What Chicago’s Black-led Resistance is Teaching the Nation

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FEATURING RICHARD WALLACE - Thousands of people marched in Chicago on Labor Day against Donald Trump’s threats to deploy National Guard troops and ICE agents across the city. 

Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson addressed protesters saying, “This is the city that will defend the country.” Trump has called Chicago a “hellhole,” “killing field,” and the “murder capital of the world.” 

But Chicagoans are determined to resist, in particular Black-led abolitionist groups who have long fought against the over-policing of their communities. 

Richard Wallace is an author, organizer, and the Founding Executive Director of Equity and Transformation (EAT), an organization dedicated to advancing social and economic equity for Black informal workers. Under his leadership, EAT launched the Chicago Future Fund in 2021, a groundbreaking Guaranteed Income pilot for formerly incarcerated individuals. 

Wallace spoke with Sonali Kolhatkar about how he and others are leading Chicago's resistance to Trump's militarism.

ROUGH TRANSCRIPT:

Sonali Kolhatkar: So first let's just address Trump's obvious maligning of Chicago. He has used a lot of names against the city. What is your response to that? 

Richard Wallace: Yeah, I think my response like anyone else's is that this is one more soundbite to add to the many others that just creates a lot of fog around, like the reality that we're currently living in, right? Like, we don't know what's what, when, what is gonna happen or how it's gonna happen. But these threats are, I think they're centered around Chicago's most vulnerable communities. 

So regardless of when they happen, we have to be prepared and we have to educate our communities to the best of our ability on what they can do to keep themselves safe.