Community Partners
THE CENTER PARTNERS WITH COMMUNITY-BASED ORGANIZATIONS ON THE SOUTH SIDE. THIS PAGE HIGHLIGHTS THE WORK OF SOME OF OUR PAST AND PRESENT PARTNERS.
Launched in January 2018, Scholars for Social Justice (SSJ) offers a platform and network through which progressive scholars can work collaboratively to articulate and support a political agenda that insists on equity, justice, and freedom, especially for those most oppressed in our society. SSJ seeks to mobilize the knowledge, skills, and resources of scholars to battle repressive attacks on marginalized communities, advancing instead an agenda of equality and justice. Issues impacting immigrants, women of color, people of color, Muslims, women, LGBTQ+, disabled-, indigenous, and poor and working-class communities are a central priority for the organization. Moreover, SSJ is especially attuned to using the experiences of these same communities to reimagine the academy, expanding who it serves, who has access to it, and who shapes its mission.
The Black Metropolis Research Consortium (BMRC) is a Chicago-based membership association of libraries, universities, and other archival institutions. Its mission is to make broadly accessible its members’ holdings of materials that document African American and African diasporic culture, history, and politics, with a specific focus on materials relating to Chicago. The University of Chicago serves as the current host institution of the BMRC and is the BMRC’s fiscal agent.
Chicago Theological Seminary is an affiliated seminary of the United Church of Christ. For over 160 years, we have educated future leaders for a multitude of ministries. Since our beginning, CTS has pushed at the growing boundaries of the church in order to make our faith relevant and transform our society towards greater justice. Our student body now represents more than 40 different faith traditions, perspectives and denominations.
Haymarket Books is a nonprofit, radical book distributor and publisher, a project of the Center for Economic Research and Social Change. We believe that activists need to take ideas, history, and politics into the many struggles for social justice today. Learning the lessons of past victories, as well as defeats, can arm a new generation of fighters for a better world. As Karl Marx said, “The philosophers have merely interpreted the world; the point however is to change it.”
The Historical Preservation Society of the Illinois Chapter of the Black Panther Party is creating tangible, place-based educational and cultural learning experiences based on the Black Panther Party's historical record in Illinois.
Parole Illinois works as a coalition of people inside and outside of prison who are working toward a more just and humane legal system. We believe in the power of redemption and transformation. We believe it is inhumane to order people to spend decades in prison until they die there without any periodic assessment of whether such sentences are necessary for public safety. We therefore stand against policies that sentence people to death by incarceration, whether that be life-without-parole or excruciatingly long sentences that people cannot outlive. We believe that parole would present the most expeditious way for the many over-incarcerated people in Illinois to obtain their freedom. We don’t take this fact lightly. We are prepared to devote substantial effort to establishing a fair and inclusive parole system and maintaining a fair and effective parole board.
The Prison + Neighborhood Arts Project is a visual arts and humanities project that connects teaching artists and scholars to men at Stateville Maximum Security Prison through classes, workshops and guest lectures. Classes offered include subjects ranging from poetry, visual arts, and film study to political theory, social studies, and history. Read more about this partnership, formed with the UChicago Civic Knowledge Project …
Since 1961, the Seminary Co-op Bookstores have served the University of Chicago's community of scholars as well as the greater South Side, and acted as an epicenter of cultural and intellectual life. Over the past 50 years, the Co-op has grown from a small, basement store into a labyrinth of books at two locations in Hyde Park, with over 100,000 titles on their shelves.
On The Real Film
A Chicago based production company that loves story telling and keeps it real - founded in 2011 by partners Erin Babbin and Michael Sullivan. Since its founding they have worked documenting artists, musicians, arts organizations, nonprofits and university programs. Their work in cinema has been screened internationally in Paris, New York, Mexico City, London, Mumbai, Istanbul, Los Angeles, Washington, D.C., Tulum, Missoula, Hamburg, Denver, York, Belleville, San Francisco, Toronto, Park City, and Chicago.
Black Adoption Project
The Black Adoption Project is a reparative archive, a resource hub, and an open-access knowledge-sharing space created with people whose lives, families, and identities have been touched by adoption. We are particularly committed to elevating the diverse experiences of adoption within black communities in the U.S. and across the globe. The project is a growing collective of initiatives created by and for adopted persons, narrating society's understandings of adoption one story at a time.
Call & Response Books
Call & Response is a Black woman-owned bookstore focused on fostering a love of reading, community, human connections, and the sharing of ideas across cultures and backgrounds. With the knowledge that the publishing industry has historically overlooked and sidelined writers of color, we place the voices of Black and other authors of color at the center of our work. We hope to provide a space for the many people who, for so long, have not seen ourselves represented in literature, empowering all to share their stories with the world.
A nonprofit organization that presents unique film screenings at locations across Chicago’s south side. At many screenings, we enlist scholars, activists, and filmmakers to lead discussions, understanding the films to be the beginning, not the end, of a conversation about how films engage with complex social and political issues. Other screenings are opportunities to present seldom-seen films of historical and artistic value.
In 2014, Sisters in Cinema was established as a 501(c) 3 non-profit corporation in the state of Illinois with an inclusive mission to entertain, educate, develop and celebrate Black girls and women media-makers and future generations of storytellers and their audiences.
The Social Justice Initiative (SJI) at UIC is a campus-wide project that grew out of several streams of activity and discussion. Begun as a collective effort in 2010 by UIC faculty, staff, students, administrators and community partners, SJI seeks to build upon and foreground a critically important part of our mission as a diverse public research university in a global but often contested city.
Interested in hosting an event at the CSRPC?
Please use the following Room Request Form as the first step in the process. Once received, we will reach out with any further questions and concerns.