The final three years of the life of Rev. Martin Luther King were increasingly devoted to economic justice issues, and it was in that spirit that the newly-formed Public Workers Unite coalition organized a march in protest, at which some 200 rallied and marched through downtown Chicago.

Much like Reverend King, who was fighting on behalf of public servers workers during his final days, Public Workers Unite rallied against a series of planned cutbacks and layoffs in public services — public transit, education, and other local services — and targeted corporate welfare (rallying at the Chicago headquarters of Boeing) which by contrast is on the increase.

Chicago Indymedia coverage: Photos: Hundreds march for jobs and public service on MLK Day | Public Workers Unite! MLK Day Video

Additional Coverage: In These Times: Chicagoans Demand Public Services, Public Jobs on MLK Day | WHPK Radio: Interview with Earl Silbar about Public Workers Unite

The Chicago Anti-Eviction Campaign has vigorously continued its efforts to support lower-income Chicagoans who are fighting unjust evictions. In a recent video, Chicagoan Lenise Forrest and her family were evicted in thirteen-degree weater after her house was broken into. While Forrest was negotiating getting her belongings, a man was shot nearby.

On Thursday, January 14th, the Campaign held a town hall at Park Community Church near Cabrini Green to launch a series of townhalls to build momentum for the campaign and related campaigns. Among the campaigns in play: helping prevent homelessness among about 50 families in Cabrini Green, and taking on a corrupt slumlord in Chicago's Woodlawn neighborhood.

Previous coverage: Chicago Anti-Eviction Campaign Launches with Successful Blockade

The December episode of Chicago Independent Television features health care activists at Chicago protests for a Single Payer/Medicare for All health system, a Chicago presentation for Palestinian rights by the founder of the Palestine Solidarity Movement, a vigil in the Pilsen neighborhood on Chicago's south side against the Fisk coal burning plant, and a presentation from Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont, the most progressive member of the U.S. Senate.

Read more about Episode 53 | CIMC TV Podcast | CIMC Video Page | CITV on YouTube

Fred Hampton, a former high-school leader and NAACP activist from the Chicago suburb of Maywood, became the Illinois chair of the Black Panther Party in 1967 at age 19. Hampton was noted for his effectiveness as a diplomat and organizer, channeling south side Chicago gangs into political activist cadres, and working with the Panthers' efforts in community development, job training and placement, breakfast-for-children programs, and opposition against police brutality.

Hampton and the Panthers fell smack into the FBI's Counter Intellgence Programs ("COINTELPRO") which sought to destroy the U.S. radical left in the 1960s and 1970s. The Panthers were decimated by COINTELPRO, and Hampton, in the pre-dawn hours of December 4, 1969, was gunned down in his bed at 2337 West Monroe Street in Chicago by FBI and Chicago police. Hampton's own bodyguard, William O'Neal, was an FBI infiltrator who mapped out floor plans and routes of attack with Chicago police in a downtown restaurant prior to the attack; O'Neal also drugged Hampton with a tainted glass of Kool-Aid. Police stitched a line of bullets through the wall of the room where Hampton slept which injured Hampton, and then fired two bullets at his head at point-blank range.

Forty years later, Hampton's assassination remains a chilling example of the lengths that officialdom will go to destroy effective political activism. COINTELPRO was ostensibly dissolved by the FBI in 1971 when the term itself became public, and the Black Panther Party effectively dissolved as an organization shortly thereafter, but official harassment against those carrying on the Panthers' legacy continues, including attempts to rename the portion of West Monroe Street which was the locale of Hampton's assassination after Fred Hampton. But resistance on behalf of Chicago's African-American community continues, and on the week of the 40th anniversary, Chicagoans are holding a panoply of events, memorials, rallies, vigils, and commemorations.

Additional Video: Fred Hampton: Death of a Revolutionary | Death of a Black Panther: The Fred Hampton Story | The Assassination of Fred Hampton: How the FBI and the Chicago Police Murdered a Black Panther - Democracy Now! | Remembering Fred Hampton, 40 Years Later - Bruce Dixon, Black Agenda Report | Chicago Indymedia Video from the 40th Anniversary of the assassination of Fred Hampton and Mark Clark

Related Links: It's About Time - Black Panther Party Legacy and Alumni

Jorge Steven Lόpez-Mercado, an openly gay teenager in in Caguas, Puerto Rico, was slain in November 2009. Lόpez-Mercado was decapitated, dismembered and partially burned, and his assailant claimed to be motivated by "gay panic". Many are drawing comparisons to the 1998 slaying of University of Wyoming student Matthew Shepard.

Activists in a number of American cities held public gatherings to mourn the death of Lόpez-Mercado and to protest against the continuing climate of homophobia which spawns hate crimes. In Chicago, the Gay Liberation Network, along with representatives from Orgullo en Accion and Boricua Pride/ALMA held a march in Chicago's Humboldt Park neighborhood.

Chicago Indymedia coverage: Photos — Hundreds gather to mourn slain trans youth activist | Learning from the lynching of Jorge Steven Lόpez-Mercado | March/Vigil for Burned and Decapitated Gay Puerto Rican Teen

From the newswire: "On Tuesday, the Chicago Anti-Eviction Campaign kicked off its first day with a successful blockade at the home of Lenise Forrest, a community member and mother of two. At 9AM on November 17, supporters began arriving to blockade the house from eviction, and with the increasing police presence circling the block, many people were wondering what would happen next.

Supporters were prepared to stand between Lenise's family and the police to prevent the eviction of the family. Then, just as the corporate news arrived, the police suddenly disappeared. After the press conference the police stayed away most of the time, and the threat of eviction dwindled. In all, the eviction blockade turned out to be not a clash with police, but instead a great community building event in which people from all parts of chicago came together in solidarity.

Read more | Watch video | Anarkismo.net coverage

The November episode of Chicago Independent Television features extensive on-the-ground coverage of the protests and violent police response to the grassroots protests against the G20 summit in Pittsburgh. We'll also join a Chicago protests in Hyde Park against the war in Afghanistan on the war's eighth anniversary.

Read more about Episode 52 | CIMC TV Podcast | CIMC Video Page | CITV on YouTube

The U.S. economy has been brought to the brink of collapse thanks to the failure of shoddy and dubious financial instruments, and kept afloat only thanks to major infusions of taxpayer cash. The major banking institutions, who have been raked over the coals of public opinion, saw their main public lobby, the American Bankers Association, assemble in Chicago, only to face the wrath of organized public outrage.

Thousands of activists and citizens also converged to take the ABA to task, thanks to the organizing efforts of National People's Action in an effort called Showdown in Chicago. Protesters entered the lobby of the Sheraton Chicago to face the ABA directly. This was followed by marches through downtown Chicago where thousands voiced their concern and called for accountability and positive change.

Additional Coverage: Labor Beat — Video 1 | Labor Beat — Video 2 | Photo gallery | 5000 March Against Bankers in Chicago | Photos of Chicago banner drop | Democracy Now! coverage of Showdown in Chicago | In These Times: A Showdown Slideshow | Progress Illinois: ABA Showdown | Gapers Block: Showdown in Chicago