MCHR Members Based in Illinois

The American Civil Liberties Union of Illinois is a non-profit, non-partisan organization, dedicated to protecting freedom, liberty, equality and justice for all within the United States. With a membership of more than 22,000 across Illinois - a total of more than 400,000 across the nation - the ACLU accomplishes its goals through litigation, lobbying and education programs.

The Chicago office of the American Friends Service Committee is committed to developing leaders from within the diverse communities of Chicago, and to building a sustainable peace with justice movement that reaches beyond the city's borders.

Founded in London in 1961, Amnesty International is a Nobel Prize-winning grassroots activist organization with over 1.8 million members worldwide. Amnesty International undertakes research and action focused on preventing and ending grave abuses of the rights to physical and mental integrity, freedom of conscience and expression, and freedom from discrimination, within the context of its work to promote all human rights.

The Center for International Human Rights conducts academic and practical work in support of internationally recognized human rights, democracy and the rule of law. The Center stresses a comprehensive, interdisciplinary approach, and invites participation by other University departments.

CU Citizens for Peace and Justice is a multiracial group that seeks to expose and remedy racial and class inequities in a number of areas of life in the Champaign-Urbana, Illinois community. One area is the criminal justice system. It deals with police stops in our primarily African neighborhoods, discriminatory arrests and charging by police officers and the States Attorney’s office, excessive use of force on the streets, the treatment of inmates in the county jail, and the conduct of trials and sentencing.

Responding to the call of Latin America’s poor majorities, Chicago Religious Leadership Network on Latin America (CRLN) is an interfaith information and action network that mobilizes religious leaders and congregations in Illinois to advance peace, justice and human rights in our hemisphere.  CRLN’s 600 members include lay leaders, pastors, rabbis, bishops, denominational executives, seminary professors, and men and women religious.  Many have traveled to Latin America.  Others have associates there.  Through speakers, workshops, informational updates, action alerts, advocacy initiatives, annual visits to Latin America, and meetings with U.S. policy-makers, CRLN engages religious leaders to speak out for more just U.S.

The Children and Family Justice Center (CFJC) is a comprehensive children's law center where law students, under the supervision of attorneys and clinical professors, represent young people on matters of delinquency and crime, family violence, school discipline, health and disability, and immigration and asylum. CFJC collaborates with communities and child welfare, educational, mental health and juvenile justice systems to develop fair and effective policies and solutions for reform.

Citizens Alert, founded in 1967, is Chicago's only police accountability organization working for systemic change in law enforcement agencies and for human, effective law enforcement while advocating for victims of police brutality and misconduct.

Founded in 1996, in response to the federal mandate to demolish more than 100,000 units of public housing nationwide - 18,000 of those units in Chicago - the Coalition to Protect Public Housing (CPPH) is an advocacy group of public housing residents, community-based organizations, religious institutions, businesses, and non-profit organizations including the American Civil Liberties Union, Community Renewal Society, Chicago Coalition for the Homeless, Jewish Council on Urban Affairs, and Metropolitan Tenants Organization all wo

The Council of Islamic Organizations of Greater Chicago was officially formed in 1992, with twenty member mosques and organizations.