New hope for Pembroke Township

Across America, there are pockets of poverty, communities that have been left behind or deprived of the basics needed to develop, like Pembroke Township, a small community south of Chicago along the Indiana border. In this community, one-third of the families live below the poverty line. It is one of the poorest communities in the country, with a median income that is among the lowest.

In the 1860s, newly freed slaves — Freedmen — settled into the rich farmland of the region. It was a land of promise and opportunity. During the Great Migration and the Great Depression, waves of black farmers settled here. Land was still available for black farms in part because much of it was seen as marginal.