Fall 2024 Newsletter
Welcome to the Chicago Alliance newsletter! Here you'll find updates on all of the work we have going out in the field with our campaigns.
SUPPORT THE CHICAGO ALLIANCE!
Thank you to everyone who attended and donated at our September 12 fundraising event at the California Clipper!
The work of the Alliance would not be possible without the support of our friends and allies. Consider becoming a monthly donor at just $10 a month to help us keep our lights on and continue to be able to fight for a better world:
The Referendum for Community Power Over Policing
Our fight around the referendum for Community Power Over Policing is just heating up. If you're not familiar with the contents of the referendum, you can read about it here.
To get this referendum passed, we need to first pass the ordinance through City Council that will put it on the ballot and then move voters across Chicago to vote yes on this referendum when they go to the polls in the March 2026 elections. We remain in the City Council stage of that fight, and we faced a difficult vote in the Rules Committee this past month where we lost by a hefty margin, but we're just getting started. And we're hitting the community every weekend to get the word out about the referendum and encourage residents to pressure their alderperson to vote in favor of putting it on the ballot.
We know it's our mass movement, and the direct pressure from residents, that will get these things passed. If you'd like to get involved in field operations, you can contact Frank Chapman at 312-513-3795, and we ask everyone who supports the fight for community control of the police to join us in applying pressure to your alderperson.
You can find information on how to contact your alderperson and what to say in our toolkit at bit.ly/CPOPtoolkit
March on the DNC
The March on the DNC was a huge success! Between the coalition’s turnout on Monday and Thursday and the Coalition for Justice in Palestine’s turnout on Wednesday, 39,000 people marched within sight and sound of the DNC for Palestine to demand an end to the genocide and an end to all US aid to Israel.
In the lead-up to the march, our coalition faced stiff resistance from the powers that be in the City Law Department, CPD, and the federal agencies. First, these powers sought to severely limit our right to protest within sight and sound of the United Center. But fortunately, due to our legal pressure and mass mobilizations in the lead up to the march, we were able to pressure the city into conceding us a march route within sight and sound of the DNC. Second, in the final week before the march, those same powers attempted to last-minute revoke our access to a stage, amplified sound, and port-a-potties. We knew that they were going to such lengths because of the content of our protest – they didn’t like that we were protesting the genocide. Here, we continued to exert pressure, and the powers that be eventually folded and gave us our stage, amplified sound, and port-a-potties.
Our experience during this March on the DNC period showed us that we have to fight for everything we get, and fight we did. Since the march, we have continued to stand in unconditional solidarity with our Palestinian comrades in USPCN and CJP as they continue their fight to end all US aid to Israel.
So what’s next? In the aftermath of the march, we’re hosting a panel, “What’s Next After the March on the DNC.” It will take place on Friday, October 18 at 6 PM at UIC, 750 S Halsted, Room 301, with speakers from a multitude of different organizations, including CAARPR, USPCN, SJP Chicago, and more, as they talk about how we’re moving the movement forward after our historic march this summer. Join us!
The Campaign to Free the Incarcerated Survivors of Police Torture (CFIST)
Having closed out another Hot Freedom Summer, the CFIST Committee is looking back on a tremendous amount of work accomplished. This year, States Attorney Kim Foxx announced that she would not be seeking reelection. This was a big deal for the CFIST Committee because the States Attorney's office has been amenable to the movement against wrongful convictions and police torture under her direction. Since taking office in 2016, Foxx has led her office to vacate over 300 wrongful convictions in Cook County, as she promised to do in her campaign. We don't know who will replace her yet but we know the two viable candidates have no intention of keeping the pace that Foxx's office has set, and in fact, it's more likely that they will attempt to undo the work that she and the broader movement have done. Therefore, her decision to step down sparked great urgency in the CFIST Committee because we want to free as many more wrongfully convicted people as we can before she leaves office. We want to help build as strong a movement as possible in these next few months in order to be able to continue and intensify this struggle after she leaves, regardless of who replaces her.
With that in mind, we decided to make our urgency felt in the form of a demonstration outside of her office on August 7th, at the height of CAARPR's involvement in the March on DNC Coalition planning. With great effort, we pulled together a coalition of organizations in the wrongful conviction movement, including MAMAS, Chicago Torture Justice Center, SOUL, and the Nicholas Lee Foundation to help mobilize the Black and brown community most affected by wrongful convictions and police torture. On top of that, a number of organizations from the March on DNC Coalition endorsed and helped mobilize various peoples movements such as the Palestinian liberation movement and the anti-war movement in order to maximize our community participation and to make clear the connections between mass incarceration here and US militarism abroad. It was a powerful event with an excellent weekday turnout, and our message was heard loud and clear throughout the States Attorney's office downtown.
Afterwards, we immediately began planning a second rally which we just had on September 30th. This second rally drew an even larger crowd and more media attention to which Kim Foxx responded publicly making it clear that she feels the heat. She feels the pressure but we want her to act so we will continue to build more pressure, because, as our Co-Chair Jasmine Smith always says "Pressure busts pipes!"
A perfect example of this is the movement’s recent victory in the case of Kevin Jackson. Jackson, a wrongful conviction survivor of disgraced CPD Sgt. Brian P. Forberg, was denied his freedom this summer when corrupt Judge Angela M. Petrone denied his unopposed motion to vacate, despite the States Attorney's Office refusing to prosecute him further. Fortunately, the Appellate Court, just one day after hearing oral arguments between the state and the defense, ordered Petrone to immediately free Jackson while they finalize their decision on whether he will receive a full reversal and or retrial. So, a hearing was set for Monday, October 7, 2024 to determine the conditions of Mr. Jackson’s release!
It must be said however, that Petrone has done this exact thing many times before ie denying unopposed motions to vacate, likely knowing that her decisions will be overturned by the Appellate court. It is our position that she is a racist defender of the injustice system that has tormented Black and brown people for too long in Chicago, and that she sees our movement as an attack on her life's work. She must be immediately removed from the bench. She represents the system that we must dismantle brick by brick, and by getting Kevin Jackson out, the movement has knocked down a whole wall that many others may now climb through. Join us as we build our strength for another Hot Freedom Winter!
long live anthony gay! Justice for anthony Gay!
The National Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression dips our banners in honor of freedom fighter Anthony Gay, who passed away on August 17th. We send our condolences to his family and broad community of supporters who are feeling the weight of this enormous loss. Anthony made history by connecting his personal fight to a broader struggle against the system of racist tyranny that keeps so many oppressed people controlled and confined. He survived 22 years in solitary confinement, under the iron heel of police repression and mass incarceration. While enduring that torture, Anthony transformed himself into a freedom fighter. And when he got out, he broadened his fight to change not only his own personal conditions, but to change the way this system is allowed to operate. That fight continues.
It is because of the advocacy he engaged in, fighting to pass the Isolated Confinement Restriction Act, that he was then targeted by the Rock Island Police, pinned with a false gun charge, and sent to federal prison for 7 years. It is because of this wrongful incarceration in retaliation for his organizing that he did not receive the medical treatment he needed when he was diagnosed with cancer. While his family and the movement continued to press for the federal Bureau of Prisons to provide information and provide him adequate treatment, they hid information and demonstrated neglect of his medical needs. Anthony’s death lies squarely at the feet of the Bureau of Prisons and of this racist system that has been trying to silence and control him since he was a teenager.
Beyond his tireless activism, Anthony was a one of a kind person, who cared for everyone he came across, looked out for the most vulnerable, spread light to others, and would drop everything for those who needed a hand. His story reached from news channels to children’s classrooms, from Rock Island, IL to California, Iowa, Florida, and even countries around the world. He brought out the skills in anyone and showed them how to use them to serve the people, and managed to continue cultivating his relationships even while he was locked up. The movement in Chicago and all of Illinois will never be the same without him, and he should be here with us today.
We must and we will carry on the struggle to end the use of solitary confinement in his memory and carry on the fight against the system that enabled his death. We must do this with the love for the people and each other that Anthony showed us in our hearts and the understanding of the brutality of this racist system that he shared in our minds.
Long Live Anthony Gay! Justice for Anthony Gay!
justice for murod! justice for hadi!
Since the July 2022 assault of teenager Hadi Abuatelah by three officers in the Oak Lawn Police Department, we have joined our Arab American Action Network siblings in shutting down every monthly meeting of the Oak Lawn Police and Fire Commission. A year later, Murod Kurdi was murdered by drunk driver Leanne Cusack and the OLPD let Cusack go with a ticket. These two police crimes show a clear pattern of racism against Arabs by OLPD, and we stand in solidarity with AAAN and the family of Murod Kurdi in demanding an independent investigation into OLPD alongside the conviction of all three officers who assaulted Hadi.
For the past two years we have used a variety of tactics to disrupt the Oak Lawn commission meetings. This pressure resulted in the indictment of Pat O’ Donnell, one of the officers who beat Hadi. On October 2nd, we joined the monthly rally outside the Oak Lawn Police and Fire Commission meeting at 9446 Raymond Ave at 5pm. We shut the meeting down with public comments and chants, and we plan to do the same at their next meeting on November 6th. This pressure campaign, much like the fight for justice for Laquan Mcdonald, will take consistent, sustained mass pressure. We will continue to show up in solidarity with our Arab siblings the same way they have consistently supported our struggles.
