Members of the Chicago City Council meet on Wednesday, May 26, 2021. (WTTW News)

A probe by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development found that aldermanic prerogative has created a hyper-segregated city rife with racism and gentrification.

Chicago City Hall. (Michael Izquierdo / WTTW News)

Mayor Brandon Johnson is backing the creation of a new subcommittee to study reparations and is agreeing to earmark $500,000 in his 2024 spending plan to fund the panel’s work.

(Michael Izquierdo / WTTW News)

Advocates for Latino Chicagoans told WTTW News that they believe Lightfoot failed to fulfill promises to ensure those she chose to lead city departments and to serve on city panels represented the city’s racial and ethnic diversity.

Kanye West was awarded an honorary doctorate by the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in May 2015 for his contribution to art and culture. The school revoked his degree on Thursday, Dec. 8. (Daniel Boczarski / WireImage / Getty Images)

The School of the Art Institute of Chicago has revoked an honorary doctorate awarded to Kanye West, as the fallout from the rapper’s offensive remarks about Black and Jewish people continues.

File photo. (WTTW News)
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Current and former employees at an Amazon warehouse in Joliet say the mega-retailer has allowed a racially hostile work environment, including death threats against Black employees and workers who are allowed to wear Confederate flag clothing, according to a complaint filed with the federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and the Illinois Department of Human Rights.

Louis Weathers says racial discrimination in Evanston, Illinois, made house hunting difficult for him decades ago. (Jacquelyne Germain / CNN)

From cash payouts to issuing extensive reports and building a bureaucratic system to examine what reparations could look like, here is what some local and state governments have done so far.

Authorities arrest members of the white supremacist group Patriot Front near an Idaho pride event Saturday, June 11, 2022, after they were found packed into the back of a U-Haul truck with riot gear. (Georji Brown via AP)

Those arrested came from at least 11 states, including Illinois, Washington, Oregon, Texas, Utah, Colorado, South Dakota, Wyoming, Virginia, and Arkansas, police said. Only one was from Idaho.

(benscripps / Pixabay)

Chicago’s effort to address reparations for the descendants of enslaved people stalled as suburban Evanston became the first city in the nation to offer reparations.

Proud Boys leader Enrique Tarrio wears a hat that says The War Boys and smokes a cigarette at a rally in Delta Park on Sept. 26, 2020, in Portland, Ore. (AP Photo / Allison Dinner, File)

The new riot-related indictments against Proud Boys members are among the most serious filed so far, but they aren't the first of their kind. Eleven members or associates of the anti-government Oath Keepers militia group were indicted in January on seditious conspiracy charges in the Capitol attack.

According to the FBI’s latest annual report, there were 8,263 hate crime incidents in the U.S. in 2020. That’s up from 7,314 in 2019 when the country experienced the highest number of hate crimes since 2008. Now the Illinois Commission on Discrimination and Hate Crimes is set to examine how to prevent and address hate crimes across the state.

A person pays his respects outside the scene of a shooting at a supermarket, in Buffalo, N.Y., Sunday, May 15, 2022. (AP Photo / Matt Rourke)
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Ideas from the “great replacement theory” filled a racist screed supposedly posted online by the white 18-year-old accused of targeting Black people in Saturday’s rampage. Authorities were still working to confirm its authenticity.

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Hate crimes have been on the rise in the U.S. Last fall, the FBI reported that hate crimes surged to their highest level in 12 years. The Anti-Defamation League says 2021 saw the highest number of antisemitic incidents ever recorded by the organization.

(Goodfreephotos_com / Pixabay)

From 2019 to 2020, life expectancy in Chicago dropped almost two years – one of the sharpest single-year decreases on record, according to city officials. Latino and Black Chicagoans experienced the steepest declines, with life expectancy for the latter falling below 70 years for the first time in decades.

(Courtesy of Jemar Tisby)

Helping young people figure out how to take a stand against racism is the topic of the latest selection in our Black Voices Book Club Series. “How to Fight Racism: A Guide to Standing Up for Racial Justice” aims to give young people information and tools to fight racism and effect change.

(WTTW News)

The wrongdoing was detailed in the first — and likely only — quarterly report issued by interim Inspector General William Marbeck, who is set to be replaced with a permanent watchdog later this month.

A Xavier University police officer redirects a motorist around campus after a bomb threat put the campus on lockdown in New Orleans, La., Feb. 1, 2022. (David Grunfeld / The Advocate via AP, File)
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More than a third of America’s 101 historically Black colleges and universities have been targeted by calls or emails threatening to set off bombs on their campuses since early January, with the vast majority arriving during the celebration of Black History Month in February. The threats are being investigated as hate crimes.