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
Exploring Korea: Stories from Milwaukee to the DMZ and across a divided peninsula
EXPLORING KOREA: Stories from Milwaukee to the DMZ and across a divided Peninsula. This special series explores historical sites and cultural traditions from across the Korean Peninsula, building a bridge back to the search for identity in Milwaukee. From the...
A level playing field: Why the Reagan economic era is over regardless of Trump’s future
There are really two major Republican political stories dominating the news these days. The more obvious of the two is the attempt by former president Donald Trump and his followers to destroy American democracy. The other story is older, the one that led to Trump but...
History is a relay race: Past generations before us carried the baton and have now passed it to us
Black Americans outnumbered White Americans among the 29,500 people who lived in Selma, Alabama, in the 1960s, but the city’s voting rolls were 99% White. So, in 1963, Black organizers in the Dallas County Voters League launched a drive to get Black voters in Selma...
How FDR changed the Federal government with the Social Security Act to help generations of Americans
In August of 1935, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt signed the Social Security Act into law. While he had already put in place new measures to regulate business and banking and had provided temporary work relief to combat the Depression, this law permanently...
Brute force behavior: Why greed and corruption are the heart of the Republican grift to save America
The complaint of Republican vice presidential candidate Senator J.D. Vance (R-OH) recently on CNN that Democrats are bullying him by calling him weird has stuck with me. As I wrote at the time, Republicans have made punching down their stock in trade for decades, and...
Only in America could there be a me: Oprah Winfrey’s appearance at DNC highlights Democratic vision
The theme of the third day of the Democratic National Convention, held in the United Center in Chicago, Illinois, was “A Fight for Our Freedoms.” But the speeches were less about fighting than they were about recovering the roots of American democracy. In 1974, music...
Obamas tag team delivery of inspiring praise for Harris and dire warnings about Trump on DNC’s second night
At Chicago’s United Center on August 20, the delegates at the Democratic National Convention reaffirmed the recent online nomination of Kamala Harris for president. The ceremonial roll-call vote featured all the usual good-natured boasting from the delegates about...
Overturning neoliberalism: Harris-Walz team cements the emergence of a new Democratic Party
Vice President Kamala Harris’s choice of Minnesota governor Tim Walz to be her running mate seems to cement the emergence of a new Democratic Party. When he took office in January 2021, President Joe Biden was clear that he intended to launch a new era in America,...
Revolutionary moments: How American autocracy and democracy both happen slowly and then all at once
It seems a new America began recently, and I have struggled ever since to figure out what the apparent sudden revolution in our politics means. I keep coming back to the Ernest Hemingway quote about how bankruptcy happens. He said it happens in two stages, first...
