Echoes of Evanston Podcast Explores History Of Black Healthcare Heroes At Local Hospital
EVANSTON, IL — A local theater has partnered with a podcast and African American history nonprofit to produce a series exploring the history of the Evanston Sanitarium, later known as Community Hospital.
“Echoes of Evanston: The Soul of Community Hospital,” is a multi-part creative collaboration between Northlight Theatre, Evanston Rules and Shorefront Legacy Center. The first episode, featuring Carlis Sutton, is now available online.
The hospital served the Black community on Chicago’s North Shore from 1914 to 1980. At the time of the sanitorium’s founding in a house at 1918 Asbury Ave., both Evanston Hospital and St. Francis Hospital refused to treat Black patients.
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The new series highlights contributions of Black physicians, nurses, health care workers and patients during racial segregation.
Tor Campbell, artistic fellow at Northlight, turned community interviews into dramatic readings, which were performed at Northlight Theatre on Monday.
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Evanston Rules co-hosts Laurice Bell and Ron Whitmore of Evanston Rules then edited the material into a podcast series.
Northlight Executive Director Timothy J. Evans said in a statement that he was proud of the partnerships that allow the theater to extend compelling experiences beyond the stage.
“Working with Evanston Rules and Shorefront on this project about Community Hospital, we’ve had the privilege of getting to know our Evanston community in a deep and meaningful way, while highlighting the enduring impact of these powerful stories on current social struggles,” Evans said.
The podcast series features interviews with more than a dozen community members with firsthand experiences at Community Hospital. Interviewees include Colette Allen, Bernie Bates, Rhonda Craven, George Dotson, Dudley Fair, Eleanor “Brownie” Frazier, Deb Galloway, Lynne Greene, Bennett Johnson, Donna Johnson, Spencer Jourdain, Teel Miller, Willie Miller, Carlis Sutton, Connie Taylor, Rommie Taylor and Donna Penn Towns.
The project is supported by an initiative of the Illinois Department of Human Services and the Field Foundation of Illinois called Healing Illinois, which aims to engage in racial healing activities to build bridges between diverse communities in Illinois.
In the first episode of the podcast series, Sutton, a lifelong Evanstonian, shares his extensive knowledge of Evanston’s Black history, recounting the vibrant and thriving community that existed before integration. He discusses institutions like Community Hospital, offering insights into the role it played in serving the Black community when other hospitals refused them care.
Earlier this year, Northlight collaborated with the Shorefront Legacy Center on the Evanston Reparations Legacy Project, training high school journalists to document the stories of people who received reparations grant financed by local cannabis tax revenue.
The theater company began in Evanston before moving to the North Shore Center for the Performing Arts in Skokie in 1997.
Northlight officials plan to start construction on a new theater in Evanston next year, originally with plans to finish it by the end of this year. They now have hopes of completing it in the fall of 2026.
The project is expected to cost about $24 million, with $2 million coming from the city’s share of federal coronavirus relief funds and record-setting $3 million donation from its past board president Paul Finnegan, the chairman of private equity firm Madison Dearborn Partners.
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