Author: Voxtrend News
There are days when Charles McKenzie wants to give up. After his 1-month-old niece was shot in the head. Or when his friend was shot to death in the South Side neighborhood where they both grew up. Hours after celebrating his birthday earlier this summer, when he got the call that gunfire had killed someone else he considered family. But he persists in hopes that one day, change will stick. “I gotta keep running, keep running, keep running,” McKenzie said. “Until I can’t run no more.” McKenzie, 36, is the founder of Englewood First Responders, a nonprofit organization primarily composed…
The principles of moral courage and historical clarity are being tested by the current administration’s directive to the Smithsonian to downplay the tragic aspects of our country’s history. This policy is not only pedagogically unsound; it also is morally incoherent. It forces us to ask: What do we lose when we choose selective memory over uncomfortable truth? As president of the Chicago Theological Seminary, a historic educational and civic institution celebrating its 170th anniversary, I serve as a custodian of uncomfortable truths. The seminary’s enduring mission, like that of all great institutions of learning, is to cultivate the intellectual and…
Thousands lined Naperville’s streets Monday morning, but as Josue Alvarado drew a brown and green tree on the asphalt with chalk, he colored for a crowd of one: his daughter. “Fastest summer ever,” Alvarado’s wife, Kristen, said as the couple and their five children waited for the Jaycees’ Last Fling Labor Day Parade to begin. “It goes by faster and faster. We’re not ready to let go.” The Alvarados seem to come to the parade with one more kid each year, the couple agreed. Their 7-week-old baby slept in the top slot of a double-decker stroller while three kids drew…
On the Mauser Packaging Solutions plant floor, laborers do the dirty work of reconditioning steel containers used to transport chemicals. The workers blast residue off the “dirties,” clean them and repaint them to be used again. As they work, the chemicals in the air irritate their eyes. But for the last 12 weeks, the workers, many of whom are Latino immigrants, haven’t been cleaning or painting anything inside the facility at the end of a quiet residential street in Little Village. Instead they have been outside the plant picketing, demanding the company provide them with safer workplace conditions — and…
As President Donald Trump mulls sending the National Guard to Chicago, Mayor Brandon Johnson delivered a defiant message to the White House at a spirited Labor Day rally Monday. “No federal troops in the city of Chicago! No militarized force in the city of Chicago!” Johnson said in a short speech, delivered steps from the Haymarket Memorial, at the site of the 1886 labor rally and bombing. “We’re going to defend our democracy in the city of Chicago,” Johnson added. “We’re going to protect the humanity of every single person in the city of Chicago.” The mayor of the nation’s…
Like many other parts of the country, the Chicago area has a housing affordability and availability problem. Much of the focus on improving the situation has been on the city itself, understandably so given that it’s the third largest metropolis in the land. But, without the same sort of fanfare, there’s quite an intense housing debate happening too in the suburbs, particularly North Shore municipalities better known for exclusivity than rolling out the welcome mat for those who aren’t lawyers, doctors, corporate executives, asset managers, etc. While it’s been a fitful process in many of those suburbs so far, making…
Northwestern coach David Braun said Monday he didn’t intend to disrespect the city of New Orleans when the Wildcats denied Tulane’s request to wear white jerseys during Saturday’s game to honor the 2005 team that played in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. Tulane wore plain green helmets with no decals to honor the team in its 23-3 victory, but the Green Wave wore green jerseys instead of the white ones the 2005 team wore in its opener. Northwestern wore its white road uniforms. After the game, Tulane coach Jon Sumrall indicated he thought Northwestern’s decision to stick with its white…
I regret reading in last Sunday’s Tribune (“Tribune’s film critic Michael Phillips says so long for now”) that readers will no longer have access to Michael Phillips’ informed movie reviews. No matter what part of the paper I skipped over, I always read Phillips. His April review of Ryan Coogler’s “Sinners” was nothing short of brilliant. How well he understood the many facets of that challenging film. I can only hope some other Chicago publication will take advantage of his availability, and I can again read his reviews, full of knowledge and sensitivity to film. — Patricia Groh, Wilmette Goodbye to…
Olena Konovaliuk of Chicago fears she might never again see her family in the Donbas region of eastern Ukraine, where she was born and raised, as Russian President Vladimir Putin demands the land be relinquished to Moscow during ongoing U.S.-led peace talks. Giving up Donbas — or any portion of the war-torn nation — is unfathomable to Konovaliuk and many other locals of Ukrainian descent, who insist their entire homeland must be sovereign without exception or partial surrender. “This sounds threatening to me because my family is still there. It is like saying, ‘Please take off your arm and give…
Potential remedies for an unlit Mundelein intersection — about which an area resident raised concerns to the Lake County Board — remain unclear, with the state and village disputing who is even responsible for overhead lighting there. Wayne Thoren of Mundelein told the board he is worried about safety at the Hawley Street and Route 60/83 intersection. Hawley is a county road, and Route 60/83 belongs to the state. Beyond lacking overhead lighting, Thoren said the intersection is also prone to fog, which he attributed to nearby golf courses. That, combined with what he feels is overly high speeds, is…