Chica­go has tak­en a major step toward repa­ra­tions for sur­vivors of police tor­ture and abuse. Under the orders of Jon Burge, who served as Police Com­man­der from 1972 to 1991, Chica­go police infa­mous­ly sub­ject­ed more than 100 black men and youth to beat­ings, burn­ings and elec­tric shocks. Dozens of vic­tims were coerced into pro­vid­ing false con­fes­sions that led to decades in prisons.

'Nothing can erase the human rights violations...[but] the reparations ordination will be an important step towards healing.'

This morn­ing, May­or Rahm Emanuel announced his sup­port for a $5.5 mil­lion repa­ra­tions pack­age for the Burge sur­vivors and their families.

“Today, we stand togeth­er as a city to try and right those wrongs, and to bring this dark chap­ter of Chicago’s his­to­ry to a close,” Emanuel said, accord­ing to Asso­ci­at­ed Press.

Tes­ti­fy­ing at a hear­ing on repa­ra­tions today before the City Coun­cil finance com­mit­tee, Joey Mogul, co-founder of Chica­go Tor­ture Jus­tice Memo­ri­als, told the coun­cil to stand on the right side of his­to­ry. ​“Noth­ing can erase the human rights vio­la­tions,” Mogul tes­ti­fied, “[but] the repa­ra­tions ordi­na­tion will be an impor­tant step towards healing.”

The finance com­mit­tee is expect­ed to approve the pack­age in a vote on Wednes­day. The ordi­nance then goes to a full City Coun­cil for a vote on May 6.

The pack­age is based on the Repa­ra­tions Ordi­nance intro­duced by Alder­man Joe Moreno (1st Ward) and Howard Brookins (21st Ward) in Octo­ber of 2013, although the $5.5 mil­lion in repa­ra­tions falls short of the $20 mil­lion orig­i­nal­ly pro­posed. As part of the pack­age, the city has agreed to pro­vide a for­mal apol­o­gy and cre­ate a per­ma­nent pub­lic memo­r­i­al that acknowl­edges the tor­ture com­mit­ted. Edu­ca­tion on police tor­ture would be incor­po­rat­ed into the his­to­ry cur­ricu­lum for 8th-and 10th-grade pub­lic-school stu­dents begin­ning in the 2015 – 16 school year.

Under the terms of the pack­age, Burge tor­ture sur­vivors and their fam­i­ly mem­bers are eli­gi­ble for finan­cial com­pen­sa­tion and spe­cial­ized coun­sel­ing. They can also receive free tuition or job train­ing at Chicago’s City Col­leges. They have pri­or­i­ty access to the City’s re-entry sup­port ser­vices for peo­ple leav­ing prison, which include coun­sel­ing, food, hous­ing and trans­porta­tion assis­tance, senior care and health care. They are also eli­gi­ble for job place­ment for sur­vivors in pro­grams designed for for­mer­ly incar­cer­at­ed people.

The People’s Law Office, which rep­re­sent­ed many of the sur­vivors in suits against the city, issued a state­ment cheer­ing the news. ​“The repa­ra­tions pack­age, root­ed in a restora­tive jus­tice frame­work, acknowl­edges the tor­ture of Black peo­ple under for­mer police com­man­der Jon Burge,” said the state­ment, ​“and begins to make amends by pro­vid­ing finan­cial com­pen­sa­tion and ser­vices to the tor­ture sur­vivors and their families.”

The agree­ment comes decades after lawyers, activists, sur­vivors and their sup­port­ers began fight­ing for jus­tice. With the sup­port of many local orga­ni­za­tions and col­lec­tives, Chica­go Tor­ture Jus­tice Memo­r­i­al, Project NIA, Amnesty Inter­na­tion­al Chica­go, and We Charge Geno­cide (full dis­clo­sure: the author is an orga­niz­er with this group) led a six-month cam­paign that includ­ed many cre­ative efforts to edu­cate the pub­lic: stay­ing out­side of May­or Emanuel’s home, ​“exhi­bi­tion-in” at City Hall, city­wide teach-ins, phone banks, Twit­ter con­ver­sa­tions, and screen­ings of End of the Night­stick, the doc­u­men­tary that fol­lows Jon Burge’s case and the city’s cover-ups.

“The City of Chicago’s recog­ni­tion that peo­ple who were tor­tured by law enforce­ment offi­cers deserve com­pen­sa­tion and redress — regard­less of any crime that they were accused of or may have com­mit­ted — is an impor­tant recog­ni­tion that tor­ture is nev­er excus­able and the ends do not jus­ti­fy the means,” Chica­go Tor­ture Jus­tice Memo­ri­als wrote in a state­ment to sup­port­ers, ​“Every individual’s dig­ni­ty mat­ters.” This vic­to­ry may serve to boost fights for jus­tice by police vio­lence sur­vivors in oth­er cities, like North Charleston, Oak­land and New York.