2019 starts with some important West Peoria meetings. Neighborhood Watch will meet 6 p.m. Wednesday, Jan. 9 in City Hall. Speaker to be announced. Begin 2019 with participation in your community. Plan on attending and bring a neighbor or friend…
Peoria Women’s March/Rally to be held Saturday Jan. 19
Peoria’s Women’s Rally/March, in conjunction with the national event, is scheduled for 11 a.m. Saturday Jan. 19 at the Gateway Building Park in downtown Peoria. The Peoria event will include speeches, music and more. The mission of Women’s March is…
Labor Roundup | January 2019
Senators to Verizon, subcontractor: End pregnancy discrimination. Nine U.S. Senators, led by Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts and Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut, have demanded that Verizon and the subcontractor running its Memphis warehouse, XPO Logistics, answer published details about unusually high…
Facts matter — first truth; then reconciliation; then justice
American history is shrouded in stereotypes and false accounts that cripple our ability to move forward and achieve a just and equitable society. In a recent survey, 92 percent of middle school children did not know slavery was a central…
At lynching memorial, steel columns rise and hang overhead like bodies
BY PAM ADAMS The new lynching memorial in Montgomery, Ala. is a prayer and a challenge. The memorial, officially the National Memorial for Peace and Justice, is the end of a public eulogy, in stone and steel, for the long-buried…
Reconcile history or repeat injustice
Montgomery is a city of contradictions. It is known as the Cradle of the Confederacy as well as the birthplace of the Civil Rights Movement that was born from the Montgomery Bus Boycott. The city has markers throughout the town…
Change the future by confronting the past
BY PAM ADAMS The average cost of an enslaved Black man in the 1800s was about $750. At $15,000 in today’s dollars, that’s not that much less than the average annual cost per inmate at many Illinois prisons. It’s a…
Unacknowledged at home — here hang the names of lynching victims from Lacon to Decatur to Lewistown
BY PAM ADAMS He was George Stewart or S.W. Stewart or another variation. The name changed from newspaper to newspaper. He may have been part Indian, according to the newspaper in Toluca where his alleged crime occurred. Several points are…
Lynching victims in Central Illinois
BY PAM ADAMS The Equal Justice Initiative documented 56 racial terror lynchings in Illinois, the third highest number among states outside the South. Listed here are some of the lynchings in Central Illinois. Andrew Richards, 9/11/1877, Winchester, Scott County Nelson…
“You all are my therapists.” People who care.
BY PAM ADAMS “At the site where you are standing, enslaved people were imprisoned with livestock, horses, pigs and cattle.” This is the Legacy Museum: From Enslavement to Mass Incarceration. The museum site shares a trendy, brick-paved alleyway of bars…
Modern-day evolution of lynching continues
Pam Adams and I arrived at the National Memorial for Peace and Justice on a cold, rainy day. We had a sense of urgency. This museum was the purpose of our trip from Peoria to Montgomery, Ala. On this sacred,…
To achieve justice, study injustice
Criminal justice reform
Michelle Alexander has called some uses of electronic ankle monitors the newest Jim Crow and “e-carceration.” The cost of some monitors can be $300 a month, and people ordered to wear a monitor can easily fall into arrears and face…
Toxins in our neighborhood
Five years ago, a fire at a fertilizer plant in West, Texas, resulted in an explosion that created a 93-foot crater; destroyed more than 150 buildings, including an apartment building and school; killed 15 people; and injured 160 others. In…
Views & Perspectives | 2018 elections year of women and record turnout
The 2018 elections set many new records. It appears the largest ever number of voters turned out in an off-year election when traditionally people do not vote. Nov. 6 election participation by eligible voters was 49.2 percent nationwide. This is…
Bill Knight | Dissent and protest in America
A 36-year-old history professor at Del Mar College in Corpus Christi, Texas, Dawson Barrett is a 2000 graduate of Illinois Valley Central High School in Chillicothe. He has a new book about recent history and an appreciation for his interest…
Straight Talk | Post election thoughts
The elections are over … for most. After voters were submitted to countless ads in the media and way too many political interviews, the dust has settled. The winners are enjoying the fruits of their labors and the losers are…
Editorial | Ah … he’s adopted
Diversity training helps expand understanding. Journalism is foundational to democracy, but the craft is still evolving based on our levels of assessment and training in issues related to diversity. It used to seem OK to repeat a police description of…
Letter to the Editor | Call Congress to voice support
A vital piece of federal legislation, the permanent reauthorization of the Land and Water Conservation Fund, awaits final Congressional approval before legislators adjourn in December. It would authorize the full, permanent, dedicated funding of America’s most important conservation and recreation…
Letter to the Editor | Take a second look at Kavanaugh
The current administration is establishing itself in history for using the power of the executive branch to reverse progress made over the past 50 years toward implementing the values of equality and wisdom. Instead, we see threats to better U.S.…
Op-Ed | Blackmail by plea bargain
BY ELIIDA LAKOTA Chase Iron Eyes is a member of the Standing Rock Nation in North Dakota. He is an attorney, an Indian activist and a member of the Lakota People’s Law Project. He was a Democratic candidate who ran…