Latest news with #JesseJackson
Chicago Tribune
6 days ago
- Business
- Chicago Tribune
Today in Chicago History: Two police officers killed by snipers inside Cabrini-Green high-rise
Here's a look back at what happened in the Chicago area on July 17, according to the Tribune's archives. Is an important event missing from this date? Email us. Weather records (from the National Weather Service, Chicago) 1955: A Braniff Airways twin-engine Convair 340 trying to land at Midway Airport in the fog struck a gas station sign just beyond the airport and crashed, killing 22 people and injuring 21. This was one of several accidents that prompted the city and federal government to restrict obstructions and the height of buildings near airports. 1966: Chicago Cubs left fielder and Hall of Famer Billy Williams hit for the cycle. Vintage Chicago Tribune: Chicago Cubs who have hit for the cycleIn the second game of a doubleheader against the Cardinals in St. Louis: 'The sweet swinger from Mobile way achieved the dream of everyone who ever toted a bat to the plate,' Tribune reporter Edward Prell wrote. Williams hit a single, double, triple and a homer — precisely in that order — in the Cubs' 7-2 win. 1970: Two Chicago police officers walking in Seward Park — Sgt. James Severin and Patrolman Anthony Rizzato — were shot and killed by snipers firing high-powered rifles from a Cabrini-Green high-rise. Within minutes, other officers arrived to retrieve their bodies and return gunfire. Later, Johnny Veal and George Knights were convicted in the shooting deaths. Both were serving 100- to 199-year sentences. Veal was granted parole by the Illinois Prisoner Review Board in 2021. 1974: Illinois issued the first state lottery license to a Chicago coffee shop. Although other agent licenses had already been distributed, the establishment at 1419 W. Taylor St. was chosen to stage a ceremonial 'grand opening' of the Illinois Lottery. Vintage Chicago Tribune: Illinois Lottery's first drawing took place 50 years agoAl and Theresa Prisco were interviewed as lottery officials taped posters to the coffee shop walls urging customers to use their coffee change to buy lottery tickets. A $1.5 million advertising campaign — including a supplement section published in the Tribune that taught readers how to play the games — followed. 'We've been here 25 years,' Al Prisco told the Tribune. 'I didn't expect to celebrate it with a bang like this.' 1980: Chicago Bears founder and owner George Halas signed a new 20-year lease for the team to play at Soldier Field. 1984: 'I tell you we need a change! Come November, there will be a change because our time has come!' The Rev. Jesse Jackson ended his presidential campaign but promised to throw his support behind the Democratic Party's candidate while speaking at the party's convention in San Francisco. Highlights in the life of Rev. Jesse Jackson: Minister, civil rights advocate, politician, intermediary, social justice proponent and COVID-19 survivorSubscribe to the free Vintage Chicago Tribune newsletter, join our Chicagoland history Facebook group, stay current with Today in Chicago History and follow us on Instagram for more from Chicago's past.
New York Times
10-07-2025
- Politics
- New York Times
It's Time to Let Go of ‘African American'
I'm no fan of performative identity politics, and I think racial preferences are long past their expiration date. Yet I don't think the New York City mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani did anything wrong when, as was reported last week, he checked off 'Black or African American' on a college application. As a man of South Asian descent who spent the first part of his life living in Uganda, he was within his rights to call himself African American. The problem is that the term appeared on the application, or anywhere else. Plenty of Black people have never liked it, and ever more are joining the ranks. It's time to let it go. 'African American' entered mainstream circulation in the late '80s as a way to call attention to Black people's heritage in the same way that terms like 'Italian American' and 'Asian American' do for members of those groups. The Rev. Jesse Jackson encouraged its usage, declaring: 'Black does not describe our situation. In my household there are seven people and none of us have the same complexion. We are of African-American heritage.' In 1989 the columnist and historian Roger Wilkins told Isabel Wilkerson: 'Whenever I go to Africa, I feel like a person with a legitimate place to stand on this earth. This is the name for all the feelings I've had all these years.' Since that time, the United States has seen an enormous change in immigration patterns. In 1980 there were about 200,000 people in America who were born in Africa; by 2023 there were 2.8 million. So today, for people who were born in Africa, any children they have after moving here and Black people whose last African ancestors lived centuries ago, the term 'African American' treats them as if they are all in the same category, forcing a single designation for an inconveniently disparate range of humans. Further complicating matters is that many Africans now living here are not Black. White people from, for example, South Africa or Tanzania might also legitimately call themselves African American. As for the community that Mamdani grew up in, it dates back to at least the late 19th century, when South Asians were brought to Uganda to work as servants for British colonizers. 'Mississippi Masala,' the movie for which Mamdani's mother, the filmmaker Mira Nair, is perhaps best known, tells the story of South Asian Ugandans expelled from the country in 1972 by the dictator Idi Amin. Feeling just as dislocated from the only home they had ever known as I would feel if expelled from the United States, they would be quite reasonable in viewing themselves as African Americans after settling here. A term that is meant to be descriptive but that can refer to Cedric the Entertainer, Trevor Noah, Elon Musk and Zohran Mamdani is a little silly. And not just silly but chilly. 'African American' sounds like something on a form. Or something vaguely euphemistic, as if you're trying to avoid saying something out loud. It feels less like a term for the vibrant, nuanced bustle of being a human than like seven chalky syllables bureaucratically impervious to abbreviation. Italian Americans call themselves 'Italian' for short. Asian Americans are 'Asian.' But for any number of reasons, it's hard to imagine a great many Black Americans opting to call themselves simply African. Want all of The Times? Subscribe.
CBS News
12-06-2025
- Politics
- CBS News
Rainbow PUSH calls for boycott against Target as annual "People's Conference" begins
As the Rainbow PUSH Coalition kicked off its annual People's Conference on Thursday, leaders encouraged people to fight growing threats to justice and equality, and defend civil rights. Top of mind was a demand for corporations to keep in place diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives, or restore policies they have scaled back or dropped entirely since President Trump took office and took aim at DEI programs. The conference's theme is "A Call to Action." It's meant to underscore the need for resistance against threats to civil rights. "I think we've never had here what we face here before," Rainbow PUSH chief operating officer Yusef Jackson said. Jackson's father and founder of the organization, the Rev. Jesse Jackson, was also in attendance. Yusef Jackson told those gathered the gains made during the civil rights movement are now under threat. "The very executive order that authorized the Civil Rights Act, Donald Trump wrote an executive order to overthrow or to undermine or to rescind," he said. The title of the opening luncheon at the conference was Rebuilding America Through Coalition. "We're gathered together across race, religion, across ethnicities, across party lines even. There are Democrats here and there are Republicans here. We've crossed all kinds of economic lines, all together based on common ground, because we want a better society for our future," Yusef Jackson said. Rev. Ira Acree, from Greater St. John Bible Church in Chicago's Austin neighborhood, was among those attending. "In our community, faith leaders are influencers, and these faith leaders can inspire their congregants and people in the community to participate in protest. In this particular climate, if we don't stand together all of the particular accomplishments and all of the civil rights that we acquired back in the 60s will be rolled back," Acree said. Also on the agenda for the first day of the PUSH conference was a protest outside the Target store on State Street in the Loop, led by the Rev. Jamal Bryant. The Atlanta-based pastor spearheaded a national boycott against Target after it decided to do away with its DEI initiatives days after Trump took office. "This has been the most effective boycott for Black people in 70 years; since the Montgomery bus boycott. When we started, Target's shares were a $145 a share, it's now down to $93 a share," he said. Bryant said he hopes Target finds some resolution to reinstate DEI policies soon. Meantime, the Rainbow PUSH Coalition People's Conference takes place through Saturday.
Fox News
12-06-2025
- Politics
- Fox News
'I call it a rebellion': Maxine Waters' history of enflaming crowds, from Rodney King to today
Eighteen-term Democrat Rep. Maxine Waters resurfaced in the news after several run-ins with federal authorities during the ongoing illegal immigration riots in California, just as her House tenure began amid prior Angeleno unrest. In 1992, as she was finishing her first term in Congress, the not-guilty verdict against White LAPD officers seen beating a Black motorist named Rodney King sparked a similar conflagration in Los Angeles, and Waters was in the midst of it then as well. The riots greatly affected her South Los Angeles district, and Waters was quoted at the time as appearing to downplay the violence not as a "riot" but as "just a bunch of crazy people who went out and did bad things for no reason." "I maintain it was somewhat understandable, if not acceptable. So I call it a rebellion," she said, according to the Los Angeles Times. Waters had joined the Rev. Jesse Jackson in trying to convince the Justice Department to file civil rights charges against the acquitted officers, blaming the rioting on Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) Chief Daryl Gates and President George H.W. Bush, according to famed journalist Robert Novak. When Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., attempted to have Waters expelled from Congress in 2021 for "inciting violence and terrorism," the Democrat claimed some of her past remarks were taken out of context. "I am not worried that they're going to continue to distort what I say," she told The Grio after Greene led her resolution with Waters' Rodney King-era statements. Greene said Waters violated House Rule 23's clause regarding conduct by members "at all times in a manner that shall reflect creditably on the House." At a 2007 anti-war protest, Waters declared she was "not afraid of George Bush" and also pledged to "get rid of" then-Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. She later drew the ire of Greene and other Republicans when she told an LGBTQ gala, "I will go and take out Trump tonight." Defenders said she was speaking rhetorically and politically and not threatening the mogul. Later in Trump's first administration, Waters was filmed on a California street corner shouting at supportive demonstrators and instructing them to be disruptive toward Trump allies. "If you see anybody … in a restaurant, in a department store, at a gasoline station, you get out, and you create a crowd, and you push back on them. And you tell them that they are not welcome." She later said she did not physically threaten Trump supporters, though then-White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders had earlier been run out of a Lexington, Va., restaurant and then-Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen was accosted at a Washington, D.C., eatery. In April 2021, Waters rallied in Brooklyn Center, Minn., while ex-Minneapolis Officer Derek Chauvin was on trial for the murder of George Floyd. Waters was recorded telling protesters to "stay" in the street and warned that if the jury delivered a not-guilty verdict, "We cannot go away … we've got to get more confrontational." The comments caught the attention of trial Judge Peter Cahill, suggesting the comments could lead to a defense appeal and also disrespected the judicial branch. Waters later pushed back on some characterizations, saying, "I am nonviolent. I talk about confronting the justice system. … I'm talking about speaking up." In February, Waters appeared in front of the Department of Education building in Washington along with other House Democrats. A security guard was confronted as lawmakers tried to gain entry to voice concerns about Secretary Linda McMahon's downsizing plans. This week, while riots again raged in Los Angeles, Waters hurried toward a group of National Guardsmen entering the plywood-covered door of the Metropolitan Detention Center. "I just came to use my congressional authority to check on David Huerta," she said, referring to the SEIU union leader arrested during an immigration raid. A Guardsman told Waters to contact "public affairs" and slammed the door in her face. She was later seen asking armed Guardsmen if they planned to shoot her, why they were there and that the conflict was President Donald Trump's fault. Homeland Security spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin told Fox News Digital after that incident that instead of "taunting" Guardsmen, Waters should have been trying to assuage the unrest. While some of her recent Republican challengers, like Joe Collins and Omar Navarro, have received hefty donations from around the country due to her polarizing comments, the 86-year-old has been re-elected with typically 70% of the vote. Fox News Digital reached out to Waters for comment but did not immediately hear back.
Chicago Tribune
09-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Chicago Tribune
2025 Tony Awards: Steppenwolf Theatre's ‘Purpose' wins best play
NEW YORK — 'Purpose,' a drama by Branden Jacobs-Jenkins that was commissioned and first produced by Chicago's Steppenwolf Theatre Company, has won the Tony Award for best play at the awards ceremony at Radio City Musical Hall. The play, with a stort loosely based on the family of civil rights leader Jesse Jackson, was nominated alongside 'The Hills of California,' 'John Proctor Is the Villain' and 'Oh, Mary!' The win is a major victory for the famed Chicago company that last wowed New York theater with Tracy Letts' 'August: Osage County' in 2008. Actress Kara Young, who was added to the Chicago cast of 'Purpose' for the Broadway production, also won a Tony for best featured actress in a play. In accepting the award, Glenn Davis, Steppenwolf's co-artistic director and a cast member and Tony nominee himself, had the chance to remind New York and the television audience of Steppenwolf's accomplishments over the years. Playwright Jacobs-Jenkins thanked 'the city of Chicago for making this show what it was.' He also said Chicago had 'the best actors in America.' The 2025 Tony Awards are presented by the American Theatre Wing and Broadway League in a ceremony Sunday at Radio City Music Hall in New York, hosted by 'Wicked' star Cynthia Erivo and broadcast on CBS and streamed on Paramount+.PHOTOS: Tony Awards 2025: Red Carpet Arrivals
