Chicago Contractor Working to Boost Minority Participation in $7B 1901 Project Murdered

No motive has but been revealed for the alleged assassination witnessed by Chicago police who occurred to be patrolling the realm in an unmarked car and arrested the 2 males inside eight seconds. The 2 suspects have been additionally caught on surveillance cameras allegedly ready for Lewis for 90 minutes to exit a constructing earlier than strolling as much as him and capturing him.

Mason and Harris, each of Chicago, have been each charged with first diploma homicide and a felony rely of possessing a weapon. At a March 27 listening to, each males have been ordered detained pending trial. 

Lewis, who owned a development and improvement agency, was govt director of the 1901 Community Implementation Committee, coaching minority-owned contractors to participate in future work on the 1901 Mission. A kind of taking part within the coaching is Traci Quinn, founder and CEO of Pink Hats Building & Improvement Group.

“Jerry Lewis was greater than a mentor—he was a visionary, a connector and a real advocate for people who find themselves typically missed, particularly on Chicago’s West Facet,” she says. “By way of his management with the 1901 Mission and his presence within the development and improvement area, he created actual pathways for people like myself and lots of others to step into alternatives we could not have in any other case had entry to.”

Quinn says she and others are studying about estimating, bidding, accounting, engineering, design and different matters within the coaching sponsored by the committee. She intends to bid for carpentry, portray and drywall work at 1901. 

“Jerry believed in constructing individuals,” she provides. “He poured [his energy] into rising builders, small contractors and returning residents [from prison], serving to us see that we belonged in rooms and on initiatives that traditionally excluded us. He didn’t simply speak about fairness—he actively created it.”

The Chicago Tribune notes in an editorial that “Lewis over time employed males from the West Facet, a few of whom had previous gang ties or felony information. Born and raised on the West Facet, Lewis raised his household within the south suburbs however by no means misplaced connection together with his roots. He devoted himself to mentoring others from his previous neighborhood who aspired to observe in his footsteps.”

At a listening to in Could 2024 about an reasonably priced housing challenge in Chicago, the editorial notes that Lewis stated “we’ve taken 15 beforehand incarcerated gang leaders and helped them begin their very own companies,” and that these corporations “are hiring from the neighborhood to guarantee that the violence is lowered, that there’s … high-paying jobs with the unions.”