Ask most people why we celebrate the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.’s birthday as a national holiday, and you’ll get a variety of answers. The promotion of civil rights, some may note. The “I Have A Dream” speech, others may reference. The practice of nonviolent change, the more astute will respond. And they’d all be correct, to a point.
But the essence of King’s life, and his commitment to racial equality, can be found in a snapshot of Chicago history: the true-life tale of a national leader who actually came to live in Chicago, that’s right, live, in order to pursue one of the first major civil rights initiatives in the North.
The mid-1960s brought a greater awareness that racial inequities were not indigenous to the South. The violent Watts riots of August 1965 demonstrated to King and other civil rights leaders the need for a nonviolent response to what was perceived as widespread economic exploitation of Black people in Northern cities.
From this came the Chicago Freedom Movement, announced on Jan. 7, 1966, with the goal of drawing attention to discriminatory housing practices (e.g., steering, redlining and panic peddling) that perpetuated segregated ghettos. And attention surely came on Jan. 26, 1966, when King and his wife, Coretta, moved into a $90-per-month apartment in a dilapidated building at 1550 S. Hamlin Ave. in crime-ridden North Lawndale.
Despite its laudable goals, the Freedom Movement started slowly, as King used the winter months to gain familiarity with the South Side environment, including a firsthand view of tenement conditions. The movement then began an “End Slums” initiative focusing on ghetto conditions, by promoting a series of protests and boycotts intended to highlight the most prevalent examples of housing discrimination. Yet none of them gained much traction.
To attract more attention, King pursued nonviolent yet aggressive protests in the nearby Gage Park and Marquette Park neighborhoods. Ultimately involving hundreds of marchers, the protests peaked in midsummer with a series of vigils and marches that were met with a large police presence and violently negative reaction from local residents. King himself was injured by a thrown rock in one of the marches. As the Tribune quoted King on Aug. 6, 1966: “I have seen many demonstrations in the South, but I have never seen anything so hostile and so hateful as I’ve seen here today.”
Mayor Richard J. Daley had long avoided public confrontation with King’s efforts and sought to prevent the police and protester clashes that had been so prominent in the Watts neighborhood of Los Angeles and other Northern cities. He professed support for anti-discrimination efforts and publicized his administration’s own efforts to encourage fair housing, improve home inspections and pursue rodent eradication. But the violence of Marquette Park, widely displayed in the media, proved a catalyst for compromise.
On Aug. 26, 1966 — after several days of negotiations — the mayor and King reached a nonbinding understanding on what was called the “Summit Agreement.” King agreed to end Freedom Movement’s marches, while the city and the Chicago Real Estate Board both agreed to work toward a more open and fair housing environment. Local bankers agreed to make housing loans available to qualified borrowers without regard to race.
But the initial exuberance over the summit faded with time. King’s residency in Chicago lasted less than a year. And by the time the Freedom Movement wound down, even King himself was unsure whether the summit’s terms were sustainable. Greater racial strife and violence were on the horizon.
Sixty years later, King’s time in Chicago provides much greater context to the national holiday in his honor. The Hamlin Avenue tenement has long been razed. Yet the Freedom Movement’s legacy is viewed favorably by history. The same man who famously proclaimed “I Have A Dream” from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial on Aug. 28, 1963, is the same man who nearly three years later humbled himself to live in a Chicago tenement to highlight the evils of racial discrimination in housing. And, over the years, much progress has been achieved in securing fair housing practices in the city.
Did all that make King a Chicago guy? Not really; he was more of an American guy. But it should make Chicagoans more sensitive to the insidious nature of racial discrimination and segregation, no matter how discreet or indirect it may appear. Such as, perhaps, through the tropes of elected officials associating undocumented immigrants with the high cost of housing. Yes, progress has been made. But maybe not as much as we would like.
In King’s own words: “And so even though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow, I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream. I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: ‘We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.'”
Michael Peregrine is a retired Chicago lawyer and a graduate of Oak Park High School.
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