Chicago Welcomes MLK?

Bill ran into Steve James, the documentary filmmaker (Hoop Dreams), at Sundance.  James is working on the time when Martin Luther King came to Richard J. Daley’s Chicago to fight for fair housing.  “Oh, my mom could tell you a lot about that”, Bill said.  

So, what could I tell Steve James?  We were excited about the civil rights hero coming to our town. We went to see MLK at the old Chicago Stadium.  It was packed.  But what sticks with me are the men wearing trench coats who walked up and down the aisles taking pictures of us.  We joked through the years that our faces were probably somewhere in FBI files.

Daley was the BOSS and he was used to getting his way.  I lived among a group of young married who enjoyed the other Chicago.  We cheered Len Despres when he stood up to Daley in the City Council.  We followed every word when Mike Royko nailed it in his columns and book. We listened to Studs Terkel in the mornings, and The Midnight Special on Saturday nights. 

King’s fight for fair housing was in 1966.  Yes, my condo on the north side houses every imaginable group.  But, ultimately, we are still a divided city.