In 1955, after Chicago teenager Emmett Till was lynched and beaten to death on a trip in Mississippi, his mother Mamie made the decision to have the media cover Emmett’s open casket funeral. Many consider that decision a major factor in helping to ignite the civil rights movement. 

Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. is perhaps best known for his “I Have A Dream” speech. As inspirational as it was, many of his lesser-known speeches offer a nuanced and articulate argument against racism worldwide. In the years closer to his assassination, he also took more radical positions regarding inequality and war.

Many of us probably remember a favorite children’s book from when we were younger, the characters in those stories and maybe some of the lessons we learned in those books still stick with us today. Odds are, though, the book you’re thinking of probably didn’t tackle intersectionality. 

On Today's 21st:  We’re honoring the legacy of Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. We have excerpts from a little-known speech he gave here in Illinois, we also hear from a sociologist and children’s book author about a different kind of book for kids that doesn’t shy away from complex themes. And, some descendants of Black civil rights leaders in Chicago want the public to know more about their family members, while also protecting them at the same time.  

Now that farmers are wrapping up their first year of growing hemp, we learn whether anything has changed for hemp growers since the legalization of recreational marijuana in Illinois. 

Now that recreational cannabis is legal in Illinois, there’s a growing interest from the industry to find candidates qualified to work in the business. Some college campuses in Illinois are stepping up and creating programs to prepare students to be competitive for these jobs. 

Millions of dollars in sales of recreational marijuana this month means some dispensaries have experienced shortages of certain cannabis products and placed caps on how much people can buy. We explored how this and other changes to the law affect the tens of thousands of people in Illinois who are licensed to use cannabis for medicinal purposes.

Now that recreational cannabis is legal for adult use in Illinois, many parents may be wondering, how do I talk to my kids about this? And what does it mean to use marijuana responsibly as an adult?

Today on the 21st: We continued our “State of Cannabis” series with a discussion about how to talk to kids about marijuana, now that it’s legal for adults in Illinois. We also spoke with patients who use cannabis for medical purposes about what changes for them in the era of legal recreational weed, learned how some colleges are stepping up to help prepare students to break into the cannabis industry and explored the challenges Illinois farmers are facing when it comes to growing a plant related to marijuana: hemp.

Many Illinois college students are coming back to class for the first time, in a state where smoking weed is now legal for people 21 and older.

We spoke with Illinois Newsroom reporter Lee Gaines about her reporting on who has been left out of the expungement process. We were joined by Matt, a central Illinois resident dealing with a cannabis felony from nearly 10 years ago, and Brandon Williams,supervising attorney with Cabrini Green Legal Aid in Chicago. 

One of the changes many are hoping to see since the legalization of marijuana in Illinois is a more equitable weed industry. Lt. Governor Juliana Stratton talked with The 21st about reinvesting in black and brown communities that have been hurt by the “war on cannabis.”

Today on The 21st: So much of the dialogue leading up to the legalization of marijuana in Illinois was about social justice. Today, we spoke with Lt. Governor Juliana Stratton about the state’s efforts to bring more people of color into the industry and reinvest in the minority communities that have been hurt the most by the war on drugs. 

We’ve been talking this week about the end of Illinois’ cannabis prohibition, but Illinois also has an important history during another prohibition: the one banning alcohol.