He comes home at least twice a year, especially during the holiday season and relishes in all that he misses about his hometown – the people, the food and sometimes the snow. But there are times when sadness sets in, actor Wood Harris said.
He comes home at least twice a year, especially during the holiday season and relishes in all that he misses about his hometown – the people, the food and sometimes the snow. But there are times when sadness sets in, actor Wood Harris said.
When visiting his old stomping grounds on the West Side and looking at the “undeveloped terrain,” it often feels like he never left after graduating from St. Joseph High School in west suburban Westchester where he played basketball.
Sherwin David Harris –“Wood” as he’s commonly known – and his older brother, actor Steve Harris, grew up in the North Lawndale community on Kildare Avenue in the K-Town section of the neighborhood before moving to Jackson Boulevard, between Cicero and Laramie Avenues.
“When I go over there now, it really puts a tear in my eyes. When I was here the last time, I saw two young Black men on a police car and the police were frisking them. It felt like a vortex in time. I just couldn’t believe it. It felt like it was still 1987 in K-Town,” Harris told the Defender, adding that Chicago is constantly in the news, in a negative way.
Probably best known for his role as the ruthless druglord Avon Barksdale in HBO’s "The Wire," Harris was in town recently to promote "Jazz in the Diamond District," an independent film in which he plays the manager of a band in Washington, D.C.
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