Professor John Bakker Featured on NBC Nightly News

Trinity Christian College Professor John Bakker was recently featured on a national broadcast of NBC Nightly News with Lester Holt. The feature, Faces of Chicago: Reframing a Story One Portrait at a Time, aired on January 17, 2024, and highlighted the story of the Roseland Portrait Project.

Since 2018, Bakker has hand-painted nearly 400 portraits of people from the Roseland community, including janitors, EMTs, schoolteachers, mechanics, cashiers, librarians, nurses, and others.

The Roseland Portrait Project began to tell the stories of the people who make up a real community. “There’s all kinds of good stuff that happens in communities, even communities that struggle with violence,” Bakker said. “500 years ago, the only people who got their portrait painted were kings – and each of us is worthy of that kind of attention.”

The project has been shared across communities, including at several locations in Roseland, Trinity’s Jennie Huizenga Memorial Library, and the Palos Heights (Ill.) Public Library.

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