Daily Archives: June 1, 2015

The Sonoma County Chapter of the ACLU held its annual Jack Green Awards Luncheon on May 3, 2015. A room filled with long time activists – attorneys as well as a new generation of community minded leaders – gathered to acknowledge this year’s honorees. Included were original founding member of the Black Panther Party Elbert “Big Man” Howard and his wife, Carole Hyams-Howard, a long time human rights activist and former community worker for the Black Panther Party.

In front of a packed chamber May 6, the Chicago City Council unanimously approved a reparations ordinance allocating $5.5 million for many of those tortured and framed by police commander Jon Burge and his notorious “Midnight Crew” from 1972 to 1991. Burge and his “crew” extracted false confessions to win convictions of at least 120 people, mostly Black men, using electric shocks, mock executions, suffocation and beatings.