As part of the ongoing collaborative efforts of the Chicago Freedom Movement 40th anniversary steering committee and Loyola University Chicago's Center for Urban Research and Learning (CURL), we are pleased to be able to provide the following research brief. This document, prepared by CURL researchers, provides a snapshot of current data on key social indicators - education, health, employment & income, crime and criminal justice system, and housing.

These same issues were addressed forty years earlier in the Chicago Freedom Movement, led by Martin Luther King and Al Raby. As can be seen in most recent studies, the modest gains of that time have not been enough. In particular, research from three recent studies show the current and continuing racial and economic segregation by neighborhood in metropolitan Chicago.

The reports are:

• Separate, Unequal: Race, Place, Policy, and the State of African American Chicago. Paul Street, Chicago Urban League, 2005.
• The Segregation of Opportunities. John Lukehart, Leadership Council for Metropolitan Open Communities, 2005.
• Minding the Gap: An Assessment of Racial Disparity in Metropolitan Chicago.
• The Human Relations Foundation/Jane Addams Policy Initiative in collaboration with the Center for Urban Research and Learning, Loyola University Chicago, 2003.

Just as this movement calls for the mobilization of communities, we must also utilize and mobilize knowledge. In doing so, the movement possesses the supporting data for a renewed challenge to racial segregation.

An overview can be found here