If there’s one piece of advice that Chicago photographer Tonika Johnson wants to stop hearing, it’s “Don’t go to the South Side.”
That’s where she grew up, in the predominantly black neighborhood of Englewood. As a high school student in the ’90s, she traveled about 15 miles to attend a magnet school on the city’s wealthier, better funded, and whiter North Side. Chicago’s geographic North-South divide is reflected in racial and class lines, and Johnson could literally see the differences in the infrastructure and investment—much of it intentional—on her commute to school as she crossed the invisible line dividing the city.
