By Fox Valley
Labor News staff
Thursday, Jan. 1, 2015

First event sold out, second King day event added for Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. celebration and rally

CHICAGO — Due to overwhelming demand, the Chicago Teachers Union (CTU) has added a second event to its celebration of the life and work of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

The 4th annual Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Clergy Breakfast will go on as planned at 9 a.m., Jan. 15, at the Kroc Center, 1250 W. 119th St., in Chicago. A second event has been added the same day at 4 p.m., at Trinity United Church of Christ, 400 W. 95th St. in Chicago. Both events are free and open to the public.

At both events, the Rev. Dr. William J. Barber II, president of the North Carolina NAACP and architect of North Carolina’s Moral Monday Forward Together Movement, will again speak on the legacy of Dr. King and the importance of putting his dream into action.

The 9 a.m. breakfast is sponsored by the CTU and Parents, Educators & Clergy for Education (P.E.A.C.E.), a coalition of local teachers, retirees, parents, faith-based leaders and others united in addressing poverty, race and class issues impacting the more than 400,000 public school students throughout the city.

Past speakers at the commemorative clergy breakfast have included the prolific voices of Rev. Dr. Jeremiah Wright, pastor emeritus of Trinity United Church of Christ, and Rev. Wendell Anthony, president of the Detroit branch of the NAACP.

As president of the North Carolina Conference of the NAACP, the largest state conference in the South, Rev. Barber also serves on the historic group’s national board of directors. He earned a bachelor’s degree in political science and public administration at North Carolina Central University, then went on to complete a master’s degree from Duke and a doctorate from Drew University in public policy and pastoral care.

Like in Chicago and elsewhere, North Carolina citizens were faced with regressive attacks on the poor, workers, African-Americans, Latinos, women, students, the sick and elderly. Answering the call for moral courage, Rev. Barber, along with 16 other ministers and activists, peacefully petitioned their representatives on Jones Street in late April 2013 where the state capitol is located.

Then, for 62 consecutive weeks, the Forward Together Moral Movement as led by the civil rights champion, protested an avalanche of regressive policies through more than 122 rallies and actions, leading to more than 1,000 arrests for civil disobedience in the state legislature and involving tens of thousands of demonstrators with more than 80,000 people participating in a single day at the height of the campaign.

In addition to music from the Morgan Park High School Boys Chorus, spoken word performances and recollections of Dr. King’s work, the spotlight will be given to the Chicago’s rising youth movement against police brutality and fight for education equity.

The federal Martin Luther King Holiday is celebrated the third Monday of each January, however, the civil rights icon was actually born Jan. 15, 1929 in Atlanta, Ga. The Nobel Peace Prize winner was cut down in his prime by an assassin’s bullet on April 4, 1968.
—Chicago Teachers Union