This fall, Illinois voters in at least seven more counties will be asked whether they support splitting the state in two. One of the groups leading the push, New Illinois — tagline: "Leave Illinois Without Moving" — wants to carve off Cook County. That would leave the state's other 101 counties, from Lake and Winnebago in the north to Alexander and Massac in the south, to form "New Illinois."

The 21st Show has covered this movement before, but it's getting national attention this year thanks in part to reporting from Connor Towne O'Neill, who has covered the story for NPR, including a feature on All Things Considered and a full episode of The Sunday Story podcast. O'Neill also worked on NPR's White Lies podcast, whose first season was a Pulitzer Prize finalist.

We revisit our conversation with historian Marsha Barrett and Chicago Tribune columnist Rick Kogan on last year's 50th anniversary of the 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago. Plus, more than seventy years ago this month, British India was divided into separate states - now known as India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh. This came to be known as Partition. We revisit our conversation with Rohini Ramkrishnan, Digital Archive Manager with the 1947 Partition Archive. And,  the story of a remarkable African-American man who, starting in 1895, helped black students at the U of I succeed and thrive at a time when they weren’t even allowed to live in the dorms.

On the 21st: Sen. Dick Durbin weighs in on the recent detention of a young Kentucky woman by ICE — despite her legal standing. Plus, an oral history project is trying to make sure the stories from the partition of India are preserved, and we hear from a University of Illinois researcher who studied the words people use to describe rum.