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
Weaponizing the debt ceiling: How MAGA Republicans will inflict economic ruin just to maintain power
The Senate approved a short-term extension of government funding to prevent a shutdown on September 29. The deal funds the government until December 16 and also provides about $12 billion in aid to Ukraine as it fights off Russia’s invasion. The House is expected to...
Fear of equality: Why Conservatives are frantic to restrict Black Americans from access to education
On August 21, 1831, enslaved American Nat Turner led about 70 of his enslaved and free Black neighbors in a rebellion to awaken his White neighbors to the inherent brutality of slaveholding and the dangers it presented to their own safety. Turner and his friends...
Reggie Jackson: The Brett Favre welfare fraud case reminds me that Mississippi has not changed much
“If you were to pay me is there anyway the media can find out where it came from and how much?” – Brett Favre text message to Nancy New on August 3, 2017 “No, we never have had that information publicized. I understand you being uneasy about that though…”...
Labor Day 1882: Very first parade emphasized value of workers for the economy as a warning to politicians
One hundred and forty years ago, on September 5, 1882, workers in New York City celebrated the first Labor Day holiday with a parade. The parade almost did not happen: there was no band, and no one wanted to start marching without music. Once the Jewelers Union of...
Of ships and stones: A review of the political spectrum separating “Rings of Power” and “House of the Dragon”
My relationship with childhood stories of fantasy has evolved over my lifetime, as the genre has also grown and matured into mainstream acceptance. Within the span of a couple weeks, two major fantasy franchises both launched on rival streaming services. After the...
A manufactured crisis: Beijing resents when a democracy like Taiwan gets too close to America
In early August, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and a Democratic delegation commanded headlines when they traveled to Taiwan, an independently governed East Asian country made up of 168 islands on which about 24 million people live, and which China claims. Since 1979 the...
At long last: President Joe Biden calls out MAGA Republicans for their threat of being “semi-fascists”
In a speech on August 25, President Joe Biden called out today’s MAGA Republicans for threatening “our personal rights and economic security … They’re a threat to our very democracy.” When he referred to them as “semi-fascists,” he drew headlines, some of them...
Obstruction of Justice: Behind Trump’s concealment of classified documents stolen from the government
President Joe Biden’s record is unexpectedly strong going into the midterms, and he is directly challenging Republicans on the issues they formerly considered their own. On August 30, in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, he challenged the Republicans on their claim to be...
Dreams of Civil Rights: Why Americans are still fighting the same fights a hundred years later
On August 19, 1920, the Tennessee legislature ratified the Nineteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution by the narrow vote of 50 to 49. A mirror of the Fifteenth Amendment protecting the right of Black men to vote, the new amendment read: “The right of citizens of...
