>> Hello and thanks for joining us on Chicago tonight.

Black voices.

I'm Brandis Friedman.

Here's what we're looking at.

>> I've been opposed to any taxes, their broad base for that would affect working families.

>> Lawmakers still hammering out ways to fill the state's budget gap as the legislative deadline approaches.

Journalist Jonathan Capehart gets personal in a new memoir yet here I lessons Black man's search for home.

>> And a new opera on led lack she rose.

But first, lawmakers just dropped long-awaited plan to reform oversight of Chicago area.

Public transit.

Meanwhile, they're still figuring out how to address potential Medicaid cuts in federal funding.

Uncertainties as the legislative deadline approaches.

Our Nic Blumberg joins us now live from Springfield.

Nic, what is in this new transit Bill?

brand is this measure would replace the regional transportation authority with the new northern Illinois Transit Authority.

It would be empowered to coordinate things like fair policy and major capital projects, CTA, Metra and pace.

essentially be operational divisions, focused on running buses and trains.

>> Now lawmakers have been clear there won't be revenue to fill Transit's, massive budget gap next year without reforms.

But that revenue is not in this bill.

Now, given the complexity of the change, the measure creates a runway with the working group set to be seated by April of next year.

Other provisions include things like a transit ambassador program and that working group but also be charged with coming up more on potentially creating a transit police And Nick advocates are also pushing back against potential cuts to Medicaid and health care for undocumented people.

What's at stake there?

that's right.

This comes in the context of President Trump's so-called big beautiful bill that cleared the U.S. House and is now the Senate.

The current version includes some 700 billion dollars in cuts to Medicaid.

It would also cut matching dollars for states that offer health coverage to immigrants.

Both legal, present and documented.

Now Governor Pritzker's budget earlier this year moved to trim that health coverage for undocumented immigrants between the ages of 42 64.

That's something that immigrant advocates want to see restored.

Let's take a listen >> Well, we struck health care from documented.

We strain on hospitals.

create a compensated care.

And we were about being everyone, not one population.

>> Now one immigrant advocate told me that those cuts are essentially 3 complying with something that may not actually come to fruition.

She also said some lawmakers are still pushing to restore coverage for those adult immigrants in the state budget.

But it's unclear whether that's going anywhere.

And we know of Governor Pritzker spoke with the media earlier today.

What did he say about where the budget stands right now?

>> Well, as you might expect, Pritzker told us he is in conversation legislative leaders every day during this very busy month of may.

Now given how challenging a budget year is, the governor was asked whether he would support idea that's been floated for years.

A sales tax on services.

But Pritzker said any broad-based taxes that would negatively affect working families.

He's opposed some of what he said.

>> I've been pretty clear with everybody that.

>> You know, individual income taxes, corporate income taxes, sales taxes.

We're not about raising those taxes at all.

I would veto a bill that does that.

>> We also talked about those potential Medicaid cuts we just mentioned that he's hopeful there's enough opposition in U.S. Senate, but those won't come to fruition.

We also asked about some measures is back this session, for example, banning cell phones from classrooms and allowing college is to offer certainly four-year degrees.

Now, this one into opposition from some members of the Black caucus.

But Pritzker said he's still hopeful they will be called for a vote.

And he told us while he hasn't been pushing for any specific revenue options to address transit's budget gap, he said reforms to better coordinate service are critical.

By the way, Pritzker spoke to after a dedication event at the State Library reading room, naming it after former Governor Jim Edgar Pritzker and many others, he pays on Edgar as a statesman.

Pittsburgh, joking.

You gotta be careful which former governors of try to emulate pits for added that hackers.

Number one piece of advice that he gave fertility took office passed a budget.

Certainly something that top of mind for folks down here this week.

Brandis.

>> A couple more days.

in Springfield for us, thank you.

>> Up next, journalist Jonathan Capehart on his new memoir.

>> Chicago Tonight, Black Voices he's made possible in part by the support of these donors.

>> A Pulitzer Prize winning writer, editor columnist PBS News Hour political analyst and MSNBC host lays it all bare in his new book.

Jonathan Capehart shares his life story in more yet here I am lessons from a black man's search for home.

The recounted stories of his upbringing and career illustrate the challenges with embracing his identity and finding his voice.

He's found them both and he shares them with us now.

Jonathan Capehart is in town for the Chicago Humanities Festival.

Welcome to Chicago.

And think you very much, Brianna.

So what inspired you to write this book want to do that now?

>> So there are 2 books that I read 20 years apart that had the same thing that drew me to them and why a loved one is personal history by Katharine Graham.

You know, the world sure of the Washington Post or the Washington Post, but one of most powerful women in the country and certainly the most powerful women in journalism at the time in her autobiography Talk about laying it all out.

And she was Raw, Open, honest, introspective about about her own insecurities, about her fraught relationship with her mother.

And I thought when I finished it.

Wow, this is this is the kind of book I want to read.

You know, none of this puppy dogs and dandelions.

keeping it real.

Fast forward 20 or so years.

And Charles blows memoir Fire Shut Up in my bones comes out and I read that and it's the same thing.

Raw, Open, honest, introspective.

And it maybe understand the passion that fueled his columns for The New York Times.

And so I thought if ever I had the opportunity to write a memoir that I would do the same thing.

I would be open and honest and raw as I could be about.

Certainly my success is that most definitely about my shortcomings in my failures because that's where the lessons come in.

That's where people connect and see maybe a part of themselves, even if they're not black or even if they're not LGBTQ, certainly in the way that I felt a connection to Kay Graham and I'm nothing like >> in answer that comes with both to book recommendations, which I appreciate.

But also read the book.

You are honest and you also share some lessons which which hopefully will get But you also talk about the time you spent growing up as a kid, of course, and spending some of that time with your grandparents and Severn in North Carolina.

And you talk about the significance of your generation in how does that make you sort of an unlikely story as your title suggests yet?

Here I am.

>> So you know in 7, North Carolina is a town so small.

That you have to when you hit Google Maps and you hit that plus sign you've got you've got all the way in so that you can see the tiny of the streets.

As I write in the book, My Cousin Rita and I are the first generation in our family to not have to pick cotton.

And for people of a certain age, they will understand what that means.

But for the young guns out there, I was born 3 years to the day after the 1964 Civil Civil Rights Act was enacted.

2 years before 2 years after the 1965 Voting Rights Act.

Why is that significant?

Because with those 2 with those 2 laws that Constitution what now available, all of the words of the Constitution applied to everyone to African-Americans and so freedom of opportunity and access to education in everything.

We're now unbounded for my generation.

And so Rita and I were running around in the in the yard, in the sprinkler, during those summers, it wasn't.

I writing this book that I understood when At when our parents were our age, they were working.

They working in the fields, picking cotton pickin picking tobacco.

We did not have backing the way they were right.

They weren't.

>> You also you talk a lot about blackness and black identity as well in some very relay double ways over the years.

Black classmates and colleagues calling you sell out an Oreo uncle Tom.

Some other words I won't say right How did you handle that and what do you think we do that?

The black community?

>> You know, I'm still trying to trying to figure that out.

look, is viewed myself again as someone who is from that first, that first generation to live, you know, with in day you're a freedom in America as an ambassador.

And ambassador to other people to the race.

And so in a time when, you know, a lot of people didn't know black people.

A lot of white people did not know black people.

And as you know, for those African-Americans who are either the only one or one of the few in predominantly white spaces.

We know what that means.

The pressure that comes with that whether we want it or not, and I just decided to embrace it.

I mean, I'm an only child.

So I ran out there trying to make friends, but in trying to make friends, particularly in college, you know, that rankled a lot of people, a lot of a lot of my black classmates understand why.

What?

Why don't you hang out with us its like because I like my roommate.

I like I like my friends and for a lot of classmates being in that predominantly white space with something that was new to them.

And I understand and now really understand why they gravitated towards each other.

But for me, I had the reverse experience to me, you know, going to Carleton College in Northfield, Minnesota.

That was reverting back to the mean.

I was used to going being only want to go into predominantly white institutions.

And so I think that that.

hesitate to call it a misunderstanding, but it's just sort of sort of miss a mine man of ideals.

I was a member or an older classmate took me to task basically for getting into think about it.

And so I just I just had to chuckle at it.

But, you know, it is.

It's tough and it's not it's not something that goes away as you get older.

It's not something that goes away as you climb the socioeconomic last I would imagine for a lot of black people, but as they climb that ladder.

>> They are the only black person in the Absolutely more and more more more and more and for a long periods of time.

But as I write in, as I write in the book, you know, Blackness and we talk about we talk about black this and then to understand.

And so the audience understands that.

You know, blackness is in the eye of the ball holder.

So at any given point in in my day, I could be.

>> 2 black.

I could be not black enough.

I could be not black at all.

And it has nothing to do with any us.

Some people, I mean, either right?

Nothing that I've done.

But it's all because of the other person's other person's perception.

>> And so our level of blackness is in the hands of other is in the hands of other people.

And again, no matter where you are on the socioeconomic level ladder, you are going to have to deal with it and maybe in reading this book people will see like, you know, what?

That's what that is or I've had that experience.

That's what's that about.

That is what that is about.

So I want to jump ahead to your time at The Washington Post because, of course, the stories that you have shared their have a.

>> Maybe cause a little bit of controversy for some folks who are close to the post host, of course, where you are still a You write about your experience on the editorial board in for about what, 15 years being the only black person on the for most of your time there.

You also write about.

When the time came for you to leave that Gordon sort of the straw that broke the camel's back for and editorial that the board wrote around the Georgia election with a statement that you 100% disagreed with how you told your federal your fellow editorial board members as much.

You did not talk about it at the time.

Why did you not want to talk about your the reason for leaving the board publicly at the time?

>> look, it was a a very searing moment.

I did everything that I did that you now read about privately because that was the way I wanted to handle it.

And I don't think it would have been wiser proper at the time to just go out there and and spout off.

That's just not me.

I mean, this is now what?

2 years, 3 years after the fact with that time I had perspective.

And could look back on on what happened.

In the end.

And I do urge people to really read the chapter fine, but do not read the chapter in isolation of everything else.

It is a live in pages in more than 270 pages.

And there are 10 or 11 chapters before that.

The reader will not truly understand the context of that chapter if they hadn't read the earlier chapters.

And so, you know, I understand people being upset that I put down on paper.

You know why I left the board.

And I knew that this would, you know, folks wouldn't be happening, folks.

We even start talking about it and saying things and that's fine.

You know, when you when you speak out and speak your truth, it comes with it.

Come sometimes with consequences.

That comes with accountability and I'm fine with that.

I'll stand by everything I wrote everything I wrote in the book gladly because the book is not about that chapter.

The book is about my life so much more than just that chapter.

Of course, we've got about 30 seconds see, wrote a book what's next?

What else?

else?

The next just does?

Well, you know what?

Instead of what's next?

Let's let's go with your professional advice to things that I picked up when someone asks you what you want tell them.

>> Yeah.

And everything you're doing today is an addition for later in life.

Those are the 2 big lessons because >> folks, I think folks self sabotage, they think I have dreams.

Therefore, I'm not.

I'm never going to say them because someone's going to squash them or they'll never happen.

But I encourage people whenever anybody asks you what you want, tell them because you never know with the answer's going to be yes.

And that's been might happen to be twice and then everything we do in life is an audition for something else.

We just don't know why yet.

And that proven itself out.

You have to live your life to find out.

have to read the book to find out as well.

Jonathan Capehart, thank you so much.

think you so much.

Up next, she who dares a look at civil rights from the Chicago Opera Theater stay with us.

>> Some lesser known black female heroes are taking center stage in a new opera called she who dared it spotlights.

The women who challenged segregation in Montgomery telling the story with the use of classical music and gospel jazz and the blues audiences can see the show starting next week at Chicago Opera Theater.

And joining us now with more on what to expect our composer of she who dare Jasmine aerial Barnes.

Deborah, Deep Mouton, the opera's librettist and Jasmine have a sham who plays the role of Claudette.

Colvin, thanks to all of you for joining us.

So we all know the story, of course, of Rosa Parks who refused to give up her bus seat to a white man.

But there are many other women who did similar work.

Sometimes some of them even before parks.

Deborah Jeane Moos don't want to start with you, please.

Who are some of these women?

Absolutely.

So we center on 7 women.

It's kind of starting with cloud it cold in being the one who 9 months before Rosa took the seat.

>> Then a real your Browder says McDonald Mary Louise Smith.

And I'm always missing when SHES a whose >> that's Okay.

Yeah.

I want you playing.

Yeah.

Got eyes on her first.

But we also wanted to expand.

Think about the people who are making a really big waves in the movement at the time.

So Joe Anne Robinson joins the cast.

>> As well as we do have some male roles that are played by female characters.

Lawyer Fred Gray, a police officer, things like that.

The kind of round out the cast everything that Reese's well as for their attention and reason given our respect to her, Debra, you also have a familial tie.

What inspired you to write the story?

Yeah.

My mom told me that I had a cousin that sat on the bus before Rosa, very flippantly one holiday.

And I was like You can't just drop that might give you any of the information.

But I started to dig in and found a real your Browder who has my mother's surname and grew up about an hour from a migrant.

My mother grew up in Alabama.

>> And started doing ties.

I'm not exactly sure where it all kind of fills in together, but there definitely is a really, really strong tie and thinking about how that heritage is an extension of kind of the women who I know in my family in the ways that they move.

That's amazing to kind of find out like the ways that they were each connected or that you need to find your own family connection.

Jasmine have ashamed.

You portray cloud of COVID as we mentioned.

What was it like preparing for this role?

>> Oh, my gosh.

You know, preparing for any role.

I like to do a lot of research and >> this I have to say was kind of hard because there wasn't much research about her in general, which is, again, why doing this offering the first place.

But in terms of developing the character and and trying to figure out who she is.

Again, there's such a wonderful libretto as well as I had some books to read.

Also went to the so writes, Museum and Birmingham and got to kind of deal to know what the moon in the feeling and what all these women went through.

And it was really fascinating to do that because I happen to be on a gig in Birmingham and I was like, OK, didn't exactly work exactly.

So I went to the 60 Baptist Church and even those things, you know, they were different points of the timeline.

It was amazing to see from the beginning of the boycott in Montgomery and how it led to those major other events that happened.

So I took a lot of my information from the air and turns of developing the character.

But it's it's been a pleasure to do.

And 2 Jasmine Barnes.

So you endeavor, of course, you all you can working on this show a while ago back in 2022.

But of course, it always relevant.

>> Because as we know last month, President Donald Trump signed an executive order called restoring a quality of opportunity and meritocracy.

It seeks to cut back on the disparate impact liability, which is a core principle of the 1964 Civil Rights Act.

Did you anticipate that she who dared would be so relevant today?

not at I unfortunately, history continues to repeat itself.

And so there's always a space of relevance for history, especially black history in this country, which often raised, often forgotten, often left out of the the fuller picture of America's history.

But we didn't know how relevant it would be.

But Lake.

It now it just feels like, yes, it had to happen.

Now.

It had to happen in 2025. and there is a bit of fear in the class will community around putting these kinds of works out into the public, not for their own personal reputation, but more so just fear of the government right now.

And I think that is the stance for a lot of organizations and institutions it feels good to be like the resistance in prison.

This because in the arts have been on the chopping block and administration as well.

We know and we don't often see black history focused operas.

Debra, why did you think opera is is the right medium for the story?

Why not just start off as a opera singer?

And I came in kind of with a little bit of a classical music background really thinking about this space is one that a friend of mine says is ripe for revolution, right?

We've seen many black singers from, you know, Jesse Norman, to.

>> To Marian Anderson, right, come to the spaces and really start to break down and change how things are done.

But that's not necessarily always culturally how we talk about this space.

>> And so I think it kind of just felt like the first perfect fit to think about how music and especially Americana music.

I'm really plays a space to be able to provide spaces for classical music and black stories jazz.

And Barnes are also working with decomposed, which is Chicago's Black Chamber Music Collective.

Tell us about why they're the right fit for this story also.

Oh, my goodness.

The first orchestral reading last week walking in and seeing.

>> The room look exactly like that.

So.

>> And this is be honest.

Even for the cast working the Look like you is something that's not fully experience all the time.

The classical music and were often one or 2 people in the room to have the whole room.

The that is is exciting.

And they're not just there because they're black.

You know they're because they're amazingly talented, best best from the cast, too.

>> The instrumentalists I mean, literally in the country.

And I think in the world you know, I think also something that's really special to Chicago to.

Chicago has a wealth of classical musicians.

And I'm not sure that everyone knows that.

But like Chicago is just that place?

Okay.

And and we're really happy to present this work because we get to work with artists like better in decomposed and but even expanded the orchestra for this production because normally they perform as a quartet or point it.

And this time they are performing with everything we need protection, wind, wind instruments Florida to meet the needs of opera.

We've actually had the executive director decompose on the show along with Camilla would several weeks ago.

So happy to give them another shout doesn't have And you are a Macon, Georgia needed.

So how does it feel to be able to portray, you know, such an important history of the American South?

>> As a southerner, yourself, got to do probably, you know, something I think is really amazing about clawed its character is hurt.

>> Her strength and resilience to be smart and and bold as a character.

And I also think people have this really wrong connotation about people in the south that were uneducated where, you lazy, all these things.

And I feel like for breaks down a lot of those barriers in terms of.

Understanding each one of these women had something to fight for no matter their station or education.

I'm very proud to, you know, live in the south and in and I want people to understand the beauty of how grounding it is to be there and also talk about the issues that there's some really deep, incredibly racist deep routes that are still hunting U.S. today.

I feel proud to represent it.

Fellow southerner, I'm looking forward try to share the story excited to hear about it.

So that's what we'll have to leave it.

My thanks to Jasmine aerial Barnes tempered even tiny Jasmine Harrison.

Thanks, everybody.

Thank >> She who dared premieres June 3rd at the per theater.

We're back to wrap things up right after this.

And that's our show for this Wednesday night.

Join us tomorrow night at 5, 30 10 now for all of us here Chicago tonight, black voices and greatest Friedman and the >> Opposed is made possible by Robert a cliff and law office.

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