April 2024 — Moving the Needle | Woods Fund Chicago
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ON DEXTER REED AND POLICE ACCOUNTABILITY
On March 21, 26 year-old Dexter Reed was killed in a fatal police shooting. We share the community's grief, anger, and pointed questions that have arisen from yet another incidence of life lost to police violence. We are particularly troubled by the details that have emerged about the shooting, including the revelation that approximately 96 shots were fired by five police officers within a 41-second period. We have long supported our grantee partners as they demand actions to end the ongoing cycle of loss and rage in the fight for police accountability and the scrutiny that falls upon Black and Brown individuals and communities as they must defend and litigate their character to a public audience in the midst of mourning.
For further reading, we raise the voices of our grantee partners in responding to this horrible loss and honoring the life of Dexter Reed:
Equity and Transformation (E.A.T. Chicago)'s Statement on Dexter Reed
Reporting from The Triibe that features grantee partners
E.A.T. Chicago and GoodKids MadCity
Community Renewal Society's Statement on Dexter Reed
Statement from Free2MoveChi and Impact for Equity, signed by grantee partners BYP100, E.A.T. Chicago, First Defense Legal Aid, GoodKids MadCity, ONE Northside, and Workers Center for Racial Justice.
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After an unusually temperate winter and weeks of gray skies,
it is hard to believe that summer is already right around
the corner —
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Atypical weather patterns are taking hold not only in Chicago, but worldwide, drawing further and further concern regarding climate change. Undoubtedly, Environmental Justice is crucial in preserving and sustaining our planet, but what is often overlooked is how climate change and its effects impact communities of color the most. Racial Justice and Environmental Justice are both necessary, and neither can be achieved without the other.
Chicago in particular has seen a litany of attempts to concentrate new and pre-existing industrial sites in predominantly Black and Brown neighborhoods — notably on the southeast side, which was once populated by steel mills that drew in immigrant communities and that has now served as the front lines for several of the most contentious battles for Environmental Justice in the city. As recently as 2021, activists held a month-long hunger strike to oppose a permit for General Iron to relocate a metal scrapping site from Lincoln Park to the southeast side, a move that would have funneled heavy air pollution into a predominantly Latinx community already plagued by toxic heavy metals that remain from industrialization. Though the permit was finally denied, even more recently, proposals to make exceptions to Chicago’s mining ban placed the southeast side in a potential sacrifice zone, demonstrating a troubling persistence in the disposability of these communities. Grantee partner Alliance of the Southeast (ASE) is a coalition of community members and institutions that fight for the well-being of their neighborhoods, including protecting the region from development that would result in further displacement and pollution. ASE Executive Director Amalia Nieto-Gomez told Block Club Chicago, “I don’t think anyone in their right mind will want to have a mining operation next door, whether that be on the Southeast Side, the North Side, the Northwest Side, Lincoln Park.”
Nieto-Gomez’s point underscores the reality of environmental injustice: All neighbors are entitled to clean air, clean water, and thriving environments, but rather than providing that guarantee, affluent, predominantly white communities receive the benefit of having sites like General Iron’s removed from their neighborhoods while communities of color shoulder the detrimental effects, very often without the option of community input.
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Though the fight continues, there are gains that have been made. Last year, Chicago released its first Cumulative Impact Assessment report, a practice that reviews the environmental issues different neighborhoods face and measures the weight and proportions of that impact. Grantee partner Little Village Environmental Justice Organization (LVEJO) was a key member of the working groups that developed the first report. LVEJO has seen similar industrialization and pollution in Little Village and the southwest side. In 2018, proposed demolition of the Crawford Coal Power Plant intended to make way for a diesel-intensive logistics facility that would release hazardous emissions into Little Village. In 2020, in the midst of health and respiratory concerns around COVID, demolition of the plant imploded a smokestack that sent dust particles across a neighborhood already suffering health effects from disproportionate air pollution.
A Cumulative Impact Assessment evaluates the long-term effects of Chicago’s infrastructure and development that harm the health and environment of various communities; whether the speed and prioritization of lead pipe replacement, air pollution in neighborhoods segregated near highways, the presence and maintenance of green spaces and community gardens, or how resources that address the negative impacts of climate change are distributed. Other grantee partners such as Faith in Place ensure communities receive equitable access to environmental resources and that we take the steps required to guarantee a healthy planet for all. Environmental Justice intersects every facet of life, and Woods Fund Chicago stands by our grantee partners who work to ensure communities of color do not have their health sacrificed and their environments destroyed in order to sustain polluting industries and practices.
Where one lives shouldn’t determine whether their water is clean and their air is breathable, and changes are urgently needed for that guarantee to exist — not just for the few, but for our whole community.
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It has been six months since the implementation of the Pretrial Fairness Act, rendering Illinois the first U.S. state to eliminate money bond. Many of our grantee partners worked to pass (and uphold) this landmark piece of legislation as part of and alongside the Coalition to End Money Bond.
Patrice James, founding director of the Illinois Black Advocacy Initiative, reflected upon these disparities and the snowball effect when affordability instead of safety is the determining factor of whether someone is released pretrial on the Act’s six-month anniversary. “People held pretrial on an unaffordable bond face an impossible choice: enter a guilty plea to get out of jail, even if they are innocent, or remain in custody awaiting a trial date that might be months or years away... Between 2019 and 2022, 564 people in Illinois died while in custody. Almost half of those people were Black, and many of those people were held on unaffordable bail... Those who are trapped in jail awaiting trial also face the loss of jobs, housing and even custody of a child, all losses burdened disproportionately by the Black community.”
The elimination of money bond in Illinois is a crucial step, and incarceration rates in county jails have decreased since implementation. What we are also seeing is a nimbleness in our grantee partners to respond to the evolving needs of fighting for racial equity. This month, our grantee partner Chicago Community Bond Fund (CCBF) — an organization that raised mutual aid funds to release individuals from pretrial incarceration in Cook County — announced their decision to sunset the organization in light of the Pretrial Fairness Act and to make space for other organizers and grassroots movements focused on decarceration. CCBF also announced that they will be collaborating with our partner Crossroads Fund to redistribute returned bonds through a grantmaking process.
The sustainability of racial justice organizing spaces is essential, but it is heartening when an organization can sunset its operations because the initial need no longer exists. There is still much work that needs to be done: Money bond is just one piece of a criminal justice system that disproportionately targets, polices, and incarcerates people of color, reinforces cycles of violence and poverty, and seldomly results in safer communities. We recognize and celebrate the dedication of our partners that led to this point, and we look forward to witnessing CCBF’s legacy of organizing and advocacy persist in the work of challenging mass incarceration.
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Supreme Court’s Blow to Right to Protest Is Another Attack on Black Political Power
Why We're Reading It: Woods Fund Chicago commits to supporting community organizing as a means to build power through taking collective action. We are troubled by the Supreme Court's escalation of the increasingly dangerous trend of protest suppression taking hold across numerous cities and states, and the impact these punitive responses will have on organizing and the movement for racial justice.
Capital B News // Read now
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Help This Garden Grow
Why We’re Listening: This podcast series from the producers of AirGo Radio tells the story of Hazel Johnson and the fight for environmental justice in Chicago spanning over forty years, focusing on her far south side community of Altgeld Gardens and its position amidst a heavy concentration of hazardous waste.
Respair Media // Listen Now
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