When then-Chicago police officer Jason Van Dyke killed Laquan McDonald in 2014, the fallout prompted then-Illinois attorney general Lisa Madigan to ask the U.S. Department of Justice to launch an investigation of the police department’s use of force. That investigation, the results of which were released in 2017, found “CPD officers engage in a pattern […]
Tag: George Floyd
Posted inColumns & Opinion
Op-Ed: The right (to a) call
A new consent decree is a victory against CPD abuse years in the making.
Posted inCity of Win
Shifting priorities
How parenthood and the 2020 uprisings impacted Tiara Déshané’s approach to music
Posted inNews
Central Camera Co. stays focused
The century-old camera store has weathered a fire, a flood, and COVID-19.
Posted inNews & Politics
Brutal and beautiful summer
Three stories from the front lines of the 2020 protests, when the bridges went up and the statues came down
Posted inFilm
Documenting the front lines of social change
Capturing social justice movements and amplifying voices of change are at the core of Soft Cage Films.
Posted inMusic
Showcasing gig posters in a year short on gigs
The Reader got creative to find ways to keep uplifting Chicago gig-poster artists in 2020.
Posted inMusic
Adam Gogola, front man of Blind Adam & the Federal League
“When you look around your community, it’s easy to help the people around you. And once you start doing that, it’s easier to understand how we can effect change.”
Posted inMusic
Femdot pauses his rap career to help feed Chicago
Femdot’s nonprofit, Delacreme Scholars, has run the Scholars Slide By to deliver groceries to hundreds of people in need this summer.
Posted inNews & Politics
‘This is a moment of empowerment’: An oral history of the People’s Grab-N-Go
A retrospective look at the weekly Black-led food distribution program outside Burke Elementary.
Posted inNews & Politics
The Chicago police union is trying to put its members on the state’s torture inquiry commission
Two bills introduced in the state legislature are “a smack in the face,” says one torture survivor.
Posted inMusic
Chicago music mastermind Nnamdï reflects our absurd world with the gorgeously strange Krazy Karl
Our country has always privileged the powerful—a group that, historically and presently, has consisted almost exclusively of straight white men. Since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, they’ve only intensified their avaricious push to feed the rest of us into the grinder in order to prop up a broken, inhumane economic system. It can feel […]
Posted inMusic
Sault’s Untitled (Black Is) is the soundtrack for the 2020 revolution
Sault are an anonymous UK trio who create music grounded in the tenets of Black rights and Black freedom, and there’s never been a better time than now to hear their message. Last year they put out their debut album, 5, and an almost immediate follow-up, 7, and this summer they released their third record, […]
Posted inNews & Politics
Most of the people arrested at the protests were Black
An analysis of 2,172 detainments raises questions about CPD claims of equitable policing practices.
Posted inColumns & Opinion
Cops in schools
For years the schools of Chicago have been pawns in the mayor’s budget games.