Category: Chicago Reporter, The

American Indians leave Uptown behind – Native Land – Chicago neighbourhood Stephanie Williams Marilyn Miller was 12 when she and her family arrived in Chicago’s Uptown neighborhood during the hot and muggy summer of 1967. Looking for better job opportunities, they moved from the Lac du Flambeau Chippewa reservation in northern Wisconsin under a federal […]

Never-ending cycle: Illinois’ reliance on property taxes as the major source of school funding has major consequences for communities throughout the state Jeff Kelly Lowenstein On Bradley Road in north suburban Lake Forest, cars and trucks rumble off of Interstate 94 and into one of the five industrial parks and large office buildings that stand […]

Bouncing back: Evelyn Purdis remembers getting turned down for jobs because she lived in public housing. Now she runs her own business – New Voices Hiroko Abe When Evelyn Purdis wanted her own home in the 1970s, she felt it was impossible for her, as a young black woman and a public housing resident, to […]

The poor play more – lotteries Leah Samuel Contributing: Rupa Shenoy. Shawn Allee, Dominick Basta, Jocelyn Prince and Julia Steinberger helped research this article. It’s just minutes before the televised noon lottery drawing, and hurried, last-minute players are lining up inside 115th St. Food & Liquor on Chicago’s South Side. One of them is 60-year-old […]

Expanding Chicago’s public square Ben Aaronson “You don’t have to be Kissinger to know that bombing people in Iraq is wrong,” insisted Mary Rickard, drawing several groans of disagreement from the strangers she was addressing. Rickard, a 50-year-old public relations and marketing consultant from Logan Square, spoke recently at a weekly discussion series that attempts […]

Minority faculty finish last on tenure track Rupa Shenoy Behind binoculars, Valerie C. Johnson cried. She watched from a car across the street on a cold day last February as her students, bundled in winter coats, shouted, marched and waved banners that read “Tenure Professor Johnson” on the University of Illinois at Chicago’s campus. Eight […]

CHA seals records on relocation – 2002 in Review Brian J. Rogal City officials have always said the 10-year Plan for Transformation is about more than knocking down old high-rises: The lives of tens of thousands of Chicago Housing Authority residents, mostly low-income African American women and children, should be transformed while the agency cuts […]

Tortilla flap – New Voices Sarah Karp Frustrated with their boss, most of the 90 workers at Azteca Foods walked out of the tortilla factory at 5005 S. Nagie Ave. Two months ago and have not returned. The workers say they got the courage to strike after changing unions this past spring. The United Electrical […]

Asian community ‘Mentor’ fights for fairness—and builds clout Stephanie Williams Sandra Otaka wasn’t going to leave anything to chance. It was March 19, the day of the Illinois primary election, and she was running for Cook County judge against six other candidates. Otaka had already been serving as a judge for nearly two years, since […]

‘Crack Babies’: Black Children Defy Stereotypes, Face Bias – the tragedy of ‘crack babies’ Sarah Karp Britney is a playful little girl. By midmorning 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 […]