Rev. Jackson's message of hope resonates well beyond Chicago

To really appreciate the Rev. Jesse Jackson Sr. I think you have to step outside the Chicago lens, where media familiarity does not always result in the full measure of the man.

I first met him when our anti-apartheid organization hosted a visitor from the African National Congress. I ended up bringing my infant daughter with me because I was a working nursing mother. He did not bat an eye. In fact, he and the great Rev. Willie Barrow invited me to join in for the announcement of the Revlon makeup boycott. This led to a lifelong collaboration and friendship.

Rev. Jackson was incredibly media literate and a skilled speaker. He hosted numerous radio and television iterations of "Keep Hope Alive," his public affairs program. Over the years, he found brilliant representatives from academia, politics and culture. He could break down complex issues and concepts, such as Black Wall Street, the 2008 housing bubble and Black farming. He could smack-talk. He could pray. 

When I served as an occasional fill-in host on his national radio show or traveled to Detroit to work on his daughter Santita‘s TV program, I learned that members of the Rainbow PUSH Coalition were effective, committed and everywhere. 

As a producer for "Chicago Tonight," I watched a group of Humboldt Park protesters gain strength as they shouted, "Jesse is here,” when he appeared at their Puerto Rican protest, and cameras came too. Jesse was able to uplift voices and issues to serve others.

Watching him celebrate his daughter surrounded by children and grandchildren, he was quiet, loving and, yes, humble. 

In a world that is quick to cannibalize Black culture and diminish our history, what can we do in this moment? Let’s show compassion and care, not only to his family but also to the contemporaries he leaves behind who are suffering on a personal level. Let’s get the story right and pass it on to our children with all the lessons and complexity that his life has to offer. Let’s "Keep Hope Alive," with an added dose of resilience!

Sylvia Ewing, vice president of journalism and media engagement, Public Narrative

Sun-Times captured Jackson’s legacy

Congratulations, Sun-Times, with much gratitude, for your extraordinary journalistic homage to the Rev. Jesse Jackson — an American political giant who diligently built, for multiple generations, a sturdy and reliable bridge between the 1960s Civil Rights Movement and today's fight against social and racial injustice.

Your 20-page special section honoring the multiple legacies of Rev. Jackson eloquently surpassed the journalistic coverage of other outstanding newspapers such as the New York Times, USA Today and the Chicago Tribune.

Your historically robust visual archive of Rev. Jackson's political journey through the decades reminded me of when I saw him run for president in the 1980s when I was still a young Mexican immigrant college student. That moment made me realize that the names of Americans of color, both within and outside my community, could actually get prominent national recognition in the world of politics.

In my view, Rev. Jackson broke the presidential race ceiling in the late 20th century for our own 21st century President Barack Obama.

Perhaps even more importantly, Rev. Jackson's moral vision for a better society, including his ongoing belief in a "rainbow coalition" that truly captures the multicultural American society that we have always been, offers a compelling map for how to nurture a better America for the new generations.

May Rev. Jesse Jackson rest in peace and power.

Alejandro Lugo, Park Forest

Latino heritage rooted in Chicago

In the first week of January, I traveled to Chicago to meet with historic preservation partners — from established practitioners to grassroots neighborhood leaders. In La Villita — Little Village — community leaders spoke about what it now takes to remain in place: keeping businesses open, families together and neighborhoods intact amid federal immigration enforcement pressure and ongoing uncertainty.

What is unfolding here reflects a national moment that is redefining how American history is interpreted and preserved.

As the United States nears its 250th anniversary, public attention is turning toward questions of origin, belonging and national memory. Chicago has long influenced how the country understands culture, civic life and preservation. Latino communities are part of that continuum, visible across neighborhoods, institutions and public space, even when their presence is treated as recent or temporary.

In historic neighborhoods like Little Village and Pilsen, the past is lived daily through family-owned businesses, housing stability and community networks that allow residents to remain rooted.

Actions such as Operation Midway Blitz, which separated thousands of families, continue to affect how residents move through their neighborhoods, how businesses operate and how communities organize for safety and mutual support.

That context is why, in August, Latinos in Heritage Conservation will bring its national historic preservation conference, Congreso, to Chicago.

This region is a living archive of migration, labor, resistance and reinvention. Afro Latino, Indigenous, Mexican, Central American, Caribbean and working-class communities have shaped its cultural landscape for generations. Decisions about community safety, displacement and who is able to remain are happening now, and preservation must be part of them.

It is also a place where Latino communities have carried that legacy forward through everyday stewardship, sustaining family-owned businesses, organizing for housing stability and protecting cultural spaces that anchor community life. This year, we will gather not to observe this history, but to stand within it and to affirm clearly and publicly that we are here, and we have always been here.

Sehila Mota Casper, executive director, Latinos in Heritage Conservation

Funding parity for charter students is not a bailout

Recent coverage of financial distress facing some charter schools has focused on whether Chicago Public Schools should provide short-term financial support. The coverage mischaracterizes these payments as "bailouts," when in actuality they are the foreseeable consequence of many years of structural underfunding.

CPS is required by law to provide charter schools at least 97% of the state’s per capita tuition charge. Yet after deducting pension, debt service, management fees and other districtwide costs, charter schools receive, on average, roughly 83% of that amount. That means thousands of dollars less per student, even when charter and district-run schools serve similar student populations in the same neighborhoods.

In one example reported by Chalkbeat Chicago, two high schools with fewer than 300 students share a building on the Far South Side. Noble’s Baker College Prep, a charter public school, received $15,800 per student this year, while the district-run Bowen High School received $25,150 per student, according to CPS data. The building is the same. The students are similar. The funding is not.

CPS data also shows that 287 of 498 school buildings are categorized as underutilized. Some schools have fewer than 200 students. Douglass High School has just 28 students in a building built for 912. District-run schools receive guaranteed staffing positions regardless of enrollment and are subsidized to remain open. Charter schools, by contrast, are funded largely based on enrollment alone, even though 87% of charter students live in poverty compared with 69% in district-run schools.

Charter schools are concentrated on the South and West sides of the city, where population decline has been steepest, but the need for high-quality public schools remains urgent. These students deserve stability and equitable funding.

When district-run schools receive additional support to remain open, we call it equity and investment. When charter students seek parity with their district-run peers, it should be viewed through the same lens. Every public school student in Chicago deserves fair treatment under the law and a funding system that supports their success.

Andrew Broy, president, Illinois Network of Charter Schools

School choice is misguided choice

It’s a shame the Archdiocese of Chicago has to close more schools due to lack of funding, but saving them with taxpayer funds or vouchers is not the answer.

As education historian Dianne Ravitch states, “Choice is a means to defund what should be our common good.” Redirecting funds means fewer dollars for the neediest students. Any choice model that diverts public funds to private interests destroys the social contract that is meant to strengthen public schools for the common good.

The answer isn’t to increase the Illinois K-12 education expense credit for private education, as some suggest. That would further enable taxpayers to opt out of public education. The results would be catastrophic: more school closings due to lack of funding, lower property values and a higher likelihood of becoming the subject of a watchdog task force.

The archdiocese is taking the necessary steps to ease its financial burden. To grow, it may want to consider a different approach to attract students to certain parochial schools: classical education.

Depending on the parish's progressiveness, the faith community might embrace a classical education model for their children. Teachers need to work hard to ensure the school maintains state accreditation, but it has worked.

For example, over time, St. Jerome Academy in Hyattsville, Maryland, shifted from a traditional curriculum to a classical Catholic education, which “consists in cultivating virtuous dispositions in students.” Today, the school is at total capacity with waitlists.

St. Jerome's goal was to reimagine education. It is infinitely more effective than reshuffling funds like a shell game.

Mary Dooms, Hoffman Estates

Bon voyage, Bears

If the Chicago Bears want to build a new home in the Chicago suburbs, that's fine with me.
If they want to profit more by moving to Indiana — a location less accessible to Chicago area fans, so be it. But they won't be the Chicago Bears to me anymore, and I won't follow their exploits. Nor, I expect, will they get the Chicago media coverage they currently enjoy. Their past glories will fade into memory like any deceased relative. Hammond Hawks, anyone?

Charles Berg, Hyde Park/Kenwood

Suburban sprawl

Now that it's very possible that the Bears will leave Illinois and become the Hammond Bears or the Indiana Bears, there will be a large vacant parcel of land in the northwest suburbs. I have a radical suggestion for the new owners of the property. They can build a racetrack there and name it Arlington Park!

Craig Jacobson, Skokie

Bears move: quarterback sneak

I don't have a stake in this potential relocation, but I hate the secrecy behind the process.

We saw it with the New York Giants and Jets moving to the New Jersey Meadowlands Sports Complex. By the time these funding bills get passed and news releases floated, it's often a fait accompli. Negotiations typically have already taken place, between stakeholders and local elected officials and the team ownership, long before we see it in the headlines. Unfortunately, the taxpayers who fund the new stadiums are the last to know.

But everyone wants to be an NFL town, right? So they don't complain too much.

Then again, a Bears move to Indiana (or to Iowa, as also rumored) could fall through — like the supposed Washington Commanders move to northern Virginia a couple years ago, which never materialized.

Adam Silbert, New York City

Baseball prayers

Watching the recent installation of Bishop Ronald Hicks, a Chicago area native, as archbishop of New York at St. Patrick's Cathedral, I remembered his recent comment that he will remain a Cubs fan.

As a Mets fan for over 60 years, I have no problem with that.

But if Archbishop Hicks decides to replace the traditional recessional hymn after Mass with "Go Cubs Go," and if the Cubs meet Pope Leo XIV's White Sox in this year's World Series, I'll start going to Mass daily. 

God bless New York AND Chicago. (God knows we both need it.)

Jim Vespe, Mamaroneck, New York