ike many students across Illinois, Phillip Hartsfield is about to complete his undergraduate degree in the midst of a global pandemic. And like many other students, Hartsfield, who has concentrated in the fields of law, psychology, and sociology, learned how to complete his classwork under less than optimal conditions in 2020. He has written analytical […]
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Posted inNotes
CPD’s abuse of Black women caught on camera
Vaccination As we were putting out our last issue before the holiday break, the first COVID-19 vaccine was still awaiting approval by the FDA. Now, in the first week of January, two vaccines named Pfizer and Moderna (for the labs where they were created) are undergoing distribution by the Illinois Department of Public Health—but the […]
Posted inCover
The Unsolved Cases of Missing and Murdered Women
homas Hargrove, a retired investigative journalist, felt something was suspicious as he analyzed Chicago homicide data in late 2014. He identified several eerie patterns among a cluster of fifty-one unsolved female homicides: most of the victims had been sex workers or drug users, ninety-three percent of the murders occurred outdoors or in abandoned buildings, the […]
Posted incoronavirus/COVID-19
As Remote Learning Continues, Reopening Plans Remain a Concern
t around 7:30am each weekday morning, John Siangho helps his son—a second-grade CPS student at the Regional Gifted Center through Carnegie Elementary in Woodlawn—get ready for another day of remote learning. The two of them wash up, chat during breakfast, and at 8:30am, fifteen minutes before class officially begins, Siangho’s son goes to his desk, […]
Posted inFood
Plant Chicago Connects Link Card Holders to Local Farms
“I’m more conscious when I go to the store,” said Sheila Jones, in describing how Plant Chicago’s Link Box program has supported her and shifted her perspective during COVID-19. “I’m more conscious about what I’m picking up–where it’s coming from. … I’m just more aware of helping out the community,” The Link Produce Box program […]
Posted inCover
The New Southwest Side: Young, Latinx, and Ready to Take the Reins
n the spring of 2018, lifelong Gage Park resident Samantha Martínez was finishing up undergrad at Roosevelt University when she started to think about her next steps. “There was the expectation of having to leave Gage Park in order to ‘make it’ in Chicago, and we didn’t want that,” Martínez says. Her twin sister Katia […]
Posted inHousing
Lights Out
Arlanta Shelley was grocery shopping on a Friday morning in October when she got a call from her oldest son, who is nineteen and lives with schizophrenia. He had been at home playing video games until the screen went dark. “I thought maybe it was due to a mistake or something else could have went […]
Posted inLatest
Black Artists on the South and West Sides Show Resilience in Battle with Challenges Created by the Pandemic
ast summer, restorative justice clothing brand store TRAP House Chicago, in East Chatham, was full of musicians, poets and rappers. If there were any strangers at the monthly spoken word event no one would’ve known. Known simply as “People Say,” the event felt like a family gathering for the creative community on the South Side: […]
Posted inUrban planning
There’s an Uptick in Street Overdoses During the Pandemic
atonia Easter, forty-six, waits in line to receive food and harm reduction supplies provided by a Chicago Recovery Alliance (CRA) truck parked at the corner of 68th and South Halsted. Easter has been homeless for more than ten years and struggles with chronic opioid use. The coronavirus pandemic has only reinforced her reluctance to seek […]
Posted inViolence
An End to Cash Bond in Illinois is Only the Beginning of Restorative Justice
ast month, state Senator Robert Peters and Representative Justin Slaughter announced a bill known as the Pretrial Fairness Act that, if passed, would make Illinois the second state to end the use of money bonds after New Jersey. In Cook County, where about a quarter of the county’s detainees are kept incarcerated because they cannot […]