Annie Harris
Annie Harris lives in Chicago, IL and was a member of ACORN Chicago from the late 1970’s through the change to Action Now (2007?) in which she was a founding board president. At age 88, she does not remember many dates nor specific actions or work she did with ACORN/Action Now. She became involved in ACORN after one of her daughter’s got involved regarding home foreclosures on Chicago’s south side predominantly Black neighborhoods, that resulted in many homes being abandoned, decaying and not kept up by the banks who held the mortgage notes. She clearly remembers an Action Now campaign in which a group of women in their 70s (she was 76) organized a march/sit in at Bank of America. There the group totalling over 200 (not all in their 70s) distributed trash they’d collected from the abandoned homes in their neighborhood throughout the bank. Annie was arrested with the core organizers and said being arrested “made me very proud. I did something outstanding.” During the interview, she sings the song they sang at the bank and in jail – slightly modifying the traditional tune to “Ain’t No BANK Gonna Turn Us Around.” This interview provides a well told anecdote about actions for justice during the bank foreclosure occurrences in Chicago following the housing crash of 2007 – 2008 and the convictions of one Black woman who was determine to correct an injustice.