Civil Rights & Immigration
Tears, anger, joy as protesters hold John Nolen intersection for nearly 8 hours
The cycle of the traffic light at the intersection of John Nolen and North Shore drives in Madison lasts about 20 seconds. So, for the seven hours and 40 minutes that protesters occupied the intersection Monday, the light went through almost 1,400 cycles. The event was part of the third straight day of demonstrations in […]
Protests against police violence end with clashes between cops, protesters
For the second night in a row, a protest in Madison against police violence Sunday night turned into a showdown between protesters and police. The event, which started peacefully, became more tense shortly after the city’s curfew went into effect at 9:30 p.m., according to several media reports as well as incident reports from the […]
After the chaos, community cleanup
Hundreds of Madisonians carrying brooms, sponges and cleaning fluid converged on State Street early Sunday morning, to clean up the graffiti and broken glass left behind from Saturday night’s vandalism spree. “I’m really heartened by how many people are down here helping out,” said Mayor Satya Rhodes-Conway, as she walked down State Street. The mayor […]
Kaul, Evers comment on Minneapolis killing of George Floyd
Friday morning, as protests continued in the streets of Minneapolis and spread out across the country, two top Wisconsin elected officials weighed in with statements on the Minneapolis police killing of George Floyd, whose May 25 death in police custody sparked outrage worldwide after video showed a police officer kneeling on his neck. Wisconsin […]
‘We’re riding it through’: pandemic adds more burden for DACA recipients and families
Like many college students, Daniel Gutierrez Ayala has had to make some difficult adjustments because of the COVID-19 pandemic. The political science and Spanish major at Cardinal Stritch University had to take two incomplete grades as his classes moved online. His 16-year-old sister is also at home adjusting to online high school. His parents have […]
Wisconsin teens speak out on Georgia killing of Ahmaud Arbery
When the video first surfaced depicting the killing of Ahmaud Arbery by a shotgun-and pistol-wielding father-son duo in Brunswick, Georgia, people across the nation found the images shocking. African American citizens, from Georgia to Wisconsin, although disturbed by the footage, were sadly unsurprised. “This event happening really rose an uproar in me, it really upset […]
Arbery case’s true horror is safe harbor given for modern lynching
Only in recent years has white American culture become willing to stare the horror of lynching in the face, or at least glance at it sideways. It has done so only because time’s passage has made it feel safe to do so, allowing us to pretend that it was perpetrated by people utterly unlike ourselves. […]
Universities get aid they can’t share with DACA students
WASHINGTON — Colleges and universities across the country are getting emergency federal aid for COVID-19, but some of the most vulnerable students won’t be eligible for assistance. Education Secretary Betsy DeVos has said the emergency grants — part of the $2 trillion coronavirus relief act that Congress approved last month — can’t go to undocumented […]
Threats, privilege and confusion from anti-Safer at Home Wisconsin
When Rep. LaKeshia Myers (D-Milwaukee) first issued her criticisms of the anti-lockdown protests, she anticipated some backlash. “I made my opinion known because it was true,” Myers told Wisconsin Examiner. On April 24, she issued a statement calling the protests held outside the Capitol in Wisconsin, “clearly an exercise of white privilege.” Hundreds of people, […]
May Day caravan to support safety, help for working people
A week after more than a thousand people rallied on the state Capitol lawn to demand — against the advice of health experts — that Wisconsin end the shutdown of businesses and public gatherings during the COVID-19 pandemic, another group will demonstrate in support of the state’s continued restrictions on gatherings — but also for […]
Who will be left out if COVID-19 medical resources fall short?
Growing fears of a shortage of lifesaving treatment for COVID-19 is prompting concern among activists and organizations who look out for the rights of people with disabilities. This week, the Survival Coalition, an umbrella group of several Wisconsin disability rights groups, wrote a letter to Gov. Tony Evers stating that their members “share concerns regarding […]
Major coalition lays out how Wisconsin lawmakers can run elections with fairness, ease and accessibility
The cluttered letterhead at the top of a March 18 letter sent to Gov. Tony Evers, legislative leaders and Wisconsin Elections Commission Chair Dean Knudson includes 10 major good-government advocacy groups that banded together to lay out steps they say would make the April 7 elections fair and keep the public — particularly the most […]