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October, 2007
Evette Henderson has spent six years trying to heal the wounds left by the physical and emotional abuse her sister's three children suffered as toddlers. As their foster mother and aunt, she desperately wants to continue to care for them. Hers is the only safe home they've known, she said.
Yet on Sept. 14 she spent six hours in Cook County Juvenile Court, Henderson said, haggling over the...
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October, 2007
Though few in number and far from wealthy, residents in small, predominantly black, south suburban Phoenix have a long and storied history of fighting to make sure their children get a quality education. And, while the central issue has changed from race to funding equity, the battle continues today.
More than 35 years ago, Phoenix parents and community members filed a lawsuit challenging...
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September, 2007
The men come out of lockup with their hands behind their backs, eyes staring at the ground, hair uncombed. The older prisoners, many struggling from days without heroin or crack, look especially worn and wanting.
At least once a month since October, 16-year-old T.J. has watched the procession of men while sitting on the hardwood benches at the Cook County Criminal Courts Building, 2600 S....
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September, 2007
On most nights, the flashing red lights of airplanes making their way to and from the city dot the sky above Bridgeview, a working-class suburb that lies just southwest of Midway Airport.
But on Sept. 11, after terrorists flew planes into the World Trade Center and Pentagon and crashed another in Pennsylvania, grounding all of the nation's aircraft, only a few stars shone silently above...
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September, 2007
Even though she worked hard and earned top grades in almost all her classes, Wendy Purham said her principal at Jean Baptiste Point DuSable High School gave up on her and made her feel her dream of becoming valedictorian was beyond reach. So did her guidance counselor, who didn't include her in trips to college campuses.
It would have been easy for Purham to give up on herself. When she...
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September, 2007
Britney is a playful little girl. By mid-morning one Thursday in early January, she had put her hot pink sweater and pink, polka-dot pants on inside out and backwards, covered her face with shaving cream and painted a sheet of paper completely blue, titling the picture "daddy."
She's also antsy. Sitting for a lesson is difficult. Her squirminess lands her wrapped in the teacher's lap...
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September, 2007
Under fluorescent lights in a sparsely decorated basement classroom on Chicago's Southeast Side, three women begin their day with an affirmation: "I am better every day, in every way." Their teacher, Juhnna Hardin, hopes the words will convince the women, who have been on state assistance for years, that they can leave the welfare rolls and make better lives for themselves.
A prospective...
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September, 2007
"Who she want?"
As soon as the woman saw the white Ford Taurus turn the corner at Marshfield Avenue and 61st Street, she stuck her head out of the second floor window and called down to her nephew Raphael. The woman didn't know that Parole Officer Cynthia Robinson was behind the wheel, but she recognized the car.
Raphael, a lanky teenager in a long white t-shirt who was already outside...
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September, 2007
He is a tall Pakistani man with dark brown skin and wavy black hair. When he speaks, it is in a shy, lilting English, his words ending before they are supposed to end. On a mid-February morning, he sat in the large, high-ceiling room on the top floor of the Dirksen courthouse downtown, where the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 7th Circuit convenes. He wore an olive suit and matching shoes and, as...
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