Content:

Much of the momentum that supported the hard-fought battle for reparations in Chicago came from the rise of the movement for Black lives, which was thriving in 2015. Since then, we have experienced the rise of many barriers to radical change that are not necessarily new but have gained significant momentum globally. We are in a different moment when our strategies and tactics are shifting as a result. But what can we learn from what we’ve already accomplished? How and when do we stay the course and when do we need to lean into our radical imaginations to generate new strategies for change?

Tickets $300, Community Pass $150
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Speakers: Elizabeth Todd-Breland is an Associate Professor of History and an Affiliated Faculty member in Black Studies at the University of Illinois Chicago. She is author of A Political Education: Black Politics and Education Reform in Chicago Since the 1960s and co-author of I Didn’t Come Here to Lie: My Life and Education. Her research and teaching focus on 20th-century U.S. urban history, African American history, the history of education, and public policy. A frequent public speaker, she organizes professional development workshops on African American history, urban education, and racial justice. From 2019 to 2024, Todd-Breland served as a member of the Chicago Board of Education.

For over 20 years, Katelyn Johnson has worked towards imagining a system that works for everyone by focusing on narrative change, civic engagement, policy advocacy, and community organizing. As the Executive Director of BlackRoots Alliance, Katelyn leads an organization that serves as a platform for crucial conversations on race, community safety, and economic empowerment for marginalized communities. She has most recently led her team to create “Reinvest 2 Repair”, a project that has explored reparations through participatory action research, centered on the vision for reparations as shared by the thousands of conversations, focus groups, and polls held by BlackRoots Alliance.

Anthony Holmes is a survivor of police torture. In 1973, Jon Burge and two detectives tortured Anthony into confessing to a 1972 murder. This resulted in a 30 year prison sentence for Anthony. Anthony’s testimony was critical in shedding a light on the Burge cases. Anthony is also a member of Chicago Torture Justice Memorials (CTJM) and was a leader in the campaign for reparations for Burge survivors. He is still active in this work with CTJM and serves as Board Vice President for the CTJM Foundation in support of the final piece of the 2015 legislation: the Memorial.

Joey Mogul is a movement lawyer, organizer, initiator and co-founder of Chicago Torture Justice Memorials (CTJM) and a partner at People’s Law Office. Mogul works with and represents organizers in their campaigns for justice and liberation. Mogul has sought justice for Chicago Police torture survivors for over 25 years, successfully representing survivors in their criminal and civil rights litigation, and at the UN Committee Against Torture (CAT) in Geneva, Switzerland. Mogul drafted the original City Council ordinance providing reparations for the Chicago Police (Burge) torture survivors. Mogul co-led the multi-racial grassroots coalition of CTJM, Project NIA, We Charge Genocide and Amnesty International, USA, to successfully pass the historic reparations legislation in Chicago’s City Council making it the first municipality to provide systemic redress for racially motivated police violence. Mogul is also a co-author of Queer (In)Justice: The Criminalization of LGBT People in the U.S. (Beacon Press 2011).

Aislinn Pulley is the Executive Director at the Chicago Torture Justice Center, and a long time organizer who has worked on a variety of campaigns including the Reparations Now movement to pass the historic 2015 Reparations Ordinance for survivors of CPD torture, campaigns for justice for families who have lost loved ones to police violence, defense campaigns to free political prisoners, and many others. Born and raised in Chicago, Aislinn founded the Chicago chapter of Black Lives Matter and was the youngest founding member of the cultural non-profit that used art for social change, Insight Arts. She was an organizer with We Charge Genocide, as well as a member of performance ensembles which include Visibility Now, which she founded for young women dedicated to ending sexual assault. Aislinn is an alumnus at Columbia College Chicago having studied graphic arts, and North Park University where she double majored in psychology and sociology.