3rd Space Chicago

South Side, Chicago

Launching August 20

A political home for the South Side.

3rd Space Chicago is building a movement rooted in civics, community, and consequential action. A place where everyday people learn how power moves, and then move it.

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No spam. Just launch info, events, and ways to plug in.

A A F L +YOU

Four founders already raised a hand.

The fifth avatar is you. Every pillar below is something you help build, not something you watch.

Alert

Exhibit A — Source: ACLU

ACLU
ACLU
@ACLU

BREAKING: The Supreme Court has struck down Louisiana's congressional district map that gave Black voters a stronger voice. This is a direct attack on voting rights and the voice of Black communities nationwide.

Entered into record — April 29, 2026, 10:42 AM

Why now

The old playbook is failing. So we are writing a new one.

Black, poor, and historically silenced communities on the South Side have watched institutions they trusted fail them, again and again. Courts walk back rights won over generations. Waiting on someone else to fix it is a strategy that has never worked.

This moment demands something different: community members who understand how power actually moves, who are connected to one another in real relationship, and who act together with accountability and intention.

The Founding Articles

Power does not come from waiting.

I

Civic Education

The gap

People are misinformed and misguided about their own power.

The bridge

3SC creates spaces where members and community learn how to become powerful.

II

Community Connection

The gap

People feel disconnected from one another and from the work.

The bridge

3SC builds spaces where people can be themselves and walk out in real relationship with their neighbors.

III

Consequential Action

The gap

People feel like nothing ever actually changes.

The bridge

3SC centers every organizing and political effort on real change our people can feel in their own lives.

Sworn Testimony

In their own words.

Testimony — Arthur, Founder

“I am tired of people that look like me being tricked to believe they are worth less.”

So we organize power.

With people who want to live in a city that demands Black, poor, and overlooked people see their value while rising as a community.

Arthur, Founder

Testimony — Abierre, Founder

“We already have power on the South Side. We just have to create the investment ourselves so we can be independent and self-sustaining.”

Everyday people deserve a voice.
Abierre, Founder

Testimony — Franklin, Founder

“Third spaces have been taken from us over time. Youth have become disengaged.”

We need a space of love.
Franklin, Founder

Testimony — Lee, Founder

“We need a home for people who care, physically and in their organizing.”

Real connection.

With other people who care deeply about this city and the people in it.

Lee, Founder

The Docket

Mark August 20. Show up.

Aug 20
Official Launch · House Party
3SC Official Launch
The house party where we officially launch 3rd Space Chicago — meet the founders, hear the vision, and find your first way to plug in. It's also the launch of this website.
Next
Virtual
Information Session
Meet the founders. Learn the vision. Find your role.
Soon
In Person
Teen Trends Town Hall
With Youth Empowerment Space. Built for and by young people.
Training
Basics of Organizing
Organizing Training
Your first toolkit. How to organize people, money, and a plan.

Articles of Membership

This is not a campaign. It is a home.

3rd Space Chicago is being built by and for the South Side. There is no minimum requirement to show up. You do not need a title, a degree, or a plan. You just need to care and be willing to act.

1
Easiest
Join the list
Sign the roll →
2
Lead
Become a founder
Apply for standing →
3
Coming soon
Fund the work

Design notes — Concept 4: The Mural

Now uses the real mural artwork (3sc-logo-mural.png) as the actual logo in three places: a tight zoomed crop in the nav badge, the full poster (pinned like a sticker) at the top of the hero, and a smaller version as the footer seal. The conic-gradient "mosaic ring" from the earlier draft is kept only as the shared frame/badge shape those logo crops and the numbered badges sit inside — it no longer stands in for the artwork itself.

The top-of-page note banner and scrolling ticker have been removed — the page now opens straight into the nav.

The Docket now leads with the Aug 20 house party — this doubles as both the soft launch and the official public launch, so the old separate "TBD August official launch" row was folded into it rather than kept as a second, contradictory entry. The remaining near-term items (info session, town hall, organizing training) keep relative labels since no real dates have been set for those yet.

Structurally it's still Concept 2 (The Block) crossed with Concept 3 (The Assembly): the founder-avatar collage and rounded card language come from The Block, the "Articles / Testimony / Docket" civic-document framing comes from The Assembly, and green — pulled from the mural's mosaic tiles — remains a third accent alongside the existing blue+gold / white+red poles.

Fonts shown here are system-font approximations of Anton / Archivo / DM Mono for fast comparison — production would use the real webfonts already wired up via next/font.

The countdown is live (real setInterval, not a static number) and targets Aug 20, 2026, 6:00 PM Central. The exact time of day hasn't been confirmed — it's the one line marked in the script below.

The brick backdrop is a running-bond pattern (inline SVG, no external image) applied via body, plus copied onto nav and footer individually since those paint their own solid background over it.

The 6 real Chicago mural photos now appear 13 times across 7 sections (Hero, Collage, Why Now, Pillars, Sworn Testimony, Docket, Articles of Membership) — a full-size chip plus a second, smaller cropped detail from a different photo in each of the 6 main sections, so no section repeats the same source twice and the images stay spread across the page rather than clustered. Edges use an irregular torn clip-path instead of a rectangle, and a warm sepia/contrast filter grades them closer to the ink/gold palette — both meant to read as posted-on-the-wall rather than floating on top of it. Sized near native resolution (~330px) so nothing is stretched or pixelated. Still hidden below ~980px width to avoid overlapping content on smaller screens. More source photos would let every placement be a unique image instead of some being reused crops — worth supplying if you want zero repetition.