For over a quarter century the People’s Law Office has helped expose and represent people tortured under former police Cmdr. Jon Burge. Recently, the artist and activist-led collective, Chicago Torture Justice Memorials (CTJM) selected a design for a public memorial to honor the Burge torture survivors. The memorial is called Breath, Form & Freedom. It was designed by Chicago artists Patricia Nguyen and architectural designer John Lee.
“Breath, Form and Freedom” is a 1600 square foot structure with a winding hallway that is twelve feet wide and features the names and dates of survivors tortured by Jon Burge and his police in his Midnight crew. Click here to read more about the memorial and the process of choosing it.
While most of the historic reparations legislation package has been implemented Mayor Rahm Emanuel refused to provide funding for the public memorial. Now CTJM is calling on Mayor Lori Lightfoot to fund the construction of the memorial.
In an article published by the Chicago Tribune today, People’s Law Office attorney and co-founder of CTJM, Joey Mogul said “There is no better way in my opinion to name racism … than the city of Chicago building a memorial about these racially motivated police torture cases.” You can read the entire article here.
