DON TERRY
For more than a quarter century, Don Terry has written about the era’s defining political and social issues. As a City Hall reporter at the Chicago Sun-Times, he covered the city’s first African-American mayor, Harold Washington, and the racially charged City Council polarization known as “Council Wars.” As a national correspondent for the New York Times, Don reported on the Rodney King riots in Los Angeles, the Oklahoma City Federal Building bombing and the standoff with federal agents at Waco, Texas. Most recently, as a Sunday Magazine staff writer for the Chicago Tribune, he wrote long-form articles on subjects including HIV/AIDS, tracking war criminals in Rwanda and the encroachment of suburban development on rural life. He began his career at the Chicago Defender.
Don was part of a team of New York Times writers awarded the 2001 Pulitzer Prize for the series “How Race Is Lived in America.” He also received the Peter Lisagor Award for feature writing, the Global Health Council Excellence in Media Award and the Studs Terkel Award for longstanding excellence in reporting about Chicago’s diverse communities.
Recent Contributions
by DON TERRY | Feb 6, 2012
Until recently, the sound of gunfire crackling in the streets of Englewood came from at least two or three blocks away, giving La’Keisha Gray-Sewell and her young family a fragile sense of safety and distance from the mayhem. But Gray-Sewell, who runs a mentoring program for girls, and her husband, Barry Sewell, a disc jockey,
by DON TERRY | Jan 13, 2012
In the nearly two months since Corey Brooks, a little-known minister, began living, praying and preaching in a tent pitched on the roof of a vacant motel, politicians, hip-hop musicians and grieving mothers have traveled to the South Side for an audience with the “rooftop pastor.” Now Brooks could emerge as “the new face in
by DON TERRY | Jan 5, 2012
Rev. Corey Brooks has been on the ground only once in the six weeks since he began living, praying and preaching from a tent pitched on the windswept roof of a vacant motel, in his effort to raise money to build a youth center in his troubled South Side neighborhood. Brooks descended from the rooftop
by DON TERRY and BRIDGET O'SHEA | Dec 26, 2011
Some of Chicago’s most vulnerable citizens — those who depend on public financing for mental health services — face a new year that may bring less of something they deeply need: help. Their plight focuses on Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s recent budget, which would close 6 of the city’s 12 mental health centers serving poor and
by DON TERRY | Dec 9, 2011
A few days after officiating at his 10th funeral in less than a year for a young black man killed on the streets of the South Side, the Rev. Corey Brooks decided he had had enough. All the men and boys were under 25. The last one was 17. During that funeral, gunfire erupted outside
by DON TERRY | Dec 1, 2011
Even if the winds of winter blow the Occupy Chicago protesters and percussionists off the corner of LaSalle Street and Jackson Boulevard, civil disobedience is not going into hibernation. A coalition of community organizations, including Occupy Chicago and Occupy the Hood Chicago have been holding training sessions in recent days to prepare for a “homes
by DON TERRY | Nov 16, 2011
A sit-in in front of Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s office Tuesday to protest the proposed closing of six of Chicago’s 12 public mental health care clinics was loud, enthusiastic and organized by a scrappy, media-savvy grassroots advocacy group known as STOP – Southside Together Organizing for Power. With less than 24 hours before the City Council
by DON TERRY | Nov 3, 2011
As more than 1,500 supporters of the Occupy Chicago movement prepared to march through the Loop recently, Willie J.R. Fleming, a neighborhood organizer from the South Side, grabbed a bullhorn and wedged his way to the head of the mostly white crowd. Fleming, 38, was followed by a group of blacks and Latinos he said
by DON TERRY | Oct 18, 2011
Mindful of the Chicago ordinance restricting loud noise early in the day and late at night in public spaces, a trio of drummers waited quietly in the Loop Monday morning before banging out the sounds of protest. Then shortly after 8 a.m. boom, boom, boom echoed through the city’s canyon of capital and finance like
by DON TERRY | Oct 10, 2011
At an August training session for Action Now, an advocacy group for the poor, Madeline Talbott, the lead organizer, handed out a copy of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s “Letter From Birmingham Jail,” an impassioned plea for “people of good will” to join the fight for freedom and human rights. “Injustice anywhere is
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