- So, if you talk to anyone from Chicago,
they'll tell you it's the greatest city on the planet.
Jane, you are from the Chicago area.
- I am.
Yeah, we were talking before the show,
but please, introduce me, I'm sorry.
- [Kelly] Yes, would you say that it is
the greatest city on the-
- I would say it's the greatest city,
and I've been around, you know, here and there,
but Chicago is a unique city,
and I'm sure this guy will tell you why.
- That's 'cause they have a Englewood in Chicago.
- (laughs) I love it, I love it.
Well, my next guest's love of Chicago
has spawned a TikTok channel
where he shares the history of the Windy City.
It's become so popular that he's now giving tours,
and it's even caught the attention of the mayor's office.
So cool.
But this is my favorite part,
he actually started the channel for his daughters
because he wanted to share his love
of his hometown with them.
And I think that's so great.
So that's why we call him a good neighbor.
(upbeat music)
♪ Good, good, so good ♪
♪ Good neighbor ♪
♪ So good ♪
- So good, I like that part (laughs).
Please welcome, Sherman Dilla Thomas, y'all.
(audience cheering)
Well, meet everybody, I gotta full couch.
- Wassup? - Hey, how you doin' man?
- Thank you. - I love it.
I was telling you this before,
but I love that you started this for your daughters.
That's so cool.
- Yeah, absolutely, thank you, thank you.
- Like, what sparked it?
Why did you start it?
- Well, it's exactly like you're satin',
I did it for my daughters, right?
Especially my eight year old, Bailey.
She wanted to be TikTok famous, right.
Do all the little dances,
and so I told her, I said,
hey baby, there's a million people doing that,
and so it needs to be really good to go viral,
but if you let me feed you Chicago history stories,
you're a cute little girl,
you'll go viral in no time.
So she looked me up and down,
and I don't wanna do that, dad.
So to prove her wrong - I love it.
She shot you down.
- Right, you know, somehow now, I gotta prove her wrong.
So I did one, and man, it, it took off.
I got my love of history from my father.
He was a Chicago police officer for 30 years.
- [Kelly] Oh, wow, that's amazing.
- Yeah thank you, thank you. - Service, that's amazing.
(audience applauds)
- So, he was, famously one of
Mayor Harold Washington's, body guards,
and a lot of Chicago luminaries in that detail,
but he loved history and kind of shaped
how I view the city.
So I'm hoping that I'm
passing that on to my kids and others.
- Well, you definitely made it cool now.
Like she just showed her,
- Right? - I went viral.
(laughing) So, okay, so can you drop some
mind-blowing Chicago history on me right now?
I don't know much, so.
- Well, everything about Chicago
is mind blowing and awesome,
but I think my favorite story is the fireman's pole, right?
Whether you're a kid or a fireman,
you all pretended to slide down the fireman's pole, right?
- Yeah
- So that was invented in Chicago
by African-Americans on the South Side, in the 1870s.
You know, firemen used to fight fires on horses, right?
- Right - Before the trains,
and horses need hay.
So they used to store the hay in the top of the firehouses.
There was a black dude up there taking a nap one day.
The fire bell rings.
He doesn't wanna get in trouble,
so he slides down the pole, right there.
The Chief saw it, and was like, oh man, that is genius.
What happened was though - That's how it started?
- That's how it started, right.
So what happened though,
is that the other fire stations, was like,
hey, these black firemen are sliding down poles, right?
I'm sure you can imagine the jokes that they would make.
But what, (crowd laughing)
the city would award the fastest firehouse
based on their response with an award every year,
and engine 21, which was the black fire station,
they won every year.
By the end of the 1880s,
the fire department said every firehouse
gotta have one of those poles,
and it spread nationwide.
(crowd cheering)
- That's crazy. - So cool.
- That literally was mind blowing.
I didn't know that.
That's so cool.
Did any of y'all know that?
- No, and no idea.
- If one of you said you knew,
then I was gonna call you liar.
(laughs)
I was gonna, I just like, you lie.
- I almost did, but I just stopped myself.
- Lies and deception.
Okay, so your channel has got the attention
of a lot of prominent people, that's right, right?
- Yeah - Yeah.
- Yeah, absolutely, it's kind of crazy, right?
The Obama Presidential Library folks reached out to me.
The mayor.
So, Thomas Lennon, Lieutenant Dangle from "Reno 911."
- Yeah, yeah, love it.
- He reached out to me,
he and I are actually working on a Chicago history show,
and another series, so it's been really crazy.
- Wow, I think that's so cool.
The origins, and things like that,
that's so cool and interesting,
and how they came about.
Well, so you have goals that go beyond the channel.
So what are they?
- Well, I think, in a lot of spaces,
people don't understand the histories
of the space that they come from, right?
And so I think that's part of the problem with Chicago,
if you look on the news, we get a national black guy,
it's hard to come through the city
and not be effected by like crime
and those types of things,
but we're a city of second chances, right?
And so I wanna get my own bus,
I wanna raise money to get a bus,
to do neighborhood tours.
I think if you understand the history of the space,
you treat that space better.
The things, particularly the South Side
and the West Side don't get enough investment
and enough attention,
and so I wanna shine that light.
I wanna match it up partners and sponsors with school kids,
so I can give them tours of the spaces that they come from.
- Man, it's brilliant. (audience applauds)
Like, specially, I can see how the Mayor would love that,
because it's brilliant for tourism as well.
People will want to come if you're like,
like I just heard that story,
and I'm like, well,
what else is there about Chicago, I didn't know?
Like that, it makes it really interesting
that everybody wants to learn about that place,
and it promotes money, but you know,
for, for that, you know, monetarily speaking,
that's great for the community, as well.
It promotes all of that.
I think that's so great and so smart.
I hope more people start doing this in their community.
It's so cool.
- Thank you.
- Yeah, to really know the background.
- And I think, historical perspective is so important,
especially for kids in, you know, I'm from the South Side.
- Right
- Yeah, and when you know about your,
where you grew up and what came before you,
in order for you to be living here is,
you get a whole new love for it
and appreciation that you don't have right now.
So you're, you're really doing a great service,
especially for the kids.
- Thank you, thank you.
(audience clapping)
- That's the biggest thing.
Well, we love what Dilla's doing for the city of Chicago,
so to help you expand everything you're doing,
we're gonna give you $5,000.
(audience cheering drowns Kelly)
We love it, love it.