Commemorating Chicago’s Red Summer of 1919
Photos of key sites and commemorative events on the 100th anniversary of Eugene Williams's murder.
The Future of Local News in Youngstown
What the closing of the city's only daily paper means for people in the community.
How Poverty Found a Home in the Chicago Suburbs
The changing geography of poverty in Illinois and across the country.
Protesting ICE Immigration Raids in Chicago
Thousands gathered in Chicago's Daley Plaza to protest migrant imprisonment and planned ICE raids in major U.S. cities.
The Enduring Legacy of the 2010 Kalamazoo River Oil Spill
Nearly a decade after one of the largest inland oil spills in U.S. history, the landscape has changed.
The Rippling Effect of Baron Walker
In 2015, a study found Milwaukee's 53206 ZIP code imprisoned sixty-two percent of Black men under the age of thirty-four. Baron Walker was one of them.
“Out of the Closets and Into the Streets”
Queer Midwestern communities were politically active in the pivotal years leading up to Stonewall.
Gambling on Hemp
Illinois began accepting applications to grow industrial hemp at the end of April. But the first legal crop in more than eighty years is accompanied by a lot of uncertainty.
Tying the Green New Deal to Environmental Justice in Chicago
The youth-led national Sunrise Movement made a case to local organizers.
A Complicated Heritage of Coal
In southern Illinois, one community’s complex relationship with the industry on display.
Inside the St. Louis Rent Strike of 1969
“It touched everybody all over the country who lived in public housing.” [From "The St. Louis Anthology"]
Oral Histories of the 1969 Cuyahoga River Fire
The events of June 1969 have come to define both Cleveland and the river. Some Clevelanders have a different story.