The Saxophone player on the Jackson Street Bridge
Every morning and afternoon at Chicago’s Union Station, the sound of trains clunking along the tracks compete with car beeps, boat horns and the myriad of other sounds of the city going to work. But for years, amid the urban din — if you were lucky — you could hear the sound of Jacque Williams’ saxophone dancing through the air.
Jacque was a musician who held concert on the Jackson Street bridge in downtown Chicago. He played standard jazz classics and popular songs on request, whatever made listeners happy and persuaded a few dollars to find their way into his open sax case.
Each day, tens of thousands of commuters make the pilgrimage from the suburbs into downtown, and many cross the Jackson street bridge — past Jacque’s old post. One of those commuters was my father, Robert Hamilton.
My dad was a commodities broker for decades. He commuted downtown from our home in Naperville for more than 20 years. And for many of those years he was grateful to hear Jacque play some jazz — or even just the Flintstone’s theme song.
Over the years, my dad got to know Jacque. First, in the way that hundreds of other people know him: from the perspective of a hurried commuter rushing to catch a soon-departing train. But eventually, Jacque and my dad started to talk more and learn about each other. It was part of that effort that made my dad ask Jacque to start writing down his life story.
Over the course of a year, Jacque mailed my dad letters, sometimes a page, sometimes ten, with different stories from his life. When they started the project, my dad wasn’t really sure what the end result would be. At first it was an attempt to stay in touch with his friend after he retired, when he knew he’d no longer be making the trek downtown.
But eventually, it turned into one testimony of what it’s like to grow up on Chicago’s South Side as a young black man.
This project is a compilation of those letters. A new section will be released every week. I’ve made minor edits, but it is Jacque’s story, Jacque’s words and Jacque’s voice.
Jacque has lived many places and held many jobs, but has always called Chicago home and has always had a connection to the music of the city. Health problems prevent Jacque from playing his sax now, and the Jackson street bridge is quieter than it should be.
But like so many of the city’s street musicians, this lifelong Chicagoan left a little piece of himself on the bridge where he played for so long, and hopefully — if you’re lucky — you’ll be able to hear the faint coo of his sax through the story of Jacque Williams’ life, his music and his city.
Nathaniel Hamilton
Jacque Williams
1959 age 3
In the late 1950s, growing up and being poor on the South Side of Chicago was hard. There were so many things I wanted and needed but I was never able to get them because there was no money in my family. My mom and dad were poor and could hardly take care of us but somehow we managed to get by.
I always had big dreams and today even at my age I still have big dreams. My biggest dream, or goal I should say is to take care of my grandchildren better than I took care of my own children. I did a pretty good job with my kids but I could have done better if I would have had money to get them more of the things they needed. All I could get them was the basic things, no extra food, shoes or nice clothes. There were no birthday parties or gifts for my kids because I couldn’t afford it. There were many things I couldn’t afford and still can’t today.
I would have liked to do a better job with that type of stuff. But hopefully I can do a better job with my grandchildren.
My story — from when I can remember — starts as a very young little boy. I was born on June 14, 1956 and at the age of three, for some reason I knew my mom and dad were poor and could never give me money for candy and treats. I knew that if I wanted anything, I had to get it on my own. I never questioned my mom about why we were so poor, I just knew I had to do something for myself and my sisters and brothers.
I saw my grandmother going to work every day, so when my grandmother left for work, I would leave for my own work — or whatever I could do to help the family. I was still so short that, I would have to get up on a chair to unlock the back door. I would go down to the basement and find the janitor and ask if he had anything I could help out with for some money. He would let me help him burn the garbage and throw coal in the furnace to heat the building. When I got finished he would pay me a dollar and in 1959 that was a lot of money to a poor boy who never had money.
I was grateful to have a small job with the janitor and it made me able to buy my sisters and brothers donuts and candy, things my mom and dad never could afford to buy us.
When I went out to work, I would leave the house at 4am and get back in the house about 7am. My dad would give me a whipping for making them worry about where I was. Back in 1959, the streets weren’t as bad as they are now but they still got sick worrying about where I was. I understand and don’t blame him for giving me a whipping, today if my 3 year-old did that I would go crazy with worry too. But the next day I always went out and did it again.
In 1959 my mom moved from 53rd and Indiana to the West Side to The Rockwell Projects. Rockwell Gardens was part of the Chicago projects located on the West Side. I had just turned 4 years old when we moved.
After we moved, I tried to do some of the same things to make money. In the Rockwell Projects there were nine big buildings and I would go from one building to another until I got some work. It was harder at Rockwell because there was other little boys trying to work for the janitor and I would get chased out of the buildings because they wanted the work themselves. Everybody needed money in those days. I gave up on that idea but times stayed hard. We were hard up to the point that my mom couldn’t even give me milk money for school.
1963 age 7
When I was seven, I met a friend named Ray McCoy. Ray was five years older than me and Ray was a paperboy. I told Ray I wanted to be a paperboy too so he took me to his manager and got me my own route. Every day before I went to school I would do my paper route. I’d have to get up at 6 in the morning so I could deliver my papers and get to school on time but I didn’t have a bike so I would have to walk my route. Each paperboy had a large canvas bag with a strap to put the papers in. I would pick up my papers at the paper station and fold each paper so I could throw them on the customer’s porches. When it snowed in Chicago the streets and sidewalks weren’t plowed that early so it was hard to get my papers delivered on time.
The hardest part of the job was collecting from the customers at the end of the week. How you made money at that job was you collected from the customers, pay your paper bill and then everything over what they charged me for the papers was my profit. If I couldn’t collect from a customer that week, the money would come out of my profits. Sometimes you would have to go back two or three time to find the customers so you could collect. I threw papers until I was eleven years old.
How I met my Life-Long Friends
Growing up as young kids around Rockwell, there were six of us who hung out every day. There was Billy, Mister, Ronald, William, and Charles. We all met as little kids and become life-long friends.
We would all hang out after school every day. As far as discipline goes I think out of all of us boys I had the strictest mother.
My mother wasn’t anything nice about discipline — she didn’t play my games when I would get in any kind of mischief.
Most of my friends didn’t have to report in after school but if I didn’t, my mother would be very severe in her discipline. If I didn’t report in, I got an ass whipping and put on punishment. It took only one time to learn my lesson. With my mother it wasn’t hard to figure out what was right and what was wrong
Billy’s mother was a nurse at Cook County Hospital so she worked a lot and Bill could do just about anything he wanted. I don’t know what kind of work Ronald’s mom and dad did but Ronald could just about do anything he wanted as well. Joseph’s mom was pretty strict though not at strict as my mom. William’s mother had a second hand store so she was always gone minding her store. Charles mother had a drinking problem, so he was able to do just about whatever he wanted to. My mother had nine of us kids, so she only could do nothing but raise us until we got old enough to the take care of ourselves.
As little kids we got into all kinds of stuff that we should not have been doing, like smoking.
This was at a really young age. When I was seven years old my sister was four years older than me and got me smoking. My mother never caught us but she knew her cigarettes were always missing. My sister used to send me to the neighbor’s house and say my mother asked for a cigarette. We did this until we got caught, and got a whipping, and that stopped. At that time cigarettes were 35 cents a pack, but we were only kids which made them hard to get. All of my five friends smoked. When we got to upper grade school, we would go out after lunch and find us somewhere to hide and smoke. We would go back in school smelling like smoke and getting in trouble.
My friends and I were always doing something we thought was slick but we were just young fools.
1967 Working for Mr. Brown age 11
In 1967 when I was around 11 years old, my mother sent me to the store and while I was there, the man who owned the store, Mr. Brown, asked me if I wanted a job. I told him I would have to ask my mother. My mom said I could because she and my dad were separated at that time and we could use the extra income. I worked in that store until I was 21 years old.
Those were good old days that I was able to buy my clothes for school and everything else I wanted. I worked in the produce department to start with but eventually did everything involved in a retail grocery store. My friends Mister and William asked Mr. Brown for a job and because I was working there he gave both of them jobs as well.
As young kids we were able to buy a lot of things that ordinarily we couldn’t afford if we didn’t have our jobs at the store. We had the money that most kids our age didn’t have. In school we didn’t have to take the free lunch, we could afford to eat in the teacher’s line and have a real meal. I was finally able to do a few things that took money to do. One thing for sure, we never had to gangbang, because three of us worked in the store for Mr. Brown and that kept us out of trouble and off the streets.
The name of the store was Hooker’s Foods. It was one of the largest black owned grocery stores in Chicago back in the 1950s, 60s, 70s, and 80s. At the start it was located at Madison and Campbell but later moved to Madison and Oakley. It was a family business all those years. Mr. Brown’s father started the store and gave it to his son upon retirement.
Mr. Brown was the kind of man that if our people didn’t have money, he figured that no one should go hungry and he would extend them credit. People always paid him back because there was no telling when they might need help again. Working for Mr. Brown from the ages of 11 to 21, I didn’t have any problem buying food for my sisters and brothers.
When anyone that worked for him did foolish stuff he put them on bones — and you didn’t want to be on bones with the boss. When Mr. Brown put you on bones it meant that you couldn’t work or get a paycheck. There was no telling how long bones would be.
The store was closed in the 1980s due to a tax issue. One day it was there and the next day it was gone. It brought tears to my eyes, It was just not right. Mr. Brown employed at least fifty workers. He was one of the best men I have ever worked for. He was a father figure to a lot of young boys in the neighborhood. He taught me everything my father didn’t — and a lot more. He taught me how to be a man.
