Civil Rights & Immigration

Madison Police Protest

Tears, anger, joy as protesters hold John Nolen intersection for nearly 8 hours

BY: - June 2, 2020

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 of police violence continued on State Street Sunday. (Photo by Henry Redman)

Protests against police violence end with clashes between cops, protesters

BY: - June 1, 2020

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 […]

Will cleans graffiti at the Madison Museum of Contemporary Art (photo by Ruth Conniff)

After the chaos, community cleanup

BY: - June 1, 2020

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 […]

Police scene crime tape set on long exposure moving down with zoom lens

Kaul, Evers comment on Minneapolis killing of George Floyd

BY: - May 29, 2020

  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 […]

Teen marcher at Milwaukee Federal Building calling for DACA protections, alongside Voces de la Frontera. (Photo by: Isiah Holmes)

‘We’re riding it through’: pandemic adds more burden for DACA recipients and families

BY: - May 28, 2020

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 […]

The Youth Justice Virtual Town Hall banner (Photo by Isiah Holmes)

Wisconsin teens speak out on Georgia killing of Ahmaud Arbery

BY: - May 19, 2020

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 […]

COMMENTARY
National Memorial For Peace And Justice Examines U.S. History Of Lynchings MONTGOMERY, AL - APRIL 26: Ed Sykes (right), 77, visits the National Memorial For Peace And Justice on April 26, 2018 in Montgomery, Alabama. Sykes, who has family in Mississippi, was distraught when he discovered his last name in the memorial, three months after finding it on separate memorial in Clay County, Mississippi. "This is the second time I've seen the name Sykes as a hanging victim. What can I say?" Sykes, who now lives in San Francisco, plans to investigate the lynching of a possible relative at the Equal Justice Initiative headquarters in Montgomery before returning to California. The memorial is dedicated to the legacy of enslaved black people and those terrorized by lynching and Jim Crow segregation in America. Conceived by the Equal Justice Initiative, the physical environment is intended to foster reflection on America's history of racial inequality.

Arbery case’s true horror is safe harbor given for modern lynching

BY: - May 13, 2020

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. […]

Teen protesters call for DACA protections from the Trump Administration. (Photo by: Isiah Holmes)

Universities get aid they can’t share with DACA students

BY: - May 12, 2020

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 […]

Rep. LaKeshia Myers (Photo by Isiah Holmes)

Threats, privilege and confusion from anti-Safer at Home Wisconsin

BY: - May 5, 2020

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

BY: - April 30, 2020

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 […]

Disability rights banner (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)

Who will be left out if COVID-19 medical resources fall short?

BY: - April 3, 2020

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 […]

Poll workers on election day (Photo: City of Madison Clerk's Office)

Major coalition lays out how Wisconsin lawmakers can run elections with fairness, ease and accessibility

BY: - March 19, 2020

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 […]