This week.

Chicago made good on an 11 year-old promised to survivors of police torture from 1971.

To 1992 former police commander Jon Burge and officers under his command tortured more than 100 black men, women and children on Chicago's South side to coerce confessions in 2015 city Council approved a reparations package that included a permanent memorial acknowledging and remembering the experiences of the survivors.

Yesterday, construction finally began on that long-awaited memorial in Washington Park.

It is the first state sponsored monument in the U.S.

to commemorate law enforcement violence.

Joining us to talk more about the groundbreaking and what's next.

Are Anthony Homes survivor reparations recipient and vice president of the Chicago Torture, Justice Memorials Foundation Joey Mobile, co-founder and president of the Chicago Torture, Justice Memorials Foundation.

And Aislinn Pulley executive director of the Chicago Torture Justice Center.

Welcome back to the 3 of you.

Thank you for joining us.

Congratulations on getting to this point.

Thank you.

So I want to start with you all and find out, you know, sort of what the last 11 years.

You know, what it's been like and how you're feeling.

Now.

The construction has finally gotten started on and want to start with you first place.

This relief.

>> There met in that it would help us.

Kobe a lot changes.

Putin and proved too to help us.

So own son.

Him only did a bit of edge of the sea and helped us stuff so.

The south and mostly says will help those in need.

You come to his word from June 10th last year them, he stepped out and that's why like, that's what we have now.

speak on that.

>> Joey, remember when this reparations package was passed back in 2015, interviewing you then and learning about all of this?

How do you feel now that construction is finally started?

Well, its quarry us, it's truly a joyous occasion.

We are thrilled and excited and it's been too long coming.

>> You know, reparations legislation got passed and immediately went into implementing the reparations legislation.

And we did work with the Emanuel Administration to do so.

But they would not have any full and fair conversations truly about this memorial.

And it's been truly frustrating to try to get this memorial built while we have done the hard work of talking with the survivors and family members getting their input, doing sure.

Reds coming up with the design.

We really haven't had partners in the city who are willing to work with us.

There were members of the Lightfoot administration who did support us.

But unfortunately, we just not get the rhythm to build it.

So we are so grateful to Mayor Johnson and his administration for working with us to make this dream a reality.

We're also so grateful to Alderwoman Taylor.

She's the only person who Alderwoman on the South side who allow us build within her ward.

And it was very important when we talk to survivors and family members, they all said they wanted the memorial on the south side of Chicago because that's where they lived.

And that's where they were tortured.

And that's where they thought it was fitting to be built.

So it meant so much to us to have Alderman Taylor come through and have a minus.

Go through a could be built and her part.

Anthony, you're one of the first survivors of the birds.

Torture testified during his trial which was not about torture.

Actually, it was about something related after decades of people not believing you and the other survivors and your experiences.

Why do you think physical memorial is important to include tomorrow?

To me?

Is that true?

>> Express.

Everything that took place with those at the state that that the city did to us corrupt offices.

And the part about it then about a want to leave us zip.

And to and through all of it.

We've got we've got pushed them push the way and then fine.

Lawyers and stuff.

they get they get to represent built.

Move from now went to the u N and that was thanks is doing now.

No clearly.

And then they 10 and they helped us because of the amount of you know, Dan, want to help us period because we still encroached on August, the who but that's not the point.

The point what they did to is wrong.

And that's the point.

You know, 5 losom you're going jail for, but don't put me in the And you know, but that's not the point.

The point is that.

All of us.

The ones, those single cases and stuff that was true.

a joy is that they just locked us because the other one has locked up.

Through it all.

Thanks to them know y'all helping us.

the the the steps out and that really give us more hope.

You know, to continue on we do we help.

>> Aislinn one of the other things that was or that was included in this reparations package was, of course, the center that you're and now the Chicago Torture Justice Center that counseling center for survivors and families which opened in 2017.

How's that center been helping with ongoing trauma that survivors experience and their families?

It's been really incredible.

What we've seen is, you know, where the first in the only center in the country that's dedicated to treating survivors of domestic torture.

>> And we've learned so much from survivors like Anthony and from attorneys like Joey and from organizers who have taught us about the perseverance through the pain and what we're realizing is that there there's a slew of walking wounded people who have experienced and gone through the criminal legal system just like Anthony has.

And just like the mothers who have been fighting for their loved ones to be released, have.

And so there's a slew of the population who has been ignored for decades and perhaps for centuries and whose pain and trauma have been.

Rendered really invisible.

And so now we're at the precipice of really forging a new part of the field of psychiatry and psychology that connects not just a wellness and healing in the abstract, but in within the reality and within the confines of understanding what it means when a society hurts and harms.

As we mentioned, you know, in our lead, there's the narrative that only men were torture, but there are women as well.

Yes, absolutely verify No, absolutely.

There.

We don't know of as many women and to be honest with you.

>> Because the Chicago Police Department and the Cook County State's attorney's ever office number fully didn't investigation.

We may not know of every single survivor who was impacted by berge and the men under his command.

absolutely know that there were black women who were tortured and interrogated by Berge and his henchmen in area 2, 3 police headquarters.

So we have always said it's been men and women and children.

And that is very important.

Part of the story.

I'm joined the design of the memorial, its title breath for Brett Form Breath.

Excuse me, breath Foreman, Freedom.

>> Tell us more about the inspiration on what people will see this memorial when it's completed.

>> Well, the original, the original concept for the design was by patrician to go in.

And John Lee.

And they had sort of based it on.

We on the the feedback that we had solicited from survivors and their family members.

And so there's a spiral and it has to do with those upper teens to score curls as well as sort of the inverse of the PennDOT to com, which is the way you know, the system, the way prisons used to surveil everyone.

So it's sort of the inverse of that.

But then we really worked with John, whose architect and he also spoke with survivors as well, including Stanley Howard and how Stanley Howard described how he was like into the vortex of the criminal legal system and then spit out.

So there will be certain pathways that come from it.

So literally, as you can see, it's a concrete structure.

We have a timeline that tells the story of the races pattern and practice of torture as well as the decades long struggle for justice by organizers, by attorneys by independent journalism that culminated in the historic passage of the reparations legislation and then beyond that, you know where Trump where the survivors and family members were often denied and dismissed.

We've we we will have their voices there.

There are sayings etched into the ground near the memorial.

So it an expression of that them?

And, you know, the reverse of what's been happening to sounds like it'll be a very moving memorial when the time comes.

I expected to open in early 2027.

>> Unfortunately, we're out of time.

I want to thank the 3 of you and and congrats to all the joy mobile into support.

Thanks.

Thank you.

Thank you.

>> And we're back to wrap things up right after this.

>> Reflecting the people and