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September, 2007
On July 10, 1966, more than 30,000 people streamed into Soldier Field for a kick-off rally held by the Chicago Freedom Movement. It would be that year's largest civil rights demonstration.
After listening to gospel legend Mahalia Jackson, folk trio Peter, Paul and Mary, and a young Detroit talent named Stevie Wonder, the predominantly black crowd welcomed Martin Luther King Jr., the keynote...
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September, 2007
'They want to get us out of here," said Lisa Mayo. The 40-year-old mother of five was looking north from 47th Street toward one of the last high-rises at the Chicago Housing Authority's Robert Taylor Homes---the building she has lived in her entire life.
It is slated to be torn down this year, and, although replacement homes for the vanished buildings are going up right around the corner,...
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September, 2007
Sleet fell throughout the cold morning of Nov. 2, but the five guys handing out campaign literature outside St. Juliana school couldn't think of being anywhere else on Election Day. Pacing next to the walkway leading into the school, 7400 W. Touhy Ave. on Chicago's far Northwest Side, they tried to catch everyone headed inside to vote. They pressed three-inch-square sheets that said "PUNCH #49...
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September, 2007
One morning last year, Calvin R. Mitchell Sr. went to a local dollar discount store to buy a fan and beat the July heat in his small, stuffy Uptown studio apartment. On his way back home, two police officers stopped him.
One asked, "'You got a receipt for this fan?'" Mitchell recalled. Before he could get it out of his pocket, he said, one of the cops handcuffed him. Mitchell was taken to...
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September, 2007
When Algie Crivens III was released from prison in 1999, he thought his nearly decade-long nightmare had ended. After he was convicted of a 1989 murder, a judge sentenced Crivens to 20 years in prison. But, in 1999, a federal court ruled Cook County prosecutors had withheld evidence in his 1992 trial; Crivens was retried in 2000 and found not guilty. Former Gov. George H. Ryan later pardoned him...
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September, 2007
On a sweltering Sunday in July, the air-conditioned sanctuary echoed with foot stomping and hand clapping. It was a typical Sunday for worshippers at this Baptist church on Chicago's West Side: singing, sermons and praise dancing. But the pastor took the service on a tangent. "Our children deserve the highest quality education," piped the Rev. Marshall E. Hatch Sr. of New Mount Pilgrim Missionary...
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September, 2007
Mary Russell Gardner and her family have lived in the same west Austin house, in the 47th precinct of the 29th Ward, since 1985. Bounded by Ohio and Lake streets, the precinct stretches across nine blocks where kids play amid tall trees and well-kept grass islands. Many of the neighborhood's families have lived in their stately wood and brick homes for 20 or 30 years. Most know their next-door...
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September, 2007
Many people attend Chicago Police Board meetings, like this one held in April, seeking information about the department's investigations of excessive force complaints. (Photo by Christopher B. Santiago)
The Chicago Police Department has omitted the most vital part of a state-mandated report that could help reveal if it has any rogue cops.
After more than a decade of breaking the state law...
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September, 2007
In many Illinois towns and suburbs, the discovery of a child with lead poisoning means a swift response and plenty of help with cleaning up hazards.
In Chicago, though the inspectors usually come quickly, getting government money to clean up is difficult, if not impossible, an investigation by The Chicago Reporter and Chicago Parent has found.
Recent headlines have pointed to lead as a...
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