Asiaha Butler

Asiaha Butler was going to leave the Englewood neighborhood of Chicago where she and her husband grew up. She wanted a safer place to raise her family. One day, she was looking out her window and saw a small girl in a dress playing in the dirt of a vacant lot. She realized she couldn’t be just one more person who gave up on those kids and that place.

She worked with neighbors and convinced the city to sell the vacant lots all over Englewood for a dollar. Over time, they turned the lots into gardens, gathering places, and sports fields. She helped found and now leads RAGE, the Resident Association of Greater Englewood.

“I’ve always thought of this work as ‘community development of the mind’,” says Butler. “That means helping people who live here to think differently about what's possible. When we engage people, each to their strengths, we create a new sense of possibility together.”

Those first projects led to new ones. Butler created the Buy the Block Homeownership Program and founded the Greater Englewood Community Development Corporation. She launched the Re-Up (RAGE Economic Upliftment Program) for commercial and residential real estate development that would spawn generational wealth.

Butler has a Master’s in Inner City Studies from Northeastern Illinois University. She has been honored with the Dare to Soar Chicago 2016 Icon Award, the American Express Leadership Academy Fellowship, and many others. She spoke at the Aspen Ideas Festival and has been featured in many local news stories.