Author Ta-Nehisi Coates speaks during the Celebration of the Life of Toni Morrison, Nov. 21, 2019, in New York. (AP Photo / Mary Altaffer, File)

The Courage Fund’s first grant comes from the Ford Foundation, which announced a $1 million donation on Dec. 13. A Long Walk Home and A Call to Men, national organizations focused on sexual-violence prevention and education for two decades, will lead the effort.

Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul appears on “Chicago Tonight” on June 6, 2023. (WTTW News)

More than 450 Catholic clerics and religious brothers abused nearly 2,000 children across six Illinois dioceses, according to a multi-year investigation from the state’s attorney general’s office, a total significantly higher than what the church itself had reported previously.

The Archbishop Quigley Center in Chicago. (WTTW News)

“At best, the cardinal’s claims of being blindsided are misleading,” Attorney General Kwame Raoul said. “At worst, they are more of the same, a continuation of the church’s decades-long pattern of turning a blind eye and covering up allegations of child sex abuse to the detriment of survivors.”

The Archbishop Quigley Center in Chicago. (WTTW News)

The results of that investigation, published by Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul, represents what he called the first comprehensive accounting of child sex abuse by members of the Catholic clergy in Illinois.

On Monday night, the final installment of “Surviving R. Kelly” began airing on Lifetime. R. Kelly, (C), here appears at a hearing in 2019 in Chicago, Illinois. (E. Jason Wambsgans / Getty Images)
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“Surviving R. Kelly Part III: The Final Chapter” is a two-part look at the legal fallout Kelly has faced. 

R. Kelly’s manager Donnell Russell leaves federal court, Wednesday, July 20, 2022, in New York. Russell was sentenced Monday, Dec. 19, to a year in federal prison for calling in a shooting threat that shut down a screening of a documentary. (AP Photo / Mary Altaffer, File)

R. Kelly’s onetime manager was sentenced Monday to a year in federal prison for calling in a shooting threat that halted a screening of a damning documentary about the R&B star.

In this Sept. 17, 2019, file photo, R. Kelly appears during a hearing at the Leighton Criminal Courthouse in Chicago. (Antonio Perez / Chicago Tribune via AP, Pool, File)

R. Kelly’s lawyers said Monday they would fight prosecutors’ bid to tell jurors about allegations beyond the actual charges  at his upcoming federal sex trafficking trial. 

In this Sept. 17, 2019, file photo, R. Kelly appears during a hearing at the Leighton Criminal Courthouse in Chicago. (Antonio Perez / Chicago Tribune via AP, Pool, File)

Federal prosecutors in R. Kelly’s sex trafficking case say he had sexual contact with an underage boy in addition to girls, and the government wants jurors in his upcoming sex trafficking trial to hear those claims. 

R. Kelly appears for a hearing at the Leighton Criminal Court Building on Friday, March 22, 2019 in Chicago. (E. Jason Wambsgans / Chicago Tribune via AP, Pool)

Two months ahead of his upcoming racketeering trial in New York, R&B star R. Kelly is seeking to part ways with the two Chicago-based attorneys who have been handling his many criminal cases.

Joseph Saunders and other members of Chicago’s St. Sabina Catholic Church rally outside the Archdiocesan Pastoral Center in Chicago demanding resolution of the investigation into allegations against the Rev. Michael Pfleger on Wednesday, Feb 24, 2021 in Chicago.

After the first allegations surfaced in January, the Archdiocese of Chicago temporarily removed Michael Pfleger to investigate, leading to fierce backlash from parishioners trying to clear his name. They’ve flooded the archdiocese’s phone lines and staged rallies. They’ve also challenged the accusers’ accounts.

In this Saturday, July 7, 2018 file photo, the Rev. Michael Pfleger speaks to protesters before marching on the Dan Ryan Expressway in Chicago. (AP Photo / Annie Rice, File)

The 59-year-old man alleges in an affidavit shared late Tuesday with church officials that the Rev. Michael Pfleger once grabbed his crotch over his clothes in the priest’s bedroom area at St. Sabina Church in the summer of 1979 as the then 18-year-old accuser pretended to sleep.

The Archbishop Quigley Center in Chicago. (WTTW News)

The Archdiocese of Chicago said Wednesday it plans to publicly list the names of “credibly accused” priests belonging to religious orders after questions over the archdiocese’s transparency.

In this Sept. 17, 2019, file photo, R. Kelly appears during a hearing at the Leighton Criminal Courthouse in Chicago. (Antonio Perez / Chicago Tribune via AP, Pool, File)

A federal judge in New York on Tuesday denied R&B singer R. Kelly’s request for release from jail in Chicago because he was concerned he could contract the coronavirus while behind bars.

In this June 6, 2019 file photo, singer R. Kelly appears at a court hearing before Judge Lawrence Flood in Chicago. (E. Jason Wambsgans / Chicago Tribune via AP, Pool)

R&B singer R. Kelly on Thursday pleaded not guilty to an updated federal indictment that includes child pornography charges and allegations involving a new accuser, while prosecutors said more charges alleging yet another victim are upcoming.

In this June 26, 2019, file photo, R&B singer R. Kelly, center, arrives at the Leighton Criminal Court building for an arraignment on sex-related felonies in Chicago. (AP Photo / Amr Alfiky, File)

Already facing the possibility of three separate trials in 2020, the R&B singer was hit with a new federal indictment this week alleging he engaged in sexual activity with a minor in the late 1990s.

R. Kelly appears at a hearing Tuesday, May 7, 2019 before Judge Lawrence Flood at the Leighton Criminal Court Building in Chicago. (E. Jason Wambsgans / Chicago Tribune / Pool)

The woman says she was 24 years old and working for R. Kelly when the R&B singer allegedly tried to make her perform oral sex on him in 2003.