Salim Muwakkil is a Senior Editor of In These Times, and an op-ed columnist for the Chicago Tribune. He is currently a Crime and Communities Media Fellow of the Open Society Institute, examining the impact of ex-inmates and gang leaders in leadership positions in the black community. Currently, Muwakkil is working on a documentary titled Chicago Gangs: An American Story and wrote the text for the book, HAROLD: Photographs from the Harold Washington Years, a book of photographs documenting the tenure of Harold Washington, Chicago's first Black mayor.

Muwakkil is a frequent contributor to Chicago Tonight and Beyond the Beltway with Bruce Dumont, two Chicago-based public affairs programs. In his spare time, Muwakkil serves as a board member for the Progressive Media Project and the Chicago-based Public Square. He is a faculty member of the Associated Colleges of the Midwest's Urban Studies Program, and a former adjunct professor at Columbia College, Northwestern University's Medill School of Journalism and the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.