bell of his church in Dolores, Mexico, and called on the people to rise against Spanish colonial rule. The ceremony is reenacted annually by Mexico’s president at the National Palace in Mexico City and by communities around the world, including in Chicago at Grant Park and at St. Paul Catholic Church in Pilsen.

Where Did Chicago’s 2026 Mexican Independence Day Events Take Place?

Major events took place at Grant Park (El Grito Chicago festival, September 12 to 13), along 26th Street in Little Village (the 55th annual Mexican Independence Day Parade, September 13), at St. Paul Catholic Church in Pilsen (El Grito ceremony, September 15), and on the Far South Side near 87th Street and Commercial Avenue (a separate parade, September 13). Overnight celebrations on September 15 to 16 were concentrated in Pilsen, Little Village, and downtown.

What Is Hispanic Heritage Month and How Does Chicago Celebrate It?

National Hispanic Heritage Month runs from September 15 to October 15 each year and honors the historical achievements, artistic legacies, and ongoing contributions of Hispanic and Latino communities. Chicago observes the month with programming that includes heritage nights at professional sports venues, cultural events at the National Museum of Mexican Art, guided walking tours in Pilsen and Humboldt Park, and community festivals organized by the Chicago Humanities Festival, DCASE, and neighborhood chambers of commerce.