The Fox: Aurora's Environmentalist Super-Hero

Steve Lord discusses the life and passion of The Fox

The Fox, used daring guerrilla activist tactics to save the Fox River. Live music related to the environment from 2:30--3 p.m. to tune up for the talk. Steve Lord presents from 3-4 p.m.

What better way to celebrate the first week of Spring in Aurora?  Journalist Steve Lord discusses the life and passion of The Fox, the incognito activist who used daring guerrilla tactics in the 60's and 70's to try to save the Fox River.

"Jim Phillips was a science teacher who became the anonymous environmental activist known as "the Fox." During the 1960s and '70s he waged a guerrilla war against industrial polluters, plugging factory sewage pipes and dumping sludge in corporate offices to dramatize the plight of the Fox River and other area waterways. The alias helped him avoid prosecution, though he also used it to draw publicity. His causes were championed by Chicago Daily News columnist Mike Royko, and his tactics were celebrated in his own 30-page comic book (printed on recycled paper), Tales of the Fox: Pollution Fighter. The attention attracted followers, who helped carry out his campaigns. In 1999 Phillips looked back on his career as the Fox in a self-published book, Raising Kane, which he penned under the pseudonym "Ray Fox." His surreptitious work had brought results: by the late 80s the Fox River was clean enough for the bald eagles to rediscover it." --Chicago Reader:Who Was That Masked Man?  

Brother Chi and The Alchemists sing songs related to the environement from 2:30--3 p.m. to tune up for the talk.

Steve Lord presents on The Fox from 3-4 p.m.

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