A group in Bridgeport addresses people's inability to pay rising utility prices using direct action, direct service and popular education. “Why Children Stink, Why People Die” “How do you like your Elders—baked, boiled, or fried?” “It’s murder by fire in Chicago. It’s utility roulette.” “Mayor Daley: Bad Gas.” These quirky slogans are the titles of […]
Revolt on Goose Island
The Stakeout "Turn out all the lights right now," a supervisor at Republic Windows and Doors told Armando Robles as he was wrapping up the second shift at the factory on Goose Island, a small hive of industry sitting in the middle of the Chicago River. It was about 10 p.m. on November 5, 2008. […]
Pilsen’s Muse
This article is reprinted with permission from the March 10th, 2010 edition of Chicago Journal. Thanks to the author, as well as Chicago Journal editor Micah Maidenberg for his assistance. On some nights, Decima Musa, a bar and restaurant at the corner of 19th Street and Loomis in Pilsen, is calm and quiet, akin […]
Brewing Justice at Café Chicago
Waiting long hours on street corners for jobs, often in freezing weather, Chicago day laborers drink a lot of coffee. Now they will also be roasting and selling it. And rather than the watered-down McDonald’s or Aldi’s coffee they often drink, it will be organic fair trade coffee sold at sliding scale prices to make […]