Walking in Mamie Till Mobley’s Footsteps
Dorothy Holmes reflects on how her personal grief compels her to work toward collective justice.
Chicago
Crumbs and Police Funding?: Assessing the New Chicago Budget
Chicago’s new city budget has achieved some limited gains, but at the steep costs of massive police funding and the risk of bolstering Lightfoot’s grip on power. The socialist left needs a new strategic approach to set its own terms in the future.
‘See for Yourself’: The Lynching of Jelani Day
A Black graduate student at Illinois State University, Jelani Day, went missing on August 25. His body was found in a river near a modern-day racist sundown town, and the official story doesn’t add up.
Police Continue To Be A Menace to Public Safety
Police have enthusiastically adopted a new means to endanger the public by rallying against vaccine mandates—and they're gathering support.
Abortion for All
Thousands gathered October 2 to defend abortion access for all, from Texas to Chicago.
Hillbilly Nationalists & Chicago’s Rainbow Coalition
In 1960s Chicago, organizations of poor white people rejected racism and threw in their lot with the Black Panthers and Young Lords to fight for collective liberation. Their story is rich with lessons for today.
Chicago Rallies to Stop Line 3
Enbridge’s Line 3 pipeline extension is bringing disaster to our environment. The fight to stop it has to take place on multiple fronts, from Minnesota to the streets of Chicago.
Chicago’s Predatory Pregnancy Centers
Crisis Pregnancy Centers are fake abortion clinics and use creepy manipulation tactics to coerce people into having babies, all while dodging federal taxes and regulations. Here’s what you need to know about them.
Who Controls Chicago’s Cops?
Chicagoans have fought long and hard for police accountability, but the new ordinance is a step back for the movement and a win for Mayor Lightfoot. A sober assessment serves us better than claiming false victories.
Rank-and-File Amazon Workers Can Organize Themselves
No simple trick will organize Amazon. A Chicago Amazon worker speaks on how long-term relationships and trust have allowed rank-and-file workers to flex their power on the warehouse floor.
Out of the Lobbies, into the Streets
Over the past couple weeks, multiple attacks on Chicago abortion clinics show that it’s do-or-die time for abortion access in America. Defending and expanding reproductive rights depends on grassroots mobilizing.
How Wall Street Trapped American Cities
City budgets are key targets of local organizing and Defund campaigns, but cities themselves are bound by much larger financial forces. A recent book by Destin Jenkins details how cities became trapped by banks and credit rating agencies intent on austerity and racism.
Introducing the Sprout Slate
As DSA members prepare for their bi-annual convention this summer, the Sprout Slate in Chicago has emerged as a prominent contender. Rampant sat down with “the slate the uprisings produced” to discuss their thoughts on abolition, mutual aid, multiracial organizing and the future of the movement.
It’s Been Nothing but Fight
Dorothy Holmes describes her fight for a special prosecutor and carrying forward the citywide struggle for an end to police violence.
Notoriously Immoral: Eugenics, Incarceration, and the White City
Bones discovered in 1989 revealed the gruesome history of eugenics, experimentation, and murder at the Dunning facility in Chicago. Far from an aberration, the brutality of white supremacy was integral to Chicago’s past, showcased at the famous World's Fair that put Chicago on the map.
Adam’s Innocence Isn’t Even the Point
A Chicago cop put a bullet in a thirteen-year-old child, and many are spinning narratives laced with typical racist dehumanization in an attempt to obscure this fact. It’s the cops who should be under the spotlight, disbanded, and abolished.
Survival and Revolution: Mutual Aid in Chicago during the February 2021 Polar Vortex
Mutual aid efforts during Chicago’s brutal winter saved the lives of many residents who were willfully neglected by City Hall and attacked by the police. The polar vortex mutual aid effort shows the importance of mutual aid as a site of class struggle.
Chicago’s Rohingya and the Myanmar Revolt
The genocide of the Rohingya in Myanmar led many refugees to settle in Chicago. Now, as mass protests roil their home country, Rohingya human rights advocate Imran Mohammad Fazal Hoque speaks to his community’s harrowing experience and the current revolt.
Justice for Gerald Reed
This week Chicagoans have a chance to show up for a police torture survivor who is still suffering unjust incarceration.
Better than Daley: Hired Truck Kingpin Thrives under Lightfoot
Corporate polluters continue to make millions from Chicago city government contracts.
Did Chicago Stop Enforcing Environmental Regulations?
The City of Chicago has failed to keep people safe from toxic polluters during the pandemic.
Primed for Struggle: Organizing Inside Amazon
"We're not sitting around waiting for anyone to recognize us as a union in order to be or act as a union." An Amazon worker in Chicago talks to Rampant about what it will take to unionize the behemoth.
Reopen Tank Noodle under Workers’ Control
Workers at Uptown’s beloved Vietnamese restaurant Tank Noodle shouldn’t be left holding the bag for their Trump-loving bosses’ malfeasance.
Hunger Strikers Fight for All Chicagoans
Seven days ago a group of activists started a hunger strike to fight to stop the city from allowing a toxic General Iron metal shredder from being built on Chicago’s Southeast Side.