For decades, a gang of Chicago police tortured and forced confessions from people in custody. Now, in a historic move, the city is teaching this shameful history in schools – but not everyone thinks it should. By Peter C Baker
“What do you know about Jon Burge?” On the morning of 16 April 2018, Juanita Douglas was asking her students a question she’d never asked in a classroom before, not in 24 years of teaching in Chicago’s public schools. She’d been preparing to ask the question for over a year, and she knew that for many of her students the conversation that followed would be painful. Disorienting. She didn’t like the idea of causing them pain. She didn’t want to make them feel overwhelmed or lost. But she thought, or at least hoped, that in the end the difficulty would be worth the trouble.
It was only second period. Several of Douglas’s students were visibly tired. A few slumped forward, heads on their desks. Some were stealthily texting or scrolling through Snapchat. Others were openly texting or scrolling through Snapchat.
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