There’s a bright new mural on the north side of C&W Market at the corner of Church Street and Dodge Avenue.
There, I saw excellent portraits of several Black community leaders. I easily recognized Fifth Ward Councilmember Bobby Burns and Evanston Police Chief Schenita Stewart. The late Bill Logan, the city’s first Black police chief, is depicted sitting on Stewart’s right.
The westernmost portion of the mural is hard to see, but the figure on the left is CJ Weaver, Clarence and Wendy Weaver’s son, who drowned in a boating accident when he was 32. The Weavers run C&W Market and Ice Cream Parlor.
CJ is pictured in the mural the way he’s best remembered — he was passionate about building community, working to rehab living spaces with others, motivating people and spreading positivity, especially in the Black community.
Except for two other individuals, the remaining figures on the west end of the mural represent anonymous community members. The barber is Marshall Giles, the original owner of the Ebony Barber Shop, and his customer is Vandell Cobb, a photographer for Ebony and Jet magazines. The barber shop, at 1702 Dodge, has been owned by Giles’ daughter, Brigitte, since 1980.
“The mural is about community — it’s not all about C&W and the Weavers,” Clarence Weaver said.
Evanston Township High School seniors in the “Design, Thinking & Innovation” class proposed and designed the mural. In the course, student teams of three or four are encouraged to go out into the community to have “curiosity conversations” and to look for possible design opportunities.
The mural design team is pictured above. The mural was their “capstone” project, said José Arias, their math teacher and adviser. He said that in the first semester of this class, students learn about the process of design, receive the necessary tools and go into the community looking for clients. They then complete their projects as their second semester finale.
“It is very important to keep these projects local,” Arias said. “That way, students start seeing design happen in their own community.” Other projects from the class have included tech workshops for seniors, making blankets for cats at the Evanston Animal Shelter and social media reels for advertising at La Principal.
The design team of Mose Miller, Yomaris Roman and Xiadany Tamayo visited C&W Market, where they met the Weavers.
“The Weavers were looking to improve the overall look of the building, to erase the ‘corner store’ stigma,” said Arias. They had been tenants at the address from 2014 to 2023, and purchased the building in 2023 with the help of TIF funds, according to Clarence Weaver.
The student team met with the market owners multiple times to brainstorm ideas.
Damon Lamar Reed was the professional artist chosen by the Weavers to complete the mural, as the students did not intend to do the painting themselves. Reed also painted the mural outside the Gibbs-Morrison Cultural Center across the street.
The city funded the project as part of the Evanston Thrives initiative to provide gateways into the city’s business districts (business owners’ second most desired recommendation in the Evanston Thrives Retail Action Plan was gateway signage).
Business districts are all getting wayfinding kiosks as well as vertical signs and/or murals. The gateway murals are intended to help establish a district identity. Each district getting a mural chose the artist, said city spokesperson Cynthia Vargas, and conducted community engagement around the design.
“The Church & Dodge mural is special in that it really is a tribute to the community and history of the district,” Vargas said.
The high school and the Second and Fifth Wards comprise the C&W family, the Weavers said. They are trying to meet the needs of these communities. High schoolers, for example, drove the addition of hot dogs and deli sandwiches to the menu. Students flood the market at lunchtime and after school.
When COVID struck, the market, originally partnering with the city, delivered groceries at no cost to 220 families every two weeks through the Weavers’ C&W Market Foundation and with the help of volunteers. The foundation offices, facing Dodge, are available for the community to rent for private meetings and conferences.
The Weavers added an ice cream truck a few years ago, and residents can see it at many local events. It’s decorated on the exterior with painted chocolate dripping from the roof, like their ice cream parlor, which has the same chocolate “dripping” where the walls join the ceiling. Wendy Weaver came up with that design. She’s also a new member of Evanston’s minority economic development committee.
The Weavers will soon stock fresh produce in the space that was their first ice cream parlor. The current, larger ice cream parlor is immediately west of the market on Church Street. Their ice cream comes from Homer’s in Wilmette, long a North Shore favorite. They also have a deli and grill.
This past year, the Weavers have cleaned out a garage space at the north end of the building and created a patio and event space available for private parties. It opened in June. A sign over the mural is pictured above, inviting folks to “Sit Long — Talk Much — Laugh Often.”
There is currently no artist’s signature on the mural, an omission that will be corrected when the mural is dedicated at C&W’s fifth annual Christmas tree celebration on Dec. 12.
And in other news, C&W will open a summer ice cream shop on the north covered porch of the to-be-redeveloped Harley Clarke mansion, 2602 Sheridan Rd. Construction starts in 2026, and the ice cream shop is tentatively targeting a mid-2026 opening before the larger project is finished in 2027.
