Portside

Recounts the short, complicated history of the Black Panther Party. Using remarkable black-and-white archival footage, the current voices of more than twenty former Panthers, a former FBI agent, several retired police officers, a number of Panther lawyers and community activists, and a collection of historians and accompanied by some soul stirring period music, the lessons to those engaged in today’s struggles against racism and for justice are there for all to see.

The trial of Police Commander Glenn Evans, which is scheduled to begin in December, highlights divisions in neighborhoods where crime is often highest and police misconduct complaints are frequent. Evans, a 28-year veteran of the Police Department, is accused of shoving the barrel of a gun down a man’s throat while simultaneously holding a stun gun to his genitals.

“Victims can be perpetrators, too.” It’s important for people to understand that.

This weekend, the Art Institute of Chicago is commemorating the famed and controversial Wall of Respect, which celebrated black achievement, with a symposium and other events.

There’s a comforting myth in the United States that suggests African-Americans steadily moved from absolute slavery to complete freedom following the Civil War. This, however, obscures how hard many Americans of every race had fought against racism since the Revolution. It was a struggle that went deeper than slavery and right to the core of who was an American.

How Nina Simone turned the movement into music.

African Americans have a long, rich history of cooperative ownership, especially in reaction to market failures and economic racial discrimination . . . My research suggests that African Americans, as well as other people of color and low-income people, have benefitted greatly from cooperative ownership and democratic economic participation throughout the history of the United States -- from the introduction to Collective Courage