<div dir="ltr"><div>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. <br><br></div>BD<br><div><br><a href="https://niastories.wordpress.com/2015/05/06/city-council-makes-history-in-passing-reparations-legislation-for-burge-torture-survivors/">https://niastories.wordpress.com/2015/05/06/city-council-makes-history-in-passing-reparations-legislation-for-burge-torture-survivors/</a><br><p>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. </p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>“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.</p>
<p>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. </p>
<p>“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.”</p>
<p>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. </p>
<p>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. </p>
<p>“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.</p>
<p>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.</p><br clear="all"><div><br>-- <br><div class="gmail_signature"><div dir="ltr"><div>Brian Dolinar, Ph.D.<br></div><div></div><a href="http://briandolinar.com" target="_blank">briandolinar.com</a><br></div></div>
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