Main Debate 2010: Gun Laws in the City
Otis McDonald, plaintiff in the recent U.S. Supreme Court case McDonald v. Chicago, spoke out against Chicago gun laws at the Main Debate of the 25th annual Bughouse Square Debates, sponsored in part by the McCormick Foundation and emceed by author and Chicago Tribune writer Rick Kogan. Mr. McDonald debated Garrett Evans, a survivor of the 2007 Virginia Tech massacre.
“In keeping with the spirit of the original soapbox debates, the Bughouse Square Committee is dedicated to providing stimulating discourse on timely and, sometimes, controversial topics,” said Newberry Library President David Spadafora. “We’re pleased that Mr. McDonald has agreed to participate in this year’s event, and look forward to a lively debate on gun laws.”
2010 Annual Altgeld Award for Free Speech Goes to Documentary Filmmaker
The Newberry Library is delighted to honor Kartemquin Films, a non-profit documentary film company whose work examines and critiques society through stories of real people, with its 2010 Altgeld Freedom of Speech Award. Named for former Illinois Governor (1892-96), who sacrificed his political career by pardoning the Haymarket anarchists, the award each year goes to a courageous defender of free speech and ideas. Newberry Library President David Spadafora presented the award to Kartemquin Films on Saturday, July 31, at the library’s annual Bughouse Square Debates.
Bughouse Square Committee members chose Kartemquin Films because its mission of “cinematic social inquiry” embodies the historic values of Bughouse Square and of Governor Altgeld. Since Kartemquin original founders Gordon Quinn, Jerry Temaner, and Stan Karter produced their first film, Home for Life (1966), which chronicled two elderly people entering a home for the aged, Kartemquin has charted a pioneering course in documentary filmmaking. From Hoop Dreams (1994), which examined the complex role basketball played in the lives of two young men from inner-city Chicago, to No Crossover: The Trial of Allen Iverson (2010), which considered how the trial of a 17-year old basketball star defined and divided a town over race, Kartemquin has held a mirror up to American society for more than four decades by using video to uncover and disseminate reports of difficult, ignored, and unpopular subjects.
2010 Soap Boxers
The Bughouse Square Committee is pleased to recognize the 2010 program of Soap Boxers. This year's speakers and their topics included:
- Erwin Lutzer, "Logical Reasons Why Jesus Is the Only Way to God"
- Nona Willis Aronowitz, "Can Sarah Palin be a Feminist? (Is There Such a Thing as a Conservative Feminist?)"
- Herbert Caplan, "Standing Up to City Hall"
- Steve Stevlic, "Give Me Liberty or Give Me Death Panels"
- Jim Grossman, "The Past is Never Dead"
- Rachel Goodstein, "Twenty is Plenty: Reasons to Dethrone the Daley Dynasty"
- Pam Selman and Evan Ribot, "Students are Americans, Too!"
- Edwin C. Yohnka, "Who Will Guard the Guardians? Stop Prosecution of Citizens Who Videotape Police Officers at Work"
- Tania Unzueta, "Undocumented Immigrant Youth at the Forefront of Our Own Movement"
- Paul Durica, as historical soapbox speaker Dr. Ben Reitman, "The Art of Soapbox Oration, with an Historical Survey of the Most Distinguished Chicago Boxers"
- Jeff Bilotich, "Unless You Repent"
- Edward Crouse, "The Patient Neglect and Bankruptcy Act: The Health Care that Obama and Company Actually Delivered"
- Rob Sherman, "Why Illinois Should Cancel Millions of Dollars in State Grants to Religious Organizations"
- Leah Fried, “How Organized Workers Can Change the World and Win Justice”
Main Stage Events
Author and Chicago police officer Martin Preib discussed his new book, The Wagon and Other Stories from the City; a book-signing followed under the Newberry Library tent. Kicking off the Bughouse Square Debates, Newberry Library President David Spadafora presented the Bughouse Square Key to Diane Ciral, the 2010 Honorary Mayor of Bughouse Square. Immediately following the key presentation, Illinois Senator Mattie Hunter and Illinois Representative Ken Dunkin presented the John Peter Altgeld Freedom of Speech Award to Kartemquin Films. Newberry Library President David Spadafora and Soapbox Judges David Hoekstra (Chicago Sun-Times), J. R. Jones (Chicago Reader), Jason Marck (WBEZ), and Elizabeth Taylor (Chicago Tribune) as they presented the Dil Pickle Award to Pam Selman and Evan Ribot for “Students are Americans, Too!” .
The meandering ensemble Black Bear Combo performed their raucous music throughout the day.
For more information, call (312) 255-3700.
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The Newberry Library gratefully acknowledges the National Endowment for the Humanities and Mr. and Mrs. Charles C. Haffner for their generous support of public programming. Major funding is also provided by Richard and Barbara Franke, the MacLean-Fogg Family, Mr. and Mrs. Andrew W. McGhee, Mr. and Mrs. Andrew McNally, and the McCormick Tribune Foundation.
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| Studs Terkel, Bughouse Square Debates, 1989 |
About the Bughouse Square Debates
Bughouse Square (from “bughouse,” slang for mental health facility), the popular name for Washington Square Park, was the city’s boisterous and radical free-speech space from the 1910s through the 1930s. Orators mounted soapboxes and spoke to responsive, vocal crowds, and bohemians, poets, atheists, and religionists of all persuasions entertained bystanders. The square’s core contributors, however, came from the ranks of the Wobblies, men and women of the Industrial Workers of the World whose radical views, wit, and humor made them champion soap boxers and perennial crowd favorites. World War II and a post-war crackdown against socialists and communists, however, led to Bughouse Square’s decline and, by the mid 1960s, it ceased to exist. The Newberry Library revived the Bughouse Square Debates in 1986.