After years of delays, the long-awaited Chicago Torture Justice Memorial is closer to fruition, with the Chicago City Council on Dec. 10 approving a plan sponsored by Mayor Brandon Johnson to transfer four city-owned lots in Washington Park to support the torture memorial’s construction.
“It helps to keep their names alive. It helps to educate the public about police torture that took place in the city of Chicago,” Mark Clements, a Chicago Torture Justice Center (CTJC) organizer and torture survivor, told The TRiiBE. “The most important part of it is that it was a part of the reparations package. In my opinion, it took too long to be finalized. But I’m happy.”
The Chicago Torture Justice Memorials Foundation will build on the land located at 5520-38 S. Martin Luther King Drive. The four city-owned lots, which are valued at $234,481, will be sold for $1 each, according to a written release from the Mayor’s Office.
Once complete, it will be the first reparations monument of its kind in the US that will memorialize survivors and victims of police torture. This land transfer comes more than a decade after the passage of the city’s reparations ordinance.
“The first step to healing from injustice is accountability, the second step is remembrance,” Johnson said in a press statement. “The Chicago Torture Justice Memorial will be a testament to healing as the City of Chicago acknowledges the harm which still reverberates through our communities, while committing to doing better. This will be a powerful way for survivors to tell their stories, be seen, and heal. I’m grateful to the City Council for working with us to get this done and deliver justice for the victims after so many years.”
The reparations ordinance was approved by the Chicago City Council in 2015. It included $5.5 million in monetary compensation to be paid out to victims, the creation of the Chicago Torture Justice Center, an apology from the mayor and Chicago City Council, free college education at Chicago City Colleges for survivors and their families, a history curriculum for Chicago Public School students in the 8th and 10th grades and the creation of a public memorial for Jon Burge torture survivors. Burge was a commander with the Chicago Police Department (CPD).
In 2023, the Johnson administration announced $ 1.8 million in funding from the Mellon Foundation for the Chicago Torture Justice Memorial. The project is expected to cost $4.7 million.
The CTJM selected a design for the memorial in 2019, created by Chicago artists Patricia Nguyen and architectural designer John Lee. Their design, titled “Breath, Form & Freedom,” is a 1,600-square-feet winding hallway that is 12 feet high and features the names and dates of victims tortured by Burge and his Midnight Crew. JAQ Corp and Greenprint Partners will lead the development.
The site of the Chicago Torture Justice Memorial is in the 20th Ward which covers parts of Woodlawn, Washington Park, Englewood, Back of the Yards and New City.
“We cannot continue to ignore what has happened in the past as a result of the racist and classist practices of Chicago leaders like John Burge,” 20th Ward alder Jeanette Taylor said in a press release. “These horrific acts stripped so much from our survivors, disrupting and altering their lives in ways that can never fully be repaired. But today, we came together as a City to say to the survivors and their families that you are not forgotten, we heard you, we wronged you, and we’re fighting to make it right—and never repeat these atrocities again.”
Though there’s movement on the memorial, Clements said the lived experiences of Black women like La Tanya Jenifor-Sublett, who were tortured by Chicago police, should also be uplifted and included in the torture memorial. It’s estimated that Burge and his subordinates beat and tortured more than 100 Black men between 1972 and 1991.
“There were also females who were tortured by members of the Chicago Police Department,” Clements explained. “They experienced awful things, such as miscarriages. They were being slammed through walls or put under the stress that they had to be put under, and for many of them to serve at least two to almost three decades inside a prison. I think that reparations need to be expanded and revisited to include them.”
He is considering presenting an ordinance next year to include a reparations package for women who were tortured by Chicago police.
Clements expects the memorial site to undergo groundbreaking in Spring 2026.
