Category Archives: Section

SEIU Holds 3-Day Strike on U of I Campus

Posted on 04/03/2013 by Public i

After 9 months of negotiating at UIUC, Building Service and Food Service Workers pulled off an enormously successful strike with 97 percent of the workforce walking off the job and 2/3 picketing over the three days. Garbage overflowed, food was … Continue reading →

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BTP Poetry

Posted on 04/03/2013 by Books to Prisoners

soccer mom by raisheme worlds insects curdle my hysteria except the bumble-bee. fuzzy, black and yellow skin an outfit of my intrigue. the shiny shells of 6 leg’d things may speed the heart and yield my breath— spiraling webs of … Continue reading →

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Chávez’s Death, Like His Life, Shows the World’s Divisions

Posted on 04/03/2013 by Mark Weisbrot

By Mark Weisbrot This article was published by Al Jazeera English on March 17, 2013. The unprecedented worldwide response to the death of President Hugo Chávez of Venezuela, and especially in the Western Hemisphere, has brought into stark relief the … Continue reading →

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Illinois goes to DC to Fight Climate Change

Posted on 04/03/2013 by Stuart Levy

B by Stuart Levy This February 17th, a coalition of groups, including 350.org, the Sierra Club, and Hip Hop Caucus, held a rally and march in Washington, DC to raise the urgent issue of climate change. The Sierra Club organized … Continue reading →

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“What’s in a Name? Two C-U Buildings Named After African American Women”

Posted on 03/14/2013 by Brian Dolinar

As a new building on campus is being named after Maudelle Bousfield, the first African American woman to graduate from the University of Illinois, a public housing complex named after Joann Dorsey, black community activist in Champaign during the 1960s, … Continue reading →

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Women Singing Not to Forget in Post-war Ivory Coast

Posted on 03/13/2013 by Carol Spindel

Defeated at the polls in November 2010, former president of Ivory Coast Laurent Gbagbo refused to step down and held onto power by force for over four months. About three thousand people died in the post-electoral violence. Gbagbo was arrested … Continue reading →

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Education Justice Project Poets (First Installment)

Posted on 03/12/2013 by EJP

The mission of the Education Justice project is to build a model college-in-prison program that demonstrates the positive impacts of higher education upon incarcerated people, their families, the communities from which they come, and society as a whole.  We  provide upper-division college … Continue reading →

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Inmate Poetry

Posted on 02/24/2013 by Books to Prisoners

These poems were written by Illinois prison inmates and collected by Urbana Champaign Books to Prisoners. The Public i thanks Books to Prisoners for making them available. We will be publishing more inmate poetry in upcoming issues. For more information, … Continue reading →

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Service Employees Fight Back at UIUC

Posted on 02/24/2013 by Ricky Baldwin

“The … administration has followed a reverse policy of hiring incompetent leadership at the highest prices. If it were up to the university no hourly person would make much more than minimum wage. How are we going to support your … Continue reading →

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Mass Extinction to Mass Abundance

Posted on 02/24/2013 by George Hardebeck

By George M. F. Hardebeck George M. F. Hardebeck is the director of Arts Restoring Culture for Healing Earth (ARCHE). He recently moved to Urbana from Cincinnati and he works on eco-cultural restoration and cultural reconciliation. We are running wildly … Continue reading →

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Media Hate Fiesta for Venezuela Keeps on Keepen’ On

Posted on 02/24/2013 by Mark Weisbrot

By Mark Weisbrot (This article was first published in Al Jazeera English on January 29, 2013) Last week there was a real media hate-fest for Venezuelan president Hugo Chávez, with some of the more influential publications on both sides of … Continue reading →

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The Negative Impact of the War on Drugs in Our Community

Posted on 02/24/2013 by Public i

Two Community Dialogues Thursday, Feb. 28, Levis Faculty Center (919 W. Illinois St., Urbana) Friday night, March 1, Salem Baptist Church (500 E. Park St., Champaign) 5:30-8:30 p.m. both nights Keynote Speakers: Neill Franklin, former narcotics officer and executive director … Continue reading →

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The New Jim Crow Comes to Champaign-Urbana

Posted on 02/20/2013 by James Kilgore

If there was one constant during my six-and-a-half years in prison (apart from bad food), it was being surrounded by thousands of  mostly African-American and Latino men doing sentences like twenty, thirty or forty years for drug-related crimes. One friend … Continue reading →

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Her Name Was Hadiya, And She Was Killed By A Gun

Posted on 02/08/2013 by Amira Davis

More than 500 young children have died from being in the wrong place at the wrong time.” (from an anti-gang violence PSA by Hadiya Pendleton and crew) “none among us should feel unsafe moving about/through the world, on the earth, … Continue reading →

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WRFU Raises Tower Now Reaching Entire Community

Posted on 01/21/2013 by Danielle Chynoweth

Have something to say? An issue or kind of music you are passionate about? Thanks WRFU’s new tower, now you can reach all of Champaign, Urbana, and Savoy through WRFU 104.5 FM, a community radio station located in the Independent … Continue reading →

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The “Fiscal Cliff” is Classic Shock Doctrine

Posted on 01/21/2013 by David Johnson

The “debt ceiling” and “fiscal cliff” scenarios are well choreographed dog-and-pony circus acts brought to you by the same people who crashed the economy in 2008, with the help of their bought-and-paid-for politicians from both the Democrat and Republican parties. … Continue reading →

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Building a Solidarity Union

Posted on 01/21/2013 by Anna Kurhajec

How do you build a solidarity-oriented union? Our Graduate Employees Organization has found that looking beyond the campus and using our voice, funds, and organizing skills to help community causes has made us one of the strongest locals in east-central … Continue reading →

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Motivating High School Students to Become Future Builders

Posted on 01/21/2013 by Belden Fields

In 2007, I met Tanya Parker, now the publisher of the local magazine, Unity in Action, at a demonstration in front of the County Court House in Urbana.  We were both protesting what we felt was racial inequality in the … Continue reading →

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The Cheesemonger Spotlights Prairie Fruits Farm

Posted on 01/21/2013 by Billy LeGrand

by Billy LeGrand, Common Ground Food Co-op In a follow-up from the October issue of The Public i, this month, The Cheesemonger will focus on Champaign’s own award-winning Prairie Fruits Farm, just north of I-74 on N. Lincoln Ave. For … Continue reading →

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Changes to Police Contract Come from “The Work of the Citizen”

Posted on 01/20/2013 by Brian Dolinar

Two out of three proposals presented two years ago by the grassroots organization, Champaign-Urbana Citizens for Peace and Justice (CUCPJ), were included in the police union contract approved by Champaign city council on Tuesday night, December 4, 2012. In April … Continue reading →

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