The Chicago Wildfire: Chicago’s Professional Ultimate Frisbee Team
By Nick Mantas Medill Reports Chicago has a professional ultimate Frisbee team, the Chicago Wildfire. Professional Ultimate Frisbee is played within the American Ultimate Disc League (AUDL), comprised of teams all across the country including three Canadian teams. With a large youth movement of the sport in the Chicago suburbs, the Wildfire is reaching out to all […]
Pan-Womanist organization FURIE supports collective resistance with self-defense classes
By Natalya Carrico Medill Reports FURIE (Feminist Uprising to Resist Inequality and Exploitation) is a grassroots, Pan-Womanist organization from Chicago. In July 2017, FURIE began weekly women’s self-defense classes in Humboldt Park, which have now moved to a performing arts space, Voice of the City, in Logan Square.
Chicago Pastor Bruce Ray called to a ‘disruptive’ mission
Yingxu Jane Hao The Rev. Bruce Ray never planned to become a pastor. Son of a Kentucky pastor in a small town in northwestern Illinois, Ray longed to become a writer. So he went to the University of Iowa to study English with an emphasis in creative writing and a minor in social work. Though his life […]
West Side organizations empower a new generation of media makers
By Marisa Endicott Recently, Channing Dungey was named head of ABC entertainment, making her the first African-American president of a major network. But the appointment highlights the continued lack of diversity in mainstream media. This inequity is just as pervasive in the news media. Minorities accounted for 12.75 percent of the workforce at daily newspapers in […]
Englewood comeback proves ingenuity is homegrown
By Rebekah Frumkin With Englewood set to welcome a Whole Foods on 63rd and Halsted and an adjacent Starbucks this year, the South Side neighborhood is battling stereotypes that it’s an unlikely choice for expansion. “It was almost a national joke, Whole Foods coming into Englewood,” says Jim Harbin, program director at the Greater Englewood […]
An unconventional approach to Chicago’s misunderstood gun violence
By Marisa Endicott January saw its highest death toll from gun violence since 2000 in Chicago this year. There have been over 416 shootings in 2016 to date, 32 of them over this past weekend. The numbers highlight the deep roots of gun violence in Chicago and the city’s inability to combat the problem. While overall crime […]
Chicago festival celebrates hip-hop arts’ positive impact
By Marisa Endicott Some might claim that “hip-hop is dead,” but the 7th Annual Winter Block Party for Chicago’s Hip Hop Arts this Saturday suggested otherwise. “If you go to the spaces, if you go to the open mics, it is alive and well,” said Damon Williams, a performer and activist emceeing for the event. […]
Police superintendent selection process gets underway
By Iacopo Luzi Fewer candidates have applied to become Chicago’s next police superintendent than in 2011, the last time the city got a new top cop. By last Friday’s deadline, 39 people had submitted their application to the Chicago Police Board, the independent body that will select finalists for the job and submit those names […]
Going door-to-door: protecting Albany Park residents against immigration raids
By Marisa Endicott Almost 70 people chose to spend Saturday’s wet and dreary afternoon walking door-to-door in Chicago’s Albany Park neighborhood. Volunteers turned out in response to the deportation campaign launched by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) that targets recent Central American immigrants with deportation orders. Organized Communities Against Deportations (OCAD) held the door-knocking campaign […]
