Auburn- Gresham

The corner of West 79th and South Carpenter is quiet.

Gang members no longer loiter in front of Max Newsome’s dentist office.

Cars don’t fly down South Carpenter Street on drug runs.

And an abandoned apartment building that once housed prostitutes, squatters and drug dealers is now a parking lot.

But the South Side community of Auburn-Gresham wasn’t always this peaceful.

In 1998, CrimeWatch labeled the block of West 79th and Carpenter one of the worst in Chicago. The entire neighborhood, located south of Englewood, was inundated with drugs, gangs and violence.

Imagine a grandmother of two, who helps her granddaughter get ready for the prom and cooks fried chicken for block club meetings. Then imagine that same grandmother going head-to-head with a gang member.

Imagine Betty Jo Swanson.

Gangs are intimidating, but they have proved to be no match for Swanson, a long-time resident of the Auburn-Gresham neighborhood on Chicago’s South Side.

When gangs and crime started to dominate the community during the late 1980s, Swanson and many other residents who stayed didn't let the gangs take over; they made their presence known.