The YWCA: We Are on a Mission
Since opening on campus in 1884 as a women’s residence hall, the YWCA of the University of Illinois has served as an organization on a mission to promote peace, justice, freedom and dignity for all. We...
View ArticleUI Bans “War Chant”
On February 21, 2007 the University of Illinois got rid of the Chief Illiniwek mascot. On August 24, 2017 they got rid of the “war chant.” The “war chant,” separate from but related to the so-called...
View ArticleStream some Laughs: Four Political Comedies from Mexico, Spain, and Puerto Rico
Subtitles don’t bite. Turn them on, if you need, and check out a superb satire from Mexican director Luis Estrada, The Perfect Dictatorship (La Dictadura Perfecta, 2014), streaming on Netflix. Prepare...
View Article“You’re Still in Jail”: How Electronic Monitoring Is a Shackle on the...
By James Kilgore Despite the “law and order” vows of Attorney General Jeff Sessions, states and counties continue to take steps to reduce prison and jail populations. In August, Cook County initiated a...
View ArticleNew Bill Takes Effect Cutting Cost of Calls from Illinois Prisons
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE January 8, 2018 FOR MORE INFORMATION: Brian Dolinar, Program Director, Independent Media Center, (217) 621-5827, briandolinar@ucimc.org The Urbana-Champaign Independent Media...
View ArticleARTIST SPOTLIGHT: Nika Lucks
Caption for first photo is Local Photographer, Nika Lucks , second caption is “Inspiration” by Nika A column curated by staff of the Urbana Public Arts Program Nika Lucks is a local photographer...
View ArticleWomen and the Environment
By Jacquelyn Potter, Sierra Club Prairie Group About a month ago I had the “great” idea to write an article in honor of Women’s History Month about women in the environmental movement. I soon realized...
View ArticleIs Chancellor Jones in the ‘Sunken Place’?
by Kurtis ‘Sunny’ Ture Kurtis ‘Sunny’ Ture is a music producer, organizer, and graduate student at UIUC. As a founding member of Black Students for Revolution and the Speak Truth Collective, Sunny...
View ArticleAbused: Working Women Face Widespread Harassment and Violence
By Pat Simpson Pat Simpson, Emerita Professor, Loyola University, formerly taught in the Labor Education Program, UIUC. A longtime labor and social justice activist, she is currently a member of the...
View ArticleThe Alt-Right Comes to Town
by David Prochaska TARIQ KHAN INCIDENT Last November 16, on the one-year anniversary of Donald Trump’s election, Tariq Khan, a 39-year-old Ph.D. student in history, was just finishing speaking at a...
View ArticleHistory Matters: Remembering Two “Dangerous” Labor Union Women
By Stephanie Fortado Dr. Stephanie Seawell Fortado is a Lecturer at the University of Illinois Labor Education Program, providing workshops and extension programming for unions and the general public...
View ArticleStudent Coalition Protests Gun Violence
By Annemily Hoganson, Anya Kaplan-Hartnett, Victoria Kindratenko and Emma Lowenstein. Left to right: Annemily Hoganson is a junior at Uni High and an organizer of the CU-March For Our Lives. Anya...
View ArticlePolice Gun Violence: An Epidemic in America
By Salma El-Naggar Salma El-Naggar is a sophomore at Uni High and a member of the student organization team for the local walkout and other social justice even In the light of the recent Florida school...
View ArticleTrump Pardons Jack Johnson
On May 24, 2018, President Donald Trump officially signed a posthumous pardon for heavyweight boxer Jack Johnson. As a radical and a sports fan, it was a surreal moment on a number of levels. But to...
View ArticleAn Exciting Change in Children’s Literature Book Awards!
Back in February of 2018, I was astonished and excited when I learned that the American Library Association’s Association for Library Service to Children (ALSC) was taking a look at the names of its...
View ArticleTrustee Trip
This past spring, two U of I Trustees set out on a secret mission to solve the seemingly endless Chief Illiniwek problem once and for all. And they did it. But I doubt they’re happy with the result....
View Article1968 – Not Really So Long Ago or Far Away
“I want kids to see that it wasn’t just Martin Luther King making things happen in the 1960s, it was local folks here as well. Just as it is today.” Katie Snyder, Education Program Specialist, Museum...
View ArticleA Muslim on the Inside
“Praise the Gods, Martin Luther King is dead.” Monroe Haynes was an 18-year-old in Vietnam fighting a war he did not understand, with people he did not know, when he heard his commander proclaim this...
View ArticleMayor Harold Washington: Champion of Race and Reform in Chicago
If you’ve read Robert Caro’s biographies of Lyndon Johnson, you know what it’s like to be kidnapped by a historian who’s also a great story teller. The reading lamp burns late. I’ve just finished a new...
View ArticleWomen Workers on the March: UNITE HERE Hotel Workers Strike
Currently women workers are leading the march of labor in this country. Although it is lost amid the headlines of the #MeToo movement, this movement’s call for an end to sexual harassment and assault...
View Article