When Communities Come Together to Win: Black Youth Project100

In 2023, after years of work to support the Erase the Gang Database coalition, of which Liberation Fund grantee Black Youth Project100 (BYP100) is a member, community organizations celebrated a vote by Chicago’s Community Commission on Public Safety and Accountability, to erase the city’s racist and ineffective gang database.

This moment was years in the making after Chicagoans across the city made their voices loud and clear that they do not support a system that targets and criminalizes Black and brown people.

Community groups held rallies, protests, and press conferences; signed petitions; and filed lawsuits to bring an end to the database, which was deemed ineffective by the city’s own Inspector General in an April 2019 audit.

Though the coalition knows this is just the first step in ending the city’s harmful surveillance practices, BYP100 is committed to making sure no other databases are created and that those harmed by this system are made whole again.