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The Unforgotten Bureau 

We are a virtual newsroom, founded by John W. Fountain, an award-winning veteran journalist, professor and columnist, through FountainWorks NFP, a 501c3 organization. Unforgotten Bureau is an extension of Fountain’s own work and the projects in which he has led his students from conception through fruition as a professor at Roosevelt University, Chicago. Those projects include the work of Fountain, student-journalists and professionals, and have explored the case of 51 mostly African-American women murdered in Chicago in an award-winning digital project (Unforgotten 51) from which the Unforgotten Bureau was derived; one church’s attempt one summer to save the soul of a murderous city (Invasion of Faith (Also see: Invasion of Faith—A Chicago Story In Pictures); the plight of missing and murdered Black women and girls in Chicago and beyond (Sounding The Alarm); the unsolved mysterious death of Jelani Day (Jelani Day); the plight of the homeless in Chicago (When The City Turns Cold); the murder of young Black men in Chicago in a project called Saving Our Sons; an abridged examination of the impact of the water crises in Flint, Michigan titled, Faces of The Poisoned, and a series of stories about a Little League baseball team about Black boys from one of Chicago’s poorest suburbs titled, The Sweet Season, among others. 

 

The Unforgotten Bureau as a digital news space on Substack and on this website integrates Fountain’s current and future work as well as work he has previously produced—either independently or as projects in which he has led student journalism teams—under one site. But most importantly, the Unforgotten Bureau advances some of those areas of coverage with new reporting efforts while also undertaking new project ideas and stories in a wide array of topics that fall under the social justice journalism umbrella, and includes the voices of other journalists and writers.
 

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About Us

FountainWorks is an independent journalism and media not-for-profit dedicated to telling the untold stories of marginalized and underserved African-American communities in Chicago and its mostly Black suburbs. Unforgotten Bureau (for Social Justice Journalism) and 50 Cent A Word are branches of FountainWorks NFP

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