Chris Geovanis, co-founder of the Chicago Independent Media Center, and a longtime contributor to Chicago Indymedia with her writing, photography, radio, and television work, and a longtime Chicago activist on a host of progressive campaigns and struggles, died on February 12, 2024.

Chris also co-founded HammerHard MediaWorks, founded Chicago Media Action, and contributed to Free Speech Radio News, CounterPunch, Truthout, and CommonDreams, as well as serving as the communications director for the Chicago Teachers Union (radio excerpt). Some of her further contributions, with Chicago Indymedia and elsewhere, are listed below.

In Memoriam: Kuratko Nosek: Christine Anne Geovanis | Chicago Teachers Union: Rest in power, Christine Geovanis | Organizing My Thoughts - With Grief and Gratitude: Remembering Christine Geovanis | USPCN, AAAN honor the life and memory of Chris Geovanis, fighter for Palestine liberation | Hyde Park Herald: Christine Anne Geovanis, CTU communications director and lifelong social justice advocate, dies at 64 | Politico: Rest in power, CTU Communications Director Christine Geovanis

Selection of Chris' CIMC work: Report on rally for Brad Will at Mexican consulate | M18, 2006 Antiwar Protest | Cops Arrest Seven Peace Activists at Taste of Chicago | Chicago Independent Television: Chicago Rally in Solidarity with the People of Egypt | Workers Occupy Republic Factory in Chicago | Whack Job: Conflating Character Assassination With Investigative Reporting in the #NATO3 case | The murders of Rekia Boyd and Trayvon Martin -- and the colorline of authority | Beloved community activist Beauty Turner dies | Thousand march to oppose police repression in run-up to NATO summit

Biographies: Twitter | Muck Rack | Facebook

To oppose the litany of horrors expected to be unleashed by the current resident of the White House, Chicagoans took to protest in one of the largest mobilizations in Chicago history.

The Women's March on Chicago, held on Saturday, January 21, 2017, exceeded expectations by orders of magnitude — which the police and the corporate media acknowledged numbers upwards of 250,000 people, ranking it among the very largest protests in Chicago history. [Pictures] The protest grew so large it became too big to march (name notwithstanding).

The Women's March on Chicago was joined by sister protests across the USA and around the world, whose combined participation made it one of the largest days of protest in history. The next challenge is how to translate the energy of the marches into further political action, to transform the success of the marches "from a moment into a movement", a question participants have taken with earnest.

In response to an ongoing contract fight, an increasingly under-resourced school system and unfair labor practices, the Chicago Teachers Union launched a one-day strike on April 1, 2016, organizing pickets at every CPS school, and holding rallies of support across Chicago.

In the course of doing so, the CTU has ventured into murky legal waters by staging a strike that may be illegal, getting sued in the process. (Rarely do American unions strike when such strikes could be illegal.) The union has referred to such charges as "bogus" and has continued to seek funding and justice for Chicago schools and Chicago children.

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A government whistblower's tip and a year-long campaign by a law professor and two independent journalists to retrieve the dash-cam video of the shooting of a black teenager by Chicago police has led to the highly-publicized release of the video. The video has spurred ongoing protests that have rocked Chicago and the Chicago political establishment, brought murder charges against the offending officer, and claimed the job of Chicago's police superintendent.

On October 20, 2014, at 41st and Pulaski, Chicago police officer Jason Van Dyke shot 17-year-old Laquan McDonald 16 times at point-blank range. Video from a Chicago police car dash camera confirms the killing, and a still-anonymous whistleblower informed attorney and law professor Craig Futterman as well as Chicago journalist Jamie Kalven to the video. Amid pursuing the investigation, Futterman and Kalven called on the city to release the video.

Another independent journalist -- Brandon Smith -- joined the fray, filing an Illinois Freedom of Information Act request, and then suing the city (with pro-bono legal help) to release the video when no other media outlets did. Meanwhile, the Chicago City Council paid Laquan McDonald's family $5 million dollars in a settlement.

The case ground on and finally, on November 19, 2015, the city was ordered by a Cook County judge to release the video of McDonald's killing no later than November 25th. On Tuesday, November 24th, Chicago police released the video.

The impact of the release was swift and potent. That evening, thousands took to the streets in protest`, leading to a number of arrests including felony charges against a prominent poet and activist; the charges were subsequently dropped. Protests continued for the rest of the week, including a massive protest on the Friday after Thanksgiving that blocked many Holiday shoppers and caused noticeable reductions in holiday sales at downtown Chicago stores.

The case now grew to national and international attention, becoming the latest chapter in the BlackLivesMatter movement, and in the midst of hardball drawing ever-louder calls for reform and resignations of three of Chicago's leading political power brokers: Chicago police superintendent Garry McCarthy, Cook County State's Attorney Anita Alvarez, and Chicago mayor Rahm Emanuel. Weak-kneed reform efforts were announced to stem the criticism, to no avail.

One week after the release of the Laquan McDonald video, Emanuel fired Superintendent McCarthy. Alvarez faces a primary election in March 2016, and has laid blame squarely on Emanuel. Emanuel has been heatedly fending off calls to resign. (Chicago has no impeachment protocol for its elected officials, absent a criminal conviction.) Calls for a federal probe into Chicago's police are growing.

Meanwhile, the issue rages on. In the wake of the Laquan McDonald video release, attempts to release additional videos of asssassinations by police have gathered fresh energy and attention. The McDonald case itself still has a great many unanswered questions. And calls for additional reform for policies regarding Chicago police and Chicago politics have been given new life. How that unfolds remains to be seen, but as Rahm Emanuel himself said, "you never want a serious crisis to go to waste".