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Illinois

Political repression plays out state by state — shaped by local institutions, prosecutors, and movements for defense. These are the documented political prisoners and cases the census holds for Illinois.

326Documented
4In custody
302Released

Eras of repression in Illinois

Where Illinois’s entries fall across the census’s historical eras.

1910s 66 1920s 38 1960s 37 1970s 30 1980s 25 1930s 22

Documented cases

326 entries in the census — every one stays in the record, whether the case is open or closed.

E
Evelyn Dornfield
Released
Evelyn Dornfield was a Chicago garment-strike picket associated with the International Ladies’ Garment Workers...
I
Ida Dubnow
Released
Ida Dubnow was a Chicago garment-strike picket associated with the International Ladies’ Garment Workers’ Unio...
W
William A. Dunham
Released
William A. Dunham was a conscientious objector from Illinois imprisoned during World War I. Court-martialed fo...
W
William Durkin
Released
One of the youngest of the fifteen (Bill Durkin, age 19) who burned some 40,000 Chicago draft records on May 2...
J
Joseph Eash
Released
Joseph Eash was a Mennonite conscientious objector from Illinois imprisoned during World War I. Court-martiale...
R
Richard Eells
Released
Dr. Richard Eells was a Quincy, Illinois physician and abolitionist. In 1842 he was arrested and charged with...
L
Leo Fisher
Released
Leo Fisher was the editor of the Croatian-language weekly Narodni Glasnik in Chicago, denaturalized in 1956 in...
B
Brian Flanagan
Released
Weather Underground / SDS member tried for attempted murder of Chicago city attorney Richard Elrod during the...
C
Christopher French
Released
Christopher French — anti-NATO summit arrestee, Chicago, May 2012. Disorderly conduct / mob action — anti-NATO...
C
Charles Fullenkamp
Released
One of the fifteen (Chuck Fullenkamp, age 23) who burned some 40,000 Chicago draft records on May 25, 1969, an...
E
Earl Gaither
Prisoner in the Marion federal penitentiary control unit (one of the 'Marion Brothers'), among Nation of Islam...
D
Dora Garcia
Released
Puerto Rican political prisoner born July 10, 1950 in Arecibo, Puerto Rico. Counselor at Cathedral Shelter in...
D
Dora García-López
Released
Chicago Puerto Rican community member prosecuted in the 1986 federal 'escape conspiracy' trial that alleged a...
E
Ed Gargan
Released
At age 18 the youngest of the fifteen who burned Chicago draft records on May 25, 1969. He was indicted on the...
F
Frank Gaskins
Black prisoner held two and a half years in the Marion federal penitentiary's behavior-modification unit, take...
R
Rev. David Gerdes
Released
Rev. David Gerdes, a Dunkard from Chicago, Illinois, began serving a prison sentence on November 21, 1918. He...
B
Bessie Gettman
Released
Bessie Gettman was a Chicago garment-strike picket associated with the International Ladies’ Garment Workers’...
G
George Gibbs
Released
George Gibbs was a Communist Party petition solicitor who was jailed at Lewistown (Fulton County), Illinois in...
C
Ca'Quintez Gibson
Released
Ca'Quintez Gibson, 26, was charged with using the internet to incite a riot. He made a series of Facebook Live...
E
Ernest Giuliani
Released
Ernest Giuliani was a Progressive miner of Westville, Vermilion County, Illinois, jailed in early 1938 and cha...
F
Fannie Goldberg
Released
Fannie Goldberg was a Chicago garment-strike picket associated with the International Ladies’ Garment Workers’...
R
Rose Goodman
Released
Rose Goodman was a Chicago garment-strike picket associated with the International Ladies’ Garment Workers’ Un...
J
James Gossard
Released
James Gossard, from Urbana, Illinois, was arrested and scheduled for trial at the mass IWW trial in Wichita. H...
J
Joe Gump
Joe Gump was a Chicago-area Catholic peace activist who—alongside his family—participated in civil-rights work...

Institutions in Illinois

Prisons, jails, and detention centers in Illinois that appear in the census’s case files.

Cook County JailChicago, Illinois
34 cases
MCC ChicagoChicago , Illinois
12 cases
Southern Illinois Penitentiary, ChesterChester, Illinois
7 cases
FCI Pekin Satellite CampPekin, Illinois
5 cases
USP MarionMarion, Illinois
5 cases
Woodstock Jail (McHenry County)
5 cases
FCI PekinPekin, Illinois
4 cases
Stateville Correctional CenterCrest Hill, Illinois
4 cases