By Ben Joravsky
In 1967 he moved to Evanston to study at the Garrett Theological Seminary. He supported himself by working as a cafeteria monitor at Chute Middle School, taught Sunday school, and sort of stumbled into his vocation. “I was living in an apartment in southeast Evanston, and my roommate, Jack Morin, and I decided to invite some kids over to find out why they weren’t taking an interest in church. We had a great discussion, and we decided we’d do it again. One of the kids said, ‘Can we bring some friends to the next meeting?’ And within a month or so we were having 30 kids coming to our apartment all the time.
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“Without even looking for it, we had found a whole group of alienated young Evanstonians who cared very much for the world but didn’t know where they fit in. These were mostly white, middle-class hippies–the kids with long hair and army jackets–who wanted to challenge the establishment. They practically lived at our place, dropping in all the time, drinking our pop, listening to the stereo. Jack and I decided they needed a different hangout or we’d lose our minds.”
As word spread about his work, Baker was invited to participate in a city-sponsored task force on youth. From that task force Youth Organizations Umbrella emerged. “I wrote a paper for the task force called ‘Can We Serve Them All?’ My theme was that we needed an umbrella of youth organizations to represent all the different groups of kids–the greasers, the jocks, the freaks, the blacks. Bill Swisher, a physician on the task force, said something that stuck with me all these years: ‘If we identify ourselves with one political movement we’ll be passe once that movement passes. The real challenge is to identify the kids on the margin and meet their needs.’ That philosophy helped shape our mission statement, which is very 60s: ‘We are open to all young people in Evanston.’”
On Wednesday and Friday Y.O.U.’s main drop-in center, which is across the street from Nichols Middle School, swirls with kids playing Foosball, pool, or Ping-Pong. On Tuesday and Thursday it’s quiet time, as the students work with tutors brought in from Evanston High School or Northwestern University. (Y.O.U. also runs a youth center at Chute.)
It bothers Baker that more white kids don’t visit the centers, but he tries to keep things in perspective. “My wife and I raised two children who went to Nichols and graduated from the high school, and I’ve learned powerfully through their experiences. I saw how disappointed they were when they drifted away from many of their black friends as they got older. In some ways it’s similar to what I saw in the 70s, when the hippie kids and the black kids sat on separate sides of the same concert.
