The Chicago Reporter

The Chicago Reporter is an award-winning nonprofit investigative news organization that focuses on race, poverty and income inequality. The Reporter was founded by civil rights activist John McDermott in 1972 to measure the city's progress toward racial equality. Got a...

[chicagoreporter]

Thousands gathered outside the Immigration and Customs Enforcement office in Chicago Tuesday evening to hear stories from DACA recipients and other immigrants after a rally and march from Federal Plaza. Demonstrators were urging "Protection for all" undocumented immigrants in light of the Trump administration's decision to end the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, announced on Sept. 5, 2017. (Photos by Max Herman)

Related commentaries:

Evaporating dreams: Ending DACA puts whole communities at stake 

By Amalia Pallares

Don’t use the good vs. bad immigrant narrative to save DACA

By María G. Torres

[chicagoreporter]

Thousands of mostly low-income workers file claims that their wages were stolen in Illinois each year but few will ever see a dime recovered due to the state’s ineffective enforcement. In Chicago, the 10 zip codes with the highest rates of wage complaints are all overwhelmingly non-white and have poverty rates higher than the city average of 22 percent.

See our investigation on how the state labor department leaves wage theft victims with few options to get their due, available in English and Spanish:

http://chicagoreporter.com/wage-theft-victims-have-little-chance-of-recouping-pay-in-illinois/

En español: http://chicagoreporter.com/cuando-les-roban-el-salario-pocos-trabajadores-de-illinois-recuperan-sus-sueldos/    

[chicagoreporter]

StreetWise Magazine is celebrating 25 years of helping people without homes or at risk for homelessness earn a legitimate income and access services. Since 1992, the magazine has generated $15 million for thousands of vendors facing homelessness and has become the widest read street magazine in the United States.

For profiles of some of StreetWise Magazine’s top vendors, see instagram.com/chicagoreporter or visit: http://bit.ly/2wF7h1d 

(Photos by Marc Monaghan)

[chicagoreporter]

About 200 people gathered at the tomb of Stephen Douglas in Chicago on Saturday, August 19, 2017. Douglas was a 19th century Illinois politician whose wealth came from his family’s plantation in the south and its slaves. He donated ten acres of land to help establish the University of Chicago. Activists are renewing calls for #reparations in light of white supremacist violence in #Charlottesville. The names of people enslaved by Douglas' family plantation were read aloud at the event. (Photos by Marc Monaghan)

Read about the ongoing campaign to demand reparations from the University of Chicago at: 

http://chicagoreporter.com/a-case-for-reparations-at-the-university-of-chicago/

[chicagoreporter]

Empty schools, empty promises

In 2013, Mayor Rahm Emanuel ignited a firestorm by ordering the mass closing of 50 public schools, the most at one time in any school district in the nation. These closings were concentrated mostly in poor black neighborhoods already struggling with a legacy of disinvestment and segregation.  Four years later, most of these schools remain vacant.

Our series “Empty schools, empty promises” explores the aftermath of the mass closures on the South and West sides of Chicago.

http://chicagoreporter.com/series/empty-schools-empty-promises/

Click to learn more about Chicago’s history of school segregation, view an interactive map tracking the status of each closed school, updates and more.

[chicagoreporter]

“Just because you’re incarcerated doesn’t mean you lose your right to vote.”

For the first time in nearly a decade, eligible inmates at Cook County Jail were allowed to vote in person and submit their ballots to election officials rather than mail them in. Advocates and volunteers spearheaded efforts to set up polling places at the jail earlier this year—in the gym for women, and in a chapel for men in maximum security.

In Illinois, inmates awaiting trial have the right to vote, but ambiguous state law means their ability to do so varies widely between jails. This disproportionately disenfranchises poor blacks and Latinos, who are incarcerated at higher rates and are more likely to be unable to afford bail while they wait for their court date.

See our full investigation on this overlooked voting rights issue at:

http://chicagoreporter.com/ability-to-vote-compromised-for-thousands-behind-bars/

[chicagoreporter]

“Because it’s really our generation who’s suffering. And a lot of times the media, they cover the crying mother, the crying father but somebody just lost their best friend and that person they spend time with every day.” - Morgan Elise Johnson, co-creator of Another Life

A new web series by The Triibe takes an intimate look at an aspect of gun violence not often discussed: the trauma of those who lose loved ones to shootings. Another Life follows three young Chicagoans in the aftermath of gun violence as they navigate mental health struggles and try to make a difference. 

Watch the episodes, which combine documentary and poetry, and learn more at:

http://chicagoreporter.com/another-life-docu-series-portrays-the-trauma-of-gun-violence/

[chicagoreporter]

Hundreds gathered at 63rd Street Beach to celebrate the 50th anniversary of Kelan Phil Cohran's "On the Beach" concert series on Sunday July 9, 2017. Cohran, the influential South Side musician and educator, passed away last month at age 90. Cohran's children and grandchildren paid tribute to him on stage, as did performers that included ACM Great Black Music Ensemble, Nicole Mitchell, storyteller Oba William King, and the Hypnotic Brass Ensemble (several of whose members are Cohran's sons).

(Photos by Max Herman) 

[chicagoreporter]

In a joint investigation with CBS 2,  we found that the Chicago Police Department has the weakest oversight in the country of officers working second jobs as private security guards, and the consequences can be both deadly and costly to taxpayers.

Read the investigation:

http://chicagoreporter.com/when-chicago-cops-moonlight-no-one-is-watching/

CBS 2 news segment: http://bit.ly/2qKtw2e

[chicagoreporter]

A majority of Chicago schools with sizable bilingual programs are violating state law and pushing aside the educational needs of tens of thousands mostly low-income children of color whose native language is not English.

Our new investigation details the neglect facing this growing share of CPS students.

Get the full story: http://bit.ly/2uhiv6G

En español: http://bit.ly/2tot9Mj

[chicagoreporter]

A crowd of around 200 people gathered in Chicago's Federal Plaza on Thursday, June 22, 2017, in honor of Nabra Hassanen, a Muslim teenager who was murdered while out with her friends near her mosque in Virginia during the Islamic holy month of Ramadan. Attendees wrote messages to her family and Muslims worldwide on an illustration of Hassanen, and speakers called for an end to violent anti-Muslim rhetoric. It was one of many vigils to take place across the country last week for the slain teen. (Photos by Theresa Campagna)

[chicagoreporter]

For the second time in her life, Joyce Edwards may be displaced from her home due to an infrastructure project on the South Side. Norfolk Southern is using eminent domain to acquire the last remaining holdouts in the path of their $285 million rail yard expansion.

Read the full story:

http://chicagoreporter.com/rail-yard-expansion-in-englewood-raises-questions-of-eminent-domains-scope/

Reporter La Risa Lynch discusses the story on @wbez​: http://bit.ly/2momt95  

[chicagoreporter]

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Betsy DeVos, President Donald Trump’s pick for education secretary, gained senate committee approval by one vote today. Her nomination now heads to the full Senate, where she’ll need to win a simple majority of votes to be confirmed. Today, a group of Chicago parents and community members delivered letters to Illinois Senators Dick Durbin and Tammy Duckworth, urging them to vote against DeVos, chanting, “Church and state, separate!” and ““Hey Betsy, go away! Public schools are here to stay!” The group opposes DeVos, a proponent of charter schools, as a threat to public education and feel that her support of religious schools threaten the separation of church and state. (Mobile video by @janereports) (at Flamingo (sculpture))

[chicagoreporter]

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#Live: More footage of the growing protest outside O'Hare International Airport protesting President Donald Trump's immigration and refugee bans. The crowd chants, "DHS, let's be clear! Refugees are welcome here!" and "Whose streets? Our streets!" (Mobile video by @maxhermanphoto) (at Chicago O'Hare Airport Terminal 5)

[chicagoreporter]

See ALL of our best photos from a weekend of post-inauguration protests in Chicago at:

http://chicagoreporter.com/photos-womens-march-and-anti-trump-protests-in-chicago-draw-huge-crowds/

Above, participants in #WomensMarchChi gather in front of Trump Tower after a massive rally in Grant Park. Organizers estimate that over a quarter million attended the mass demonstration Chicago, making it among the largest of hundreds of women’s marches to take place around the world on Jan. 21, 2017. (at Trump International Hotel & Tower Chicago)

(Photos by Max Herman)

[chicagoreporter]

Hundreds marched in downtown Chicago on the evening of Sunday, August 7, 2016, demanding justice for Paul O’Neal and other victims of police brutality. Video footage of events surrounding the July 28 police shooting of the black teenager was released online last Friday. The protest, organized by BLMChiYouth, began in Wrigley Square, an continued throughout the Loop, Magnificent Mile, and River North. Bar patrons in River North chanted, “Blue lives matter” as protesters marched by. 

(Photos by Max Herman)

[chicagoreporter]

Over 1,000 community members retraced a half-mile portion of Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.'s 1966 march for fair housing to Marquette Park, which King had dubbed "the first step on a 1,000 mile journey.” His group was infamously met by a much larger mob of counter-protesters from the then all-white Chicago Lawn neighborhood and violence broke out. King himself was struck in the head by a rock and reportedly told journalists that day, “I have never seen, even in Mississippi and Alabama, mobs as hostile and as hate-filled as I've seen in Chicago.”

The commemorative march on Saturday, August 6, 2016, drew community leaders including Rev. Jesse Jackson, who participated in the original 1966 campaign for fair housing with King, Father Michael Pfleger, State Rep. Mary Flowers, Cook County Commissioner Jesus Chuy Garcia, and more.  The event gave way to a rally and Takin’ it to the Streets, an all-day music festival in Marquette Park organized by the Inner-city Muslim Action Network.

(Photos by Max Herman)