The corporation that owns WMBD-TV 31 and WYZZ-TV 43 could become the largest local TV station owner in the country if its proposed acquisition of Tribune Media is approved by the Federal Communications Commission. Texas-based Nexstar Media Group on Dec.…
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Peoria literary magazine, Downstate Story, out with new 2018 volume
by Community Word Staff • • Comments Off on Peoria literary magazine, Downstate Story, out with new 2018 volume
Ten new short stories by Illinois and Midwestern writers are featured in the 2018 edition of Downstate Story, Peoria’s only literary magazine for fiction. Downstate Story is now published exclusively online at www.downstatestory.com. Writers in this issue are David Seaman,…
NOW: Best and worst of 2018
by Community Word Staff • • Comments Off on NOW: Best and worst of 2018
The National Organization for Women has led the fight for equal rights for decades. The organization released this list for the worst offenders and top victories in 2018: Worst offenders of women’s rights Betsy DeVos, Secretary of Education, for her…
Science Brief | “Genetically Modified Children”
by Community Word Staff • • Comments Off on Science Brief | “Genetically Modified Children”
In this horrifying documentary, writer and director Juliette Igier travels around Argentina meeting families in agricultural communities whose lives have been upended by a sudden surge in birth defects and cancers among the children. Tobacco farmers face an impossible choice…
Corporations have no human rights — No freedom of speech
by Community Word Staff • • Comments Off on Corporations have no human rights — No freedom of speech
BY ELAINE HOPKINS The “Move to Amend” movement promotes a U.S. Constitutional Amendment that will strip corporations and the wealthy of their power to control elections with their money and control legislation by claiming corporate “rights.” A speaker from the…
Facts matter — first truth; then reconciliation; then justice
by Clare Howard • • Comments Off on 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 contributor • • Comments Off on 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
by Sherry Cannon • • Comments Off on 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 contributor • • Comments Off on 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…
Lynching victims in Central Illinois
by contributor • • Comments Off on 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…