Please join us for a conversation on race, justice, and reparation in responmse to police violence with members of Chicago Totrure Justice Memorials on February 3 & 4, 2017
Friday, Feb 3, 4:00 - 6:00 pm, DARC 108
Presentation and discussion on the history of Chicago police torture, the struggles against it, the CTJM project, and the Reparations campaign
Saturday, Feb 4, 10:00 - 12 noon, Namaste Lounge, College 10
Conversation on strategies for organizing for racial justice and against police violence
Chicago Torture Justice Memorials (CTJM) is a collective of artists, activists, and attorneys that organized for, and won—in alliance with We Charge Genocide, Project NIA, Amnesty International, and Black Youth Project historic Reparations legislation for African Americans tortured by Chicago police.
This two-part event will bring four members of CTJM to the UCSC campus to discuss the social and historical context of police torture in Chicago and how the group achieved a historic victory in securing reparations for survivors of torture and their families. CTJM members will also facilitate a workshop and conversation on organizing for racial justice and against police and other state sanctioned violence now, engaging art, social media, collaboration, direct action, and other temporal- and location-specific strategies.
This event is organized by SPARC (Social Practice Arts Research Center), and generously sponsored by the Office of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (ODEI), UC Presidential Chair Craig Haney, the Humanities Dean, The Arts Dean, Porter College, Oakes College, Crown College, Rachel Carson College, Stevenson College, College 9 and College 10, Kresge College, the Art Department, the Sociology Department, the Latin American and Latino Studies Department, the Film and Digital Media Department, the Politics Department, Legal Studies, and the Digital Arts and New Media Program which is hosting the Friday event. Thank you to the Committee on Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (CAAD) for support in initiating and promoting these events.
For more information on the event, please visit SPARC's webpage:
http://sparc.ucsc.edu/ctjm.html
For more information on CTJM:
http://inthesetimes.com/article/18118/jon-burge-torture-reparations
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/31/opinion/chicagos-grim-era-of-police-torture.html?ref=opinion
http://chicagotorture.org/articles/ReparationsNow-RahmRepNow/
Brief biographies of invited CTJM Participants:
Dorothy I. Burge is Program Director and Internship Coordinator for the Associated Colleges of the Midwest, where she also teaches seminars on systematic racism, criminal justice and social problems. Ms. Burge conducts workshops for a wide variety of audiences, including colleges, high schools, student organizations, social service agencies, and religious and community based organizations on anti-racism and the criminal justice system, among other topics. She is known for her interactive style that provides theory and validates the life experiences of the participants.
Darrell Cannon is a former prisoner and survivor of torture by Chicago police. Mr. Cannon spent 24 years in prison based on a false confession that was procured by torture. Since his exoneration in 2004 and eventual release in 2007, Mr. Cannon has been an outspoken advocate for justice for torture survivors and other victims of racialized police violence. He has spoken about his experience and the movement for justice for all survivors at venues throughout Chicago and around the U.S., including at the Allied Media Conference in Detroit and Moore College's Art and Social Practice program in Philadelphia.
Alice Kim is a co-founder of Chicago Torture Justice Memorials. She is a long-time death penalty and prison abolitionist who worked closely with the Death Row 10 (a group of African American men on Illinois' death row who were tortured by former Commander Jon Burge) and their family members to organize a grassroots campaign for justice for the Death Row 10. She is the Editor of Praxis Center, an online social justice resource center, and teaches writing at Stateville Prison with the Prison + Neighborhood Arts Project. Alice is a Soros Justice Fellow and is co-authoring a book with Joey Mogul about the struggles for justice in the Burge torture cases.
Janaé E. Bonsu is an activist, organizer and social work Ph.D. student at the University of Illinois Chicago. She currently serves as the National Public Policy Chair of Black Youth Project 100 (BYP100), an activist member-led organization of Black 18-35 year olds dedicated to creating justice and freedom through a Black queer feminist lens. Janaé has co-authored BYP100’s public policy agendas – the Agenda to Keep Us Safe and the Agenda to Build Black Futures. She is also a member of the Movement for Black Lives (M4BL) Policy Table that produced the Vision for Black Lives platform. Janaé is dedicated to building a world free of punitive state systems.