Bill Ayers

When police and politicians lie in public, they should, of course, be called out and exposed. But there’s something larger at work here: Powerful people lie in pubic in order to intimidate people and demonstrate their power to a larger audience. The message: WATCH AS WE LIE IN PUBLIC AND GET AWAY WITH IT! It’s a marked page in every authoritarian playbook. And it’s now on dislay every few days in our country.

From: Bill Ayers, Hiding in plain sight right here in Chicago
To: Donald Trump, JD Vance, Pam Bondi, Cash Patel, Kristi Noem, Pete Hegseth, Marco Rubio, and Tom Holman

I admit it: I have spoken ill of our country and its policies; I have trash-talked racial capitalism and praised socialism on social media and elsewhere; I have actively opposed US invasions and occupations; I’ve condemned and fought against the US-sponsored Israeli genocide in Gaza and the West Bank; I have publicly questioned organized Christianity and other organized religions; I love and have embraced the trans and queer communities; I’ve spoken out in defense of single-parenting, gay marriage, and same-sex couples adopting children; I have said things and carried signs that might hurt the feelings of masked ICE agents, Trump, and Noem.

And there’s more!

As a member of Chicago Torture Justice Memorial Foundation’s Social Justice Pollinator Hive (our community of recurring donors), we’ve been busy working to close the funding gap needed to build Chicago’s historic memorial honoring survivors of police torture and the movement that fought to make reparations possible. We’re pushing hard to break ground in 2026 and we’ve been collaborating with city officials and philanthropic partners to close the rest of the gap. Just this week the Chicago City Council’s Committee on Housing and Real Estate voted to transfer the four plots of land to CTJMF for the future Chicago Torture Justice Memorial. 

To get there, CTJMF is calling on individual donors to help meet a $25,000 match challenge from the Joseph and Bessie Feinberg Foundation by the end of 2025. Most of us can’t give $25K alone — but together, our Social Justice Pollinator Hive is aiming to collectively raise it.

If you’re able to donate, please include my name in the note so it’s counted toward our hive’s match. Every single dollar moves us closer. No amount is too small. 

Here is the donation link for the fundraising campaign: https://givebutter.com/jXJVfs

REST IN POWER, Comrade H. “Rap” Brown (Jamil Al-Amin)—you fought for justice, you held the line, you pushed us forward.
We love you.