
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
Thugs and vermin: Political sycophants downplay Trump’s unhinged speech echoing Nazi propaganda
In a speech on November 11 in Claremont, New Hampshire, and then in his Veterans Day greeting the day after on social media, former president Trump echoed German Nazis. “In honor of our great Veterans on Veteran’s Day [sic] we pledge to you that we will root out the...
Casualty of chaos: Why the Republican Party’s problem continues to be America’s problem as shutdown looms
The Republican-dominated House of Representatives remains unable to agree even to a way forward toward funding the United States government. This is a five-alarm fire. The continuing resolution for funding the government Congress passed in September when then–House...
Our Culture War is actually a conflict between telling the truth or perpetuating the lies about who we are
“History, as nearly no one seems to know, is not merely something to be read. And it does not refer merely, or even principally, to the past. On the contrary, the great force of history comes from the fact that we carry it within us, are unconsciously controlled...
Biblical republic: Why adherents of Christian nationalism reject the central premise of democracy
On October 29, 1929, the U.S. stock market crashed. It had been rocked five days before, when heavy trading early in the day drove it down, but leading bankers had seen the mounting crisis and moved in to stabilize the markets before the end of the day. October 24...
Republican’s political image of cowboy individualism continues to play out at the cost of lives
Data from the Commerce Department showed that the U.S. economy grew at an astonishing rate of 4.9% in the third quarter. We also learned that in Lewiston, Maine, a single shooter killed at least 18 people, more people than died by gun homicide in Maine in the whole of...
Antonio Rodriguez: A forgotten lynching changed the course of U.S. history and Mexican immigration
When twenty-year-old ranch hand Antonio Rodriguez was lynched by a mob in Rocksprings Texas on November 3, 1910, no one that day knew how that act of brutality and murder would play a major role in changing the course of history of the two nations separated by the Rio...
Traitor-in-Chief: Top military leaders confirm Trump’s attacks on wounded or killed American soldiers
The trial of former president Trump, his oldest sons, two associates, and the Trump Organization began in Manhattan on October 2. Jose Pagliery, political investigations reporter for The Daily Beast, noted that the presiding judge, New York Supreme Court Justice...
Threat of government shutdown temporarily ends with MAGA Republicans blocking vital aid to Ukraine
“The U.S. spent billions during the Cold War to prevent Russian aggression. Now, we have spent less than 3% of our defense budget in Ukraine to help the Ukrainian military, and they have destroyed half of the Russian army. It is the best investment ever for...
President Biden says Trump incites violence and works “against the very soul of who we are as Americans”
In Tempe, Arizona, President Joe Biden spoke on September 28 at the dedication ceremony for a new library, named for the late Arizona senator John McCain, who died in 2018. Biden used the opportunity not only to honor his friend, but to emphasize the themes of...