Our Mission

Grounded in 250+ local declarations recognizing racism as a public health crisis, Defy Racism Collective creates public investigative organizing infrastructure by demonstrating how structural racism operates as a chronic health threat. We equip communities and policymakers by analyzing complex documents and archival research to expose systemic racism through evidence-based narratives.

Our Vision

We envision a free and functioning democracy where racism is no longer a public health crisis because public systems distribute protection, opportunity, and investment equitably. In this future, government data, land, and resources are governed transparently, and no community's health or life expectancy is determined by race or zip code.

How We Work: Investigation AS Organizing

Traditional organizing moves sequentially: Research → Report → Organize → Campaign → Policy Change.

We collapse that timeline.

Our model treats investigation itself as organizing infrastructure. When we build tools that let residents search property liens, check post-Tyler indemnity fund eligibility, or calculate TIF impacts on their schools, the data becomes the organizing tool.

We don't ask communities to wait for transparency. We build the evidence systems they control.

Our Approach

The Mandate

250+ jurisdictions declared racism a public health crisis. Chicago was one. These declarations create legal and moral obligations to track, measure, and remediate racist outcomes.

The Audit

We collect municipal budgets, property records, and government spending into our 147,000-record database to check if resources match the mandate. We document extraction patterns—from 1940s redlining through 2025 TIF districts and Land Bank sales.

The Trap

A city cannot declare a crisis and then claim that tracking the solution is "unduly burdensome." When communities use our tools to prove $600M in annual school funding diversion or discover they're owed foreclosure equity, government claims of ignorance become willful negligence.

What We've Built

• 147,000+ records documenting Cook County extraction patterns
• 23 ward-level audits (expanding to all 50 Chicago wards)
• 3.93 GB of normalized public data spanning property, finance, violations, and municipal contracts
• 8 specialized databases tracking TIF districts, Land Bank transactions, liens, and vendor concentration
• Public query tools letting residents investigate their own properties, blocks, and neighborhoods

Who We Are

Founded by Robert Speed Jr., journalist (South Side Weekly, City Bureau fellow) and certified community health worker with 6+ years in crisis intervention, case management, and healthcare access organizing.

Our work bridges investigative journalism, data forensics, and community organizing—rooted in the neighborhoods we investigate, accountable to the people experiencing extraction, committed to building civic infrastructure that outlasts any single campaign.

Defy Racism Collective operates as a volunteer-driven, community-accountable investigative collective. 

Our Values

Evidence-Based: We prove patterns, not theories. Every claim links to public records, every analysis shows methodology, every finding invites verification.

Community-Controlled: Those experiencing extraction lead the investigation of it. We compensate residents for civic intelligence, not extract their stories.

Systems-Focused: Racism operates as unified extraction across housing, education, debt, and public safety. We document the machinery, not isolated incidents.

Infrastructure-First: We build tools that persist. Query access doesn't depend on our capacity—it's permanent civic infrastructure.

Accountability Without Permission: We don't ask government for transparency. We use public records to build parallel audit systems communities control.