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
The exhaustion that Blue people endure when living in a Red America that refuses to see them
I have spoken to a lot of exhausted people recently, even with the good news that many of us have experienced through this country. Though, nationally there was no massive Red Wave as predicted by the pollsters and the media, these activists and caring human beings...
How Julia Ward Howe’s “Battle Hymn of the Republic” defined the Civil War as a holy war for human freedom
On February 1, 1862, in the early days of the Civil War, the “Atlantic Monthly” published Julia Ward Howe’s “Battle Hymn of the Republic,” summing up the cause of freedom for which the United States troops would soon be fighting. “Mine eyes have seen the...
Reggie Jackson: The beating death of Tyre Nichols asks unanswered question of when will police abuse end
“There are those who are asking the devotees of civil rights, ‘When will you be satisfied?’ We can never be satisfied as long as the Negro is the victim of the unspeakable horrors of police brutality.” – MLK’s “I Have a Dream”...
Pardeep Kaleka: The “might makes right” mindset is acculturated into the racial hurt we consume
Sometimes it feels like the hate that we give back to ourselves cuts the deepest. This American experience can be challenging for a numerous reasons. No matter who you are, you struggle to make a living, make a life, and just find an existence that will help you reach...
The myth of discrimination: How the culture of White Supremacy killed Tyre Nichols
“Every police officer who killed Tyre Nichols was Black. This cannot be White Supremacy.” These are words spoken and written by people who see the water pouring from their kitchen faucet and don’t think about the long path of the water coming out of it; the circuitous...
Reasons for despair: Why the new “Great Depression” comes from our profound sense of political dread
A similar thing happens to me on many mornings lately. My eyes open and I suddenly become aware that I am awake. My mind quickly begins assembling the first few seconds of my day … making plans, organizing my checklist, when a terrible interruption breaks in and...
Authoritarian Learning: Insurrection by Brazil’s far-right shows Trump taught world how to do January 6
On January 8 in Brazil, supporters of former president Jair Bolsonaro attacked the presidential palace, congress, and supreme court, insisting that the country’s October election, in which voters replaced Bolsonaro with President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, was...
Power entirely for its own sake: Where begging and pleading to become House Speaker leaves the nation
Early in the morning of January 7, shortly after midnight, Republican Kevin McCarthy of California won enough votes to become speaker of the House of Representatives. Not since 1860, when it took 44 ballots to elect New Jersey’s William Pennington as a compromise...
The Four Freedoms: Lessons from the FDR speech that articulated a powerful vision for a world
“If the Congress maintains these principles, the voters, putting patriotism ahead of pocketbooks, will give you their applause. In the future days, which we seek to make secure, we look forward to a world founded upon four essential human freedoms. The first is...
