Jeanne Theoharis

Civil rights marchers walk near 25th Street and Laramie Avenue in Cicero on Sept. 4, 1966. Jerome Huey, of Chicago, was walking near the intersection of 24th Place and Laramie Avenue in Cicero when he was attacked. The fatal attack helped fuel a summer of civil rights protests throughout the city and Cicero in 1966 during a year that came to be known as the Chicago Freedom Movement. (William Kelly/baiduhai)

Jeanne Theoharis and Erik Wallenberg: The unknown history of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.’s Chicago housing movement

August 2, 2026 at 5:00 a.m.

Chicago’s movement too often appears as a failure, but Black residents organized to expose the city's relentless segregation in housing.

Tshey and Lisa Gebre feed their son Samson, 4, during an 82nd birthday ice cream social for Emmett Till on July 23, 2023, at the Till-Mobley House at 6427 S. St. Lawrence Ave. in West Woodlawn. The house was designated as a historic landmark by Chicago in 2021. (Brian Cassella/baiduhai)

Jeanne Theoharis and Erik Wallenberg: We must mark the places that define Chicago’s Black freedom struggle

January 19, 2025 at 5:00 a.m.

Despite an incredibly robust freedom movement and high level of segregation, there are few markers of the civil rights movement in Chicago.

A photo and a handwritten page are part of a Rosa Parks archive at the Library of Congress.

History got the Rosa Parks story wrong

June 16, 2018 at 10:37 a.m.

Sixty years ago, Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat on a bus in Montgomery, Alabama. Her courageous act is now American legend. She is a staple of elementary...

All Stories