"Dr. Maxey," as she's known to her friends, is an African-American educator now in her nineties. Her beautiful red-brick home stands on what was once an elite Chicago street, formerly crowded with magnificent mansions. But these days her house stands amid urban devastation - only vacant lots and the local police station remain. The story of how this all came to be parallels the sagas of racism and urban renewal that drew Chicago's South Side over the last 100 years Dr. Maxey and her husband, Charles Boyd, bought the mansion from a wealthy white aristocrat and stuck it out for more than half-a-century -- while the city of Chicago demolished everything around them, twice. In doing so, the Boyds managed to successfully fight city hall -- twice. Her epic story suggests, once again, that the more things change, the more they stay the same. While this story is set in Chicago, it garnered fantastic nationwide response when aired in 2003's "Whose Democracy Is It" series. Maxey is an original, and her story proved inspirational to listeners across the country.

"Dr. Maxey," as she's known to her friends, is an African-American educator now in her nineties. Her beautiful red-brick home stands on what was once an elite Chicago street, formerly crowded with magnificent mansions. But these days her house stands amid urban devastation - only vacant lots and the local police station remain. The story of how this all came to be parallels the sagas of racism and urban renewal that drew Chicago's South Side over the last 100 years Dr. Maxey and her husband, Charles Boyd, bought the mansion from a wealthy white aristocrat and stuck it out for more than half-a-century -- while the city of Chicago demolished everything around them, twice. In doing so, the Boyds managed to successfully fight city hall -- twice. Her epic story suggests, once again, that the more things change, the more they stay the same. While this story is set in Chicago, it garnered fantastic nationwide response when aired in 2003's "Whose Democracy Is It" series. Maxey is an original, and her story proved inspirational to listeners across the country.