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  "path": "/wbez-newsletter/2026/04/21/the-rundown-chicago-womens-suffrage-murals-expand",
  "publishedAt": "2026-04-21T20:45:00.000Z",
  "site": "https://www.wbez.org",
  "textContent": "<p><i>Good afternoon! It’s Tuesday, and I still have Olivia Rodrigo’s new single, “</i><a class=\"Link\" href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G1--F4N-Gvs\" target=\"_blank\" ><i><u>drop dead</u></i></a><i>,” stuck in my head. Here’s what you need to know today.</i></p><p><a class=\"Link\" href=\"https://www.wbez.org/arts/2026/04/21/chicago-murals-womens-suffrage-south-loop-ida-b-wells\" target=\"_blank\" ><b><u>1. Women’s suffrage murals that started in Chicago are growing across the U.S.</u></b></a></p><p>Three murals that pay tribute to the 1920 passage of the 19th Amendment have gone up in the Loop, contributor Genevieve Bookwalter reports. The works have been so well received that the organizers are planning additional murals commemorating women’s suffrage in New York City and Portland, Oregon, as part of the National Suffrage Mural Series.</p><p>“People just don’t know that there was a time when women didn’t have the right to vote. They didn’t know that it took 70-plus years and multiple generations of women. They also don’t know that the effort was multiracial,” said mural series co-director Michelle Duster, a Chicago-based author, historian and great-granddaughter of journalist and early civil rights leader Ida B. Wells.</p><p>Initially branded the Chicago Suffrage Mural Series, two of the three original murals, intended for a site near Columbia College Chicago, were blocked when a parking lot owner refused to rent the artists space to stage their paint and scaffolding. He called the murals “too political,” according to a 2021 Sun-Times story. Two years later, the murals found their permanent home about a block away.</p><p>Given the current political climate, the message is especially important, said Duster and co-director Neysa Page-Lieberman, who previously served as executive director of Exhibitions and Performance at Columbia College and chief curator of the Wabash Arts Corridor.</p><p>“Our rights continue to be stripped away, and it’s accelerated in the past few years,” Page-Lieberman said. “We can’t just rest on our laurels and think because we had this hard-fought, hard-won victory 100 years ago that we will always have that.” [<a class=\"Link\" href=\"https://www.wbez.org/arts/2026/04/21/chicago-murals-womens-suffrage-south-loop-ida-b-wells\" target=\"_blank\" ><u>Chicago Sun-Times</u></a>]</p><p><a class=\"Link\" href=\"https://chicago.suntimes.com/politics/2026/04/21/pritzker-prediction-markets-ban-illinois\" target=\"_blank\" ><b><u>2. Gov. Pritzker banned state workers from using insider information on prediction market apps</u></b></a></p><p>Gov. JB Pritzker today signed an executive order barring state employees from using insider information to bet on prediction market apps, joining six other states that have moved to either restrict or regulate the burgeoning betting field, my colleague Tina Sfondeles reports.</p><p>Users on apps such as Kalshi and Polymarket are betting on everything from the results of elections to economic decisions or war outcomes — even what words President Donald Trump will say in speeches. The governor said he’s concerned about the lack of oversight, including bets on events in which state employees can influence the outcome.</p><p>“This opens the door to insider trading and abuse of confidential information,” the governor said in a statement provided to the Chicago Sun-Times. “While the Trump Administration continues to be riddled with stories of appointees looking to make a profit, Illinois is stepping up to ensure those who are serving the public, not their own personal financial gain.”</p><p>The governor’s office cited recent examples of inside trading, including highly accurate bets made in February regarding U.S.-Israeli strikes on Iran, an anonymous trader who earned more than $400,000 after placing large bets on the removal of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and a user who placed a $40,000 bet that Open AI would launch an artificial intelligence web browser before the end of the month. Another example cited was a trader who placed a surge of bets on Taylor Swift’s engagement shortly before it was publicly announced and earned significant returns. [<a class=\"Link\" href=\"https://chicago.suntimes.com/politics/2026/04/21/pritzker-prediction-markets-ban-illinois\" target=\"_blank\" ><u>Chicago Sun-Times</u></a>]</p><p><a class=\"Link\" href=\"https://chicago.suntimes.com/business/2026/04/20/whole-foods-grocery-store-wicker-park-lake-view\" target=\"_blank\" ><b><u>3. Whole Foods grocery stores are coming to Wicker Park and Lake View</u></b></a></p><p>The Wicker Park location is set for 1200 N. Ashland Ave., the site of a former CVS at the intersections of Division Street and Ashland and Milwaukee avenues. A spokesperson for Amazon, which owns Whole Foods, confirmed it is seeking to open a location there but would not share more details, including when the store could open.</p><p>The high-end grocery chain is also seeking to open a store at 827 W. Belmont Ave. in Lake View, according to the Lakeview East Chamber of Commerce. An opening date there has not been announced.</p><p>Earlier this year, Amazon said it plans to open more than 100 new Whole Foods locations over the next few years. The company added it will shutter its Amazon Go and Amazon Fresh stores and convert some locations into Whole Foods. [<a class=\"Link\" href=\"https://chicago.suntimes.com/business/2026/04/20/whole-foods-grocery-store-wicker-park-lake-view\" target=\"_blank\" ><u>Chicago Sun-Times</u></a>]</p><p><a class=\"Link\" href=\"https://www.wbez.org/arts-culture/2026/04/21/titanic-john-jacob-astor-iv-gold-pocket-watch-patek-philippe-auction\" target=\"_blank\" ><b><u>4. The Titanic’s wealthiest passenger’s gold pocket watch is up for sale in Chicago</u></b></a></p><p>John Jacob Astor IV’s 18-karat gold Patek Philippe watch, engraved with his initials, was one of several items retrieved from Astor’s pockets as his body lay in a makeshift morgue in Halifax, Nova Scotia, days after the Titanic sank on April 15, 1912.</p><p>The watch, along with Astor’s gold pencil case, are going on the auction block at 10 a.m. tomorrow at Freeman’s auction house in the West Loop, my colleague Stefano Esposito reports.</p><p>The timepiece, which Astor bought from Tiffany & Co.’s flagship store in New York, is expected to fetch somewhere between $300,000 and $500,000. It was made in 1904, must be wound by hand and “keeps good time,” said Reginald Brack, Freeman’s watch expert. [<a class=\"Link\" href=\"https://www.wbez.org/arts-culture/2026/04/21/titanic-john-jacob-astor-iv-gold-pocket-watch-patek-philippe-auction\" target=\"_blank\" ><u>Chicago Sun-Times</u></a>]</p><p><a class=\"Link\" href=\"https://www.wbez.org/movies-tv/2026/04/21/doc10-chicago-documentary-festival-davis-theater\" target=\"_blank\" ><b><u>5. The Doc10 film fest comes out swinging bigger after Trump’s arts cuts</u></b></a></p><p>As WBEZ’s Mike Davis writes, Doc10 is one of the only documentary-exclusive film fests in the country, and the organizers have an uncanny knack for curating a menu of films that end up on annual shortlists for prestigious awards, including the Oscars.</p><p>Heading into this year’s event, opening Friday, organizers faced a fresh urgency to program a festival that speaks to the current moment. They expanded programming to include “Speak Truth,” a series of film screenings and post-show discussions that feature films intended to provoke civic dialogue on urgent contemporary issues.</p><p>Chicago Media Project co-founder Steven Cohen said the idea is to transform the event into also being an ideas festival. “Film is the galvanizing point, and it’s the reason people come together. But we go beyond there. We want Doc10 to not be the place where film is the end of the conversation but the beginning of the conversation.” [<a class=\"Link\" href=\"https://www.wbez.org/movies-tv/2026/04/21/doc10-chicago-documentary-festival-davis-theater\" target=\"_blank\" ><u>WBEZ</u></a>]</p><p><b>Here’s what else is happening</b></p><ul class=\"rte2-style-ul\" style=\"margin-top:0;margin-bottom:0;padding-inline-start:48px;\" id=\"rte-08bdaee3-3dc0-11f1-851a-f932db0c42a8\"><li>Iran hasn’t yet decided whether to join ceasefire talks as the two-week truce is set to expire. [<a class=\"Link\" href=\"https://apnews.com/live/iran-war-israel-trump-04-21-2026\" target=\"_blank\" ><u>AP</u></a>]</li><li>President Donald Trump and other top Republicans will participate in a marathon reading of the Bible as part of an America 250 event. [<a class=\"Link\" href=\"https://apnews.com/article/trump-bible-reading-conservative-christians-evangelicals-453a6a5abdfd757a97b6053b6da1dbed\" target=\"_blank\" ><u>AP</u></a>]</li><li>Here’s the origin of the features that keep people addicted to screens. [<a class=\"Link\" href=\"https://www.npr.org/2026/04/21/nx-s1-5776665/surprising-origin-features-superglue-kids-adults-to-screens\" target=\"_blank\" ><u>NPR</u></a>]</li><li>The Chicago Transit Authority laid off its private unarmed security officers, redirecting those funds to officers and other trained professionals “better equipped” to keep riders safe. [<a class=\"Link\" href=\"https://chicago.suntimes.com/transportation/2026/04/20/cta-private-security-guard-contract\" target=\"_blank\" ><u>Chicago Sun-Times</u></a>]</li></ul><p><b>Oh, and one more thing …</b></p><p>One of Chicago’s finest Art Deco works, the former Chicago Daily News Building, changed owners last summer for the first time in half a century and is now going through more transitions, WBEZ contributor Dennis Rodkin reports. The new owners have begun a multimillion-dollar refresh, and the city declared it an official landmark — an important protection the previous owner never pursued.</p><p>But a longtime preservation leader was worried there was something significant getting lost in the shuffle, and he worked diligently to fix that.</p><p>What’s been missing from the building for three decades is a remarkable mural that filled the round-topped ceiling of a pedestrian concourse from the plaza to the old Chicago and North Western train station on the next block west.</p><p>Replete with angular patterns, human figures both working at printing machines and in crowds and what appears to be a street grid like Chicago’s running through it, John Warner Norton’s mural was called “Gathering the News, Printing the News, Transporting the News.” [<a class=\"Link\" href=\"https://www.wbez.org/architecture/2026/04/21/whats-that-building-mural-from-the-old-daily-news-building\" target=\"_blank\" ><u>WBEZ</u></a>]</p><p><b>Tell me something good …</b></p><p>What’s your favorite place to go for a bike ride in the Chicago area, and why?</p><p>Dave writes:</p><p>“An old friend from grammar school and I would get together early on a Saturday morning, strip and clean our bikes down to the ball bearings, reassemble, and then begin ‘The Horseshoe’: leaving Evanston north on the Green Bay Trail, we’d head north to the Botanic Gardens; cut through the BG to get to the Skokie Lagoons Trail; then south on SLT to the Caldwell Woods Path, down to its beginning at Devon and Lehigh. Then we’d reverse course and end back up in Evanston. About 45 miles R/T. My knees (and a crappy bike) say ‘no’ to that ride at this time in life.”</p><p>Feel free to email me, and your response may be included in the newsletter this week.</p>",
  "title": "Chicago women’s suffrage murals expand: The Rundown",
  "updatedAt": "2026-04-21T20:45:01.339Z"
}