Chicago has a long history of systemic racism, police abuse and institutionalized torture to get mostly Black and Latino youth to confess to crimes they did not commit. Both the State and the City of Chicago admitted that in 2015 legislation following years of community organizing and activism. https://peopleslawoffice.com/issues-and-cases/chicago-police-torture/
The Chicago Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression has been organizing, educating and fighting for justice and an end to police impunity for 45 years.
Frank Chapman, field organizer for Stop Police Crimes, the campaign of CAARPR that will see an elected civilian board in control of policing in Chicago, gives an over view on how that campaign created the political space to have the cop that shot Laquan McDonald 16 times, prosecuted for 1st Degree Murder; no small accomplishment when the Mayor and the States Attorney and City Council were involved in a coverup to hide video evidence that the official narrative of the shooting was a lie.
One of the awardees was Jamie Kalven, investigative reporter from the Invisible Institute, who doggedly followed up on a tip that video of the shooting existed, and that it contradicted the "official" story of the police. Officers on the scene, lied in their official reports of the shooting and were caught in the act of destroying video evidence from the security camera of a fast food restaurant that captured the shooting. Kalven speaks to the significance of this moment in the long struggle for justice and human rights in Chicago and it historical antecedent.
Chicago Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression caarpr.org