Chicago Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression

This year’s Human Rights Awards Dinner theme is “Uniting for Equal Justice and Power.” A buffet dinner will be served at 5:30 PM. and the program will begin at 7:00 PM.

View a Youtube video with Bill Fletcher:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GPaS_Q8HoRw

March 22, 2012 (updated 4/8/12)

The Murder of Trayvon Martin calls for Civilian Control of the Police

Like people throughout our country and the world we are shocked and outraged over the senseless, unwarranted and racially motivated murder of 17 year old Trayvon Martin. He wasn't doing anything but walking with a bag of Skittles and some iced tea when George Zimmerman murdered him for looking "suspicious." This is racial profiling in the extreme.

Police killings in Chicago at 40 times the rate of lynching during jim crow times

Police Killings nation-wide at four times that rate 

by Ted Pearson[i] 

Chicago, March 5, 2012

Between 1882 and 1968, a period 86 years 3,446 African Americans and 1,297 whites were lynched in the United States.[ii]  These were people who were killed, usually by hanging, often by hysterical by mobs of people who acted outside the law.  The perpetrators of these crimes were self-appointed judges, juries, and executioners.  73 per cent of the victims were African Americans.  The average rate of lynching was 55 people per year.

Cedric Cal was born to a single mother, in a family that lived below the poverty line on Chicago’s West Side. His father had left the family, married another woman and had very little to do with him. His mother Olivia worked constantly, doing her best to keep her family together. As the oldest of four, Cedric became the de facto father of the family and was entrusted with protecting his younger brother, who was legally blind.

I urgently appeal to Georgia Gov. Nathan Deal and to the members of the Georgia Board of Pardons and Parole – L. Gale Buckner, Robert E. Keller, James E. Donald, Albert Murray and Terry Barnard – to spare the life of Troy Davis, a young African American citizen of your state. 

Read More 

by Ted Pearson

So Jon Burge has been sentenced to 54 months in prison by U. S. District Court Judge Joan H. Lefkow.  That's four and a half years.  That's twice the sentence suggested in the federal guidelines for perjury.  In sentencing Burge Judge Lefkow noted the total lack of remorse by Burge for his crimes and his continued denial that he did anything wrong.  She expressed shock that Burge's attorneys justified what Burge did because the people he tortured were members of gangs and had been convicted of crimes, even though many were wrongfully convicted.  She excoriated the City of Chicago and Cook County for what she called a failure of leadership, observing that had Burge's supervisors and the Cook County State's Attorney taken steps to stop Burge early in the saga of his crimes, "we would not have come to this point."  The State's Attorney at the time was Chicago's outgoing Mayor of 22 years, Richard M. Daley.  Lefkow's statement in issuing the sentence against Burge was an indictment of the city's leadership. 

But let's keep some perspective on this.  Burge's 54 month sentence equates to 1643 days in prison.  That's 15 days for each man Burge and his detectives tortured.

The Steering Committee meets every 3rd Saturday of the month at 10:00 am in the Alliance office.

1325 S. Wabash Ave. Suite 105
Chicago, IL 60614

If you plan on attending please call 312-939-2750 to R.S.V.P. and to confirm meeting time and place.