BISHOP SHIRLEY COLEMAN and Karen Freeman-Wilson, CEO, Chicago Urban League joined forces and hosted, “Women in Pastoral Leadership Luncheon.” The luncheon was a “call to action” to raise awareness, promote education, support survivors and advocate for policy changes for women. The pastors honored were Reverends Gwen Appleberry; Donna Arnold; Anne Barton; Dr. Lisa Benjamin; Wilodean Benjamin; Karen Brewer; Felicia Campbell; Gay Chisum; Mitty Collier; Tracy DeVolt; Shavonda Fields-Phillips; Elaine Graham; Octavia Rivers-Griggs; Dr. Mildred Harris; Brenda Hollins; Andria Hudson; Schme Hughes; Vickie Johnson; Krista Nichols-Alston; Dr. Bridget C. Outlaw; Jennie Pettis; Shirley Pollion-Hines; Julia Porter Maddox; Lorraine J. Powell; Kimberly Ray; Constance Shorter; Rosalind Henderson; Sheila Sims; Angela Spivey; Angela Walker; Claudia Watkins; Cynthia Wesley; Dr. Janette Wilson and Isabel Wray. Guests included: Alderman Stephanie Coleman; Commissioner Kari Steele; and Commissioner Tara Stamps.
In response to CBS 2’s lengthy investigation of crimes against Black women, City Council Black Caucus Chairperson Alderman Stephanie Coleman (16th) on Tuesday, January 30, announced she is creating a task force to find a solution to the disproportionate number of Black women becoming victims of crime in Chicago.
“We are here for a call to action,” Coleman said.
Her new task force will be an expansion of the City Council’s Gender-Based Violence Task Force with a new mission of adding more women of color to the 15-member body assisting the 400 set-aside civilians at the Chicago Police Department.
With this initiative, Coleman said, when Black women are victims of crime, there will be more people of color on the inside to assist her.
Coleman made her announcement during a luncheon at the Chicago Urban League, 4510 S. Michigan Ave., headed by President and CEO Karen Freeman-Wilson. The luncheon honored about 200 Black women in pastoral leadership, including her mother, former 16th Ward Alderman Shirley Coleman, a bishop and pastor of the Spiritual Wholistic Love and Faith Church.
For more than two decades, CBS 2 reporter Dorothy Tucker and her team analyzed police crime data, which showed that Black women are disproportionately targeted when it comes to crime. Of eight million victimizations, CBS 2 concluded that women were the highest number of victims.
Specifically, there were more than 26,000 violent crimes and more than 212,000 non-violent crimes in Chicago that included shootings, robberies and vehicle thefts, affecting about 260,000 people.
In 2022, the report said that out of 269,423 crimes reported in Chicago, 67,094 were against Black women, ranging from theft to murder, and accounted for 25 percent of crime victims, though they make up 16 percent of the city’s population.
“These are our nieces. These are our sisters. These are our aunts. These are our goddaughters. These are our members,” Coleman said. She called “a third of assaults, a third of battery and theft and carjackings” being perpetrated against Black women, “unacceptable.”
In an interview with the Chicago Crusader, Bishop Coleman, who also repeated her story at the luncheon, said her first husband, Hernando Williams, the father to her oldest daughter, was on Death Row and was one of the last inmates executed before the law changed banning executions. When she ran for re-election in 1995, she said one of her opponents brought this up to a reporter. He had been convicted of a 1978 kidnapping, rape and murder. “I was so ashamed,” she said.
But Black female ministers, including Dr. Mildred Harris and then-Representative Carol Moseley-Braun, gathered around her and told her not to let that define who she is. Coleman went on to be re-elected. She never forgot the power of unity among Black women, which is why she is helping her daughter with this new mission of reducing crimes against Black women.
“My message today when Black women come together on an issue, it makes a difference. Our goal is to address the fact that we are 16 percent of the population but 52 percent of victims of abuse and crime,” Bishop Coleman said.
“We want to be big mamas to these young women and teach them to be aware of life’s temptations. We want to mentor them, so they won’t become victims of violence. We want to bring the church to the streets to help save Black women and to bring them back to the rock, the Black church. I think we can turn this around.”
Wilson-Freeman said $50,000 would be a good seed amount to help support the task force and to raise the awareness of the community about the high risk Black women have become when it comes to being victims of crime.
All it takes, Alderman Coleman said, is for Black women to unite behind this issue “to right this wrong.” Bishop Coleman brought this up to illustrate the power of Black women when they unite.
According to the Chicago Violence Reduction Dashboard, in 2023, there were 13,917 female victims of violent crime, a 16 percent increase from 2020 to 2022, and Hispanic and Latino women saw an increase in 2023, and that Black women have a greater chance of becoming victims of crime among all races.
