mitchell

Mary A. Mitchell biography

Mary A. Mitchell is an editorial board member and columnist for the Chicago Sun-Times. She is a recipient of numerous journalism awards, including the prestigious …

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Is teen caught up in drug case the real victim?

There is an unintended side-effect of the effort to end violence in the black community. Even though Chicago does not have a stop-and-frisk law, the violence undoubtedly has made police officers more aggressive. And in some neighborhoods, it is increasingly difficult to tell the good …

EEOC suit against Rosebud should serve as warning to eateries: Mitchell

VIPs love to be seen in venues like the Rosebud restaurants. Judges and politicians relax at the white linen-topped tables. Business people sip wine with their important clients. Celebrities drop in after hours. And Rosebud also is where ordinary Chicagoans take their out-of-town guests for …

  • Former Sen. William Marovitz, local residents help teen attend Ivy League school

    Jason Roberts has a lot of angels. And thanks to them, the Urban Prep Academy graduate is now attending the University of Pennsylvania. After reading about Jason, Sun-Times readers helped raise $22,000 to help defray the annual $60,000 tuition costs at the Ivy League university. …Read More

  • Stony Island renaming plan looks like sad political ploy: Mitchell

    Just about everyone on the South Side has a Stony Island story. But if Mayor Rahm Emanuel gets his way, those stories will soon give way to ones about “Bishop Brazier Avenue.” This week, the full City Council is expected to pass a measure that …Read More

  • Accuser in Carl Chatman rape case should be held accountable: Mitchell

    What happened to Carl Chatman was such a miscarriage of justice that it demands more than our outrage. It demands that we review the crooked path that led him to a jail cell in the first place. And it demands that the woman whose alleged …Read More

    • Carl Chatman: ‘It’s nice . . . I can live in comfort today in my house’

    Mary Mitchell: Carl Chatman walked out of Dixon Correctional Center at about 2:45 p.m. Tuesday, a free man for the first time in 11 years. His sister, Dretha Miller, 51, was the first to throw her arms around him and weep. Willie Chatman looked at his older brother and let out a hardy “yeah,” “yeah.”

    Theresa Chatman never stopped believing in her brother

    When Carl Chatman was swept into the prison system in 2002, he was homeless.

    Former homeless man to be freed from prison in 2002 rape case: Mitchell

    Mary Mitchell: It took just 30 minutes for a jury to convict Carl Chatman of raping a Daley Center employee in 2002. It has taken the criminal justice system 11 years to conclude that Chatman, then a homeless man, was wrongfully convicted of the charges.

    Englewood Film Festival designed to transform community: Mitchell

    Everyone is buzzing about the mayor’s plan to bring Whole Foods to Englewood, but I find it hard to get worked up about a grocery store that won’t open for three years. There is, however, something going on in Englewood that we should be buzzing …

    Rev. Jesse Jackson Sr. supports Obama’s decision on Syria

    President Barack Obama is in a tough place. Nobody knows that better than the Rev. Jesse Jackson. On Wednesday, Obama was in Stockholm trying to show some diplomacy in the wake of threats to retaliate against the Assad administration for its alleged chemical weapons use …

    Mitchell: Sex trafficking targets girls in child welfare system

    The person on the phone sounded scared. “I just moved into an apartment building three months ago,” she told me. “The first week, the girl next door gave a party. I heard a girl just screaming. The following week I woke up at 5:30 a.m. …

    Mary Mitchell: The times have changed — but the fight remains the same

    On Wednesday, the nation’s first black president stood in the shadows of the Lincoln Memorial and tried to capture the spirit of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.’s words in his own soaring speech, which walked a fine political line.

    Mitchell: Chicago’s ills take center stage at march

    WASHINGTON, D.C. — The most impressive speaker at the “Realize the Dream” March on Washington Saturday wasn’t a rising political star, budding activist, or seasoned preacher. It was Asean Johnson, a 9-year-old boy from Chicago who took on the city’s school board and mayor in May when he protested the closing of an elementary school on the Far South Side.

    Artist illustrates pain of black-on-black crime

    There’s no difference between the gang members that terrorize black communities today and the Ku Klux Klan members that terrorized Southern blacks a century ago. Both groups direct their hatred toward a particular group of people. In the past, the KKK used deadly violence to …

    Mary Mitchell: Jackson and his wife got what they deserved

    In the end, former Congressman Jesse Jackson Jr. and his wife, Sandi Jackson, got what they deserved. The prison sentences handed down by U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson — 30 months for him and 12 months for her — was a humiliating comeuppance for …

    Mitchell: Group calls for political and community action to end violence

    Recently, a 64-year-old African-American school bus driver came under fire for failing to intervene when three black teens assaulted a 13-year-old white teen on the bus. Although the driver pulled the bus over and begged dispatchers to send help, he physically did nothing to stop …

    Mitchell: South Side team winners despite losing chance to play in Little League World Series

    The Jackie Robinson West Little League baseball team from Chicago’s South Side was poised to make history. But the team lost Saturday to Michigan’s Grosse Pointe Woods-Shores team in the Great Lakes Championship in Indianapolis, ending its hopes of becoming the first all-black team from Chicago to make it to the Little League World Series in Williamsport, Pa. in 30 years.

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