[IMC] Historic Reparations vote in Chicago

[Brian Dolinar]

Today the Chicago city council approved a $5.5 million reparations
agreement forwarded by activists and those who had been tortured at the
hands of Sgt. Jon Burge.

BD

https://niastories.wordpress.com/2015/05/06/city-council-makes-history-in-passing-reparations-legislation-for-burge-torture-survivors/

Chicago, IL – This morning Chicago Police torture survivors and their
family members attended a Chicago City Council hearing to witness passage
of historic legislation providing reparations for the torture they and
scores of other African American men and women survived at the hands of
Chicago Police Commander Jon Burge and officers under his command. Some of
the torture survivors and family members traveled from out of the City and
State to attend the hearing.

The reparations package is the product of decades of organizing,
litigation, and investigative journalism, and represents the culmination of
an inspiring intergenerational and interracial campaign led by CTJM,
Amnesty International, USA, Project NIA and We Charge Genocide,
re-invigorated by the #BlackLivesMatter movement. Forty-six organizations
endorsed the ordinance, the U.N. Committee Against Torture specifically
called on the U.S. Government to support the passage of the legislation and
scores of Chicagoans attended demonstrations, rallies, sing-ins and a
Citywide Teach-ins over the last six months to urge Mayor Emanuel to
support the reparations ordinance.

“Over the course of the past 6 months, a coalition of individuals and
groups organized tirelessly to achieve this goal. Today’s historic
achievement, passage of the reparations ordinance, is owed to the decades
of organizing to bring some justice to the survivors of Burge and his
fellow officers’ unconscionable torture. We have successfully organized to
preserve the public memory of the atrocities experienced by over 110 black
people at the hands of Chicago police torture because we refuse to let
anyone in this city ever forget what happened here,” said Mariame Kaba,
founder and executive director of Project NIA.

The reparations resolution represents the first time Chicago’s City Council
has formally acknowledged and taken responsibility for the police torture
that occurred in Chicago, and recognized its obligation to provide concrete
redress to the survivors and family members. In addition to the
establishment of a $5.5 million Reparations Fund for Burge Torture Victims,
the City will provide survivors and their families specialized counseling
services at a center on the South side, free enrollment in City Colleges,
and priority access to job training, housing and other city services.
Additionally, a history lesson about the Burge torture cases will
henceforth be taught in Chicago Public schools and a permanent public
memorial will be erected to commemorate the torture and survivors.

“It is the first time that a municipality in the United States has ever
offered reparations to those violated law enforcement officials,” said Joey
Mogul, a co-founder of Chicago Torture Justice Memorials, partner at the
People’s Law Office and drafter of the original reparations ordinance.
“This holistic model should serve as a blueprint for how cities around the
country, from Ferguson to Baltimore, can respond to systemic racist police
brutality.”

The final legislation was the product of an agreement reached with Mayor
Emanuel, CTJM and Amnesty International, USA on the eve of an April 14,
2015 hearing on the original reparations Ordinance introduced into City
Council by Aldermen Proco Joe Moreno (1st Ward) and Howard Brookins (21st
Ward) in October of 2013.

While torture survivors, family members, and activists were pleased with
the reparations package passed today, they noted that much more work needs
to be done to address racially motivated police violence in the City of
Chicago.

“Today is an important and historic day, and the result of a courageous,
decades-long effort to seek justice. But this is not the end. We must make
sure that this curriculum places torture under Burge in a broader context
of ongoing and endemic police violence. We must expand counseling and
treatment services so they’re available for all survivors of police
violence. And more broadly, we must fight for an end not only to these
horrific acts of torture, and police shootings of Black youth, but also
against the daily police harassment and profiling of young people of color
in Chicago and across the country,” said Page May, an organizer and
activist with We Charge Genocide.

The Reparations Ordinance was drafted to provide redress to approximately
120 African American men and women subjected to racially-motivated torture,
including electric shock, mock executions, suffocation and beatings by now
former Police Commander Jon Burge and his subordinates from 1972 through
1991. Although Burge was convicted on federal charges for perjury and
obstruction of justice stemming from the torture cases in 2010, he
continues to draw a taxpayer funded pension.


-- 
Brian Dolinar, Ph.D.
briandolinar.com
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