The Last Days of Cabrini-Green

By: Ben Austen, Harrison David Rivers

Narrated by: Ben Austen, Patina Miller, Harry Lennix, Corey Stoll

In 1992, the deadliest year in Chicago’s history, seven-year-old Dantrell Davis was shot and killed in front of his elementary school inside the public housing complex Cabrini-Green. What happened to Dantrell led to a truce among Chicago’s gangs, but it also ignited a national panic about poverty and violence in America’s cities. Dantrell’s name would soon be used to demolish all of Chicago’s high-rise public housing, displacing tens of thousands of low-income families.

Through first-person accounts, original reporting, and dramatized scenes, The Last Days of Cabrini-Green tells the story of Dantrell Davis and his mother Annette Freeman and how Cabrini-Green’s rise and fall changed the course of American public housing.

Please note: The Last Days of Cabrini-Green has some fictionalized accounts of real events, including violence.

This is a co-production from AT WILL MEDIA and Campside Media.

©2024 At Will Media (P)2024 Audible Originals, LLC

An important moment in Chicago History

I remember this story and I also remember all of the high-rise projects being demolished. As MPH student and Public Health practitioner primarily focused on housing it’s eye-opening to hear this story through this new lens and saddening that not much has changed to desegregate the city.

I believe Chicago is reaping what was sown during this time. The poverty and crime on the south and the west sides have been ignored for so long, no one outside of these areas cared until the crime came to their neighborhoods. Until we address the systemic root causes the city will continue this cycle of violence.

Heartbreaking and informative

I’m not familiar with Chicago, so had never heard about Dantrell’s tragedy or Cabrini Green’s story. It was really moving and frustrating.

Shocking

I like the book because the author interviewed actual tenants that lived in the Caprini green building. I thought it was educational and shocking at what happened at the same time.

An Incredible account of a senseless death in Chicago public housing and the public and political reaction to this tradgedy.

Ben Austen and team did an excellent job telling this story! I have a better understanding of the life in Cabrini Green, the people that lived there, the senseless tragedy of children, the plain clothes police and activists working there, and the community that made up the area.

In addition, I now have a better view into the Political Will throughout the decades to tackle problems that have existed in Chicago's Public Housing and the lives of people that have destroyed and stressed. I'm amazed, saddened, and impressed all at the same time at the conclusion of this program. Job well done !

Impactfull and Necessary

Thank you for telling the story of Cabrini-Green and Dantrell. Awareness is key to sustainable change. Our children deserve better.

Sad story on a few accounts but definitely needs to be told.

I like the perspective from a few of the people that were actually around there in those days. very real and down to earth.

In Aw!

Heartbreaking, wrenching, and gripping. I couldn't pull away!! Everyone needs to read this book. There will be better understanding of the system, politics, and something that we are still addressing to today, the dividing line.

Revived a lost history

This gave me a new perspective on housing in the US from the ‘90 and how it’s effecting housing today.

Great narration! Impactful story telling of the events that happened after the killing of 9 year old boy Dantrell Davis.

Narration was top tier! The way the stories were told captured the intensity of the events experienced by the residents at that time!

A Gripping and Necessary Work

This is a must-listen, heartbreaking, devastating depiction of political manipulation. Everybody knows the film Candyman, but the tragic story of the Cabrini-Green housing project is mostly unknown. For a Chicagoan like me, it brings back the memory of how the city of Chicago took advantage of people in need and how it lied to its low-income residents, how it destroyed the lives of so many people. Thank you for making this audiobook.