With a dedicated career helping children and families adversely impacted by immigration, homelessness, abuse, and oppressive systems in South America, Europe, and his native Milwaukee, Luke serves as Director of Program Design and Community Engagement at the Institute for Child and Family Well-being at Children’s Wisconsin.
As an award-winning Senior Columnist for the Milwaukee Independent, Reggie Jackson covers a range of African American issues. He is also a Consultant with Nurturing Diversity Partners, and volunteers as Head Griot for America’s Black Holocaust Museum (ABHM) in Bronzeville.
REGGIE JACKSON: 7x Award Winner in Best Column categories from the Milwaukee Press Club
As a teacher for over twenty years, Dominic Inouye helped students to develop their reading, writing, critical thinking, and, most of all, their voices. He worked as The Pfister Hotel Narrator, a one-year appointment, and currently manages the ZIP MKE project that photo documents the city to promote cultural understanding.
Dominic Inouye: 2x Award Winner in Best Column category from the Milwaukee Press Club
Dr. Kenneth Cole is a Licensed Psychologist who has spent the past two decades helping members of the community in developing the ability to bring about positive change for their lives, and empowering those individuals to advocate for themselves.
Kenneth Cole: 2x Award Winner in Reporting categories from the Milwaukee Press Club
Pardeep Kaleka is the Executive Director of the Interfaith Conference of Greater Milwaukee, published author of The Gifts of Our Wounds, award-winning columnist with Milwaukee Independent, and a clinician specializing in utilizing a trauma-informed approach to treat survivors and perpetrators of assault, abuse, and acts of violence.
PARDEEP KALEKA: Winner in Best Blog category of the 88th Annual Milwaukee Press Club Awards
John Pavlovitz: Winner of Best Blog at the 89th Annual Milwaukee Press Club Awards
Recent Columns
Demonizing Women: Why Republicans used abortion as an issue to deliberately polarize American politics
On January 22, 1973, the Supreme Court handed down the Roe v. Wade decision. By a 7–2 vote, the Supreme Court found that the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution guaranteed the right of privacy under its “concept of personal liberty and restrictions upon state...
The meaning of Valley Forge: An interview by Heather Cox Richardson with President Joe Biden
President Joe Biden and first lady Jill Biden visited Valley Forge, Pennsylvania, ahead of his speech marking the third anniversary of the January 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol. Historian and professor Heather Cox Richardson sat down with the President on...
1776 Betrayed: How Trump whitewashes his crimes by calling the January 6 insurrectionists “patriots”
Three years to the day after the January 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol to prevent the counting of the electoral ballots that would make Democrat Joe Biden president, officers from the Federal Bureau of Investigation arrested three fugitives wanted in connection...
How Conservatives turned their firepower from the USSR to American democracy after the Cold War ended
On December 26, 1991, banner headlines read: “Gorbachev, Last Soviet Leader, Resigns; U.S. Recognizes Republics’ Independence.” On December 25, Soviet president Mikhail Gorbachev had resigned, marking the end of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, often referred...
A false normal: Looking back on Milwaukee in 2023 and a social shift to the Uncanny Valley
With the end of any year comes a time for reflection. That was never more true for me in 2023. It has been an unprecedented year of opportunities and adventures, along with the corresponding sacrifices. A senior photojournalist for Milwaukee Independent, I visited...
Insight about the abuse of power by MAGA Republicans and their “Three Stooges” antics to avoid governance
The Associated Press ran a story by national political reporter Brian Slodysko on December 14 titled “The Republican leading the probe of Hunter Biden has his own shell company and complicated friends.” It told the story of how Representative James Comer (R-KY), the...
The Pandemic We Wasted: How we could have transcended our self-erected barriers of politics
What do you remember about the first days of the pandemic? I remember going to three grocery stores with a rising sense of dread as the shelves became more and more bare. I remember the disorienting uncertainty as our routines were interrupted and our normal imploded....
Reggie Jackson: My childhood miseducation and the institutional control of Negro thinking
“The thought of the inferiority of the Negro is drilled into him in almost every class he enters and in almost every book he studies. If he happens to leave school after he masters the fundamentals, before he finishes high school or reaches college, he will naturally...
Thanksgiving Anxiety: The unexpected stress of normal routines that feel anything but normal post-COVID
Much has been written about the holiday season in America, particularly Thanksgiving. And with an induced amnesia only two years after COVID, many people are desperate to cling to their nostalgic memories from before the pandemic in the rush back to...
