What would we have thought some half century ago with building lit for MLK?

I happened to be in downtown Chicago on Friday night, along Michigan Avenue to be exact, when I noticed the downtown buildings that like to light themselves up for special occasions were at it again.

Celebrating King memory similar to a sports victory. Photograph by Gregory Tejeda

For amongst the many colors intended to give the city skyline a touch of whimsy was the Blue Cross/Blue Shield building at 300 E. Randolph St., which was lit up in blue and white with giant several-stories high letters spelling out “MLK.”

SURE ENOUGH, IT was the beginning of the weekend in which we commemorate Monday the birthday anniversary of civil rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr., who come April of next year will have been gone from our midst for half a century.

King is one of those names that has ceased to be a living, breathing human being. He’s just an image that people use for whatever purpose they choose – rather than for anything King may have said or done during his lifetime. I encountered one news story published this weekend whose point was to say that King as a child was an ordinary person, and something of a prankster.

I once heard an activist say that King had become nothing more than a marketing image. It wouldn’t shock this activist to someday see someone try to sell blue jeans with the King image.

Truly gaudy. But not out of line with the way some marketing campaigns for various products have gone.

SO WHAT SHOULD it mean to us that Monday is King Day across this nation – even though in some Southern states they try to rebrand it as Great Americans Day with people like Robert E. Lee being included in that list?

 

KING: More than just a hedshot

It’s not a surprise that some people would feel that way. Just look at our recent presidential election that some amongst us will never get over or accept.

For some, that idea of “Make America Great Again” may very well include the idea of downplaying this day because they’d rather not recall the images of half a century ago when King felt compelled to challenge the segregated way of life that existed in part of the country – and that many in the rest of the country was more than willing to accept as just the way things were.

We in Chicago can’t really claim to have been any better. We were, after all, the place where King, himself, got hit in the head with a brick (the Marquette Park rallies).

King drawing a crowd to Soldier Field for a 1966 housing rally. Photograph provided by Richard J. Daley collection at University of Illinois-Chicago.

AND WHERE MANY of us have parents and/or grandparents who fondly remember the image of then-Mayor Richard J. Daley standing up to King and his demands for equal housing for all. As though King's political defeat in Chicago was something to be proud of.

Unpleasant images. We’d rather not have to be reminded, if at all possible. And it’s definitely not something that many of us want to be called out on.

Just like many of those who a couple of months ago cast their votes for Donald J. Trump’s presidential bid. They either support the racial hang-ups of the most extreme Trump-ites, or they’re willing to be on the same side as those people and certainly don’t want anyone criticizing them for it.

This King Day is one coming at a time when some people might have fantasies about turning back the clock to an era when certain types of people were supposed to know their place (which was secondary).

NOT THAT I think we’re going back that far. But it is something that ought to be contemplated by all of us. Lest we wind up forgetting the significance of what happened some 51 years ago when King himself spoke in Grant Park – located just south of the building now lit up with his initials.

 

A tragic day for many

I can’t help but wonder what King himself would have thought of the image of one of the giant Chicago skyscrapers that overlook where he spoke bearing a tribute to himself.

But then again, keep in mind those same buildings light themselves up for just about any occasion – most recently back in November when the Chicago Cubs managed to win the World Series.

I also don’t doubt that for some people, the Cubs’ victory (the first in 108 years) was something far more significant than anything King ever said or did. It’s no wonder Trump won!

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EXTRA: Will they let it go? Or, Ouch! Does it still hurt all these years later?

Yes, I'm too cheap to send out individual King Day greeting cards. Although they do exist. Image provided by Greeting Card Universe.

I should point out with regards to the reference I made about the pastor at a King Day celebration who previously was outspoken in his opposition to gay marriage in Illinois that he wound up speaking about the need for African-American people to honor King’s memory by striving to make the most they can of their lives.

He didn’t bring up gay marriage. Although I did notice several of his supporters wearing yellow buttons that read, “Marriage = 1 Man + 1 Woman.” Some people just can’t let certain issues go.

ALTHOUGH IT ALSO was amusing, in a warped sort of way, to hear his reference to King’s time in Chicago – particularly that rally through the Marquette Park neighborhood back in 1966.

What other city on Planet Earth greets a Nobel Peace Prize winner by hitting him in the head with a brick?

And how ridiculous does this make Chicago appear to be, even if it was nearly some 48 years ago?

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Those random moments of life

I read stories such as the Sunday morning account of a shooting incident in the Marquette Park neighborhood caused by a driver who double-parked his car and left other vehicles trapped and I wonder when it will be my turn to be impacted by one of life’s random moments.

A stupid incident nearby results in gunfire

Because it is at times like this that I feel lucky in life. None of the stupid, trivial incidents that could have encountered me turned into anyone’s overly-violent temper tantrum!

IT IS THESE moments that ought to remind us how much we should enjoy our lives while we have them. Because something absurd could always happen.

There doesn’t have to be a legitimate reason why someone gets hurt. It literally can be “just because.”

Take the incident that occurred around 71^st Street and Maplewood Avenue early Sunday. According to the Chicago Tribune, the incident involved a car with two men inside who were upset that another car had parked alongside it.

Witnesses told the newspaper that there was some room and the driver who felt trapped probably could have driven alongside it, then out into the street. Words were exchanged, and after the car managed to get by, the driver felt the need to get out of the car and walk back a few feet.

AT WHICH POINT the handgun came out and the shot was fired.

The man who was shot was “walking, talking, breathing, living,” police told the Tribune. He was eventually taken to Advocate Christ Medical Center in suburban Oak Lawn.

As for the person who was shot, he was from DeKalb, and was in the Marquette Park neighborhood to attend a birthday celebration of a relative who lived on the block.

Now if I wanted, I could turn this into a diatribe about concealed carry. The problem I have with the idea of more people packing pistols on their person is the potential for someone with a temper (particularly someone who thinks they need that weapon to defend themselves at all times) to get stupid amongst the rest of us.

BUT THAT’S ACTUALLY a lesser point.

I’m more bothered by the randomness of the event – since I suspect no one who was in the neighborhood was “out to get” anyone. This really was a matter of tempers flaring, and someone getting hurt as a result.

Any one variance in this event, and perhaps that pistol wouldn’t have been reached for at all.

It reminds me of an incident a quarter of a century ago, back when I worked at the now-defunct City News Bureau of Chicago. There was a year when I was on the overnight shift (you should see the Medical Examiner’s office at 5 a.m.), and on this particular day I was finishing my shift.

IT WAS ABOUT 9 a.m., and I had my car parked on lower Wacker Drive near the old City News offices at Wacker Drive and Wabash Avenue.

I got into my car, started the ignition and wanted to back out of the space I was parked in. At that moment, another car had just passed me. The driver saw I was pulling out, and she decided she wanted to back up a bit so she could take the parking spot once I vacated it.

The problem was that another car was right behind her, and THAT driver saw me wanting to leave. He decided (rightfully so, as far as I’m concerned) that the spot would be his.

Soon enough, I had these two people shouting at each other. Verbal violence being spewed all over the place. And I was potentially right in the crossfire.

BECAUSE OF THE way their vehicles were positioned, I was trapped. I couldn’t move. I couldn’t leave.

It wound up taking a couple of officers in a squad car that just happened to pass by to get these people calm enough for one of them (I don’t remember which one) to move their car just enough so that I could get out.

It could have ended not far from here!

What would have happened if one of them had lost their temper? I would hate to think my life would have ended on lower Wacker Drive at age 22 with a tiny, long-forgotten story on the City News “wire.”

Then again, my fellow reporters probably would have seen how stupid the incident inherently was, and would have “cheaped” me out – as in not worth writing much about.

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King Day? Mayoral election will tell us more about state of our race relations

Monday is the day we officially pay tribute to Martin Luther King, Jr., who if he were still alive today would have turned 82 on Saturday. There will be much blather about how far we as a society have advanced in terms of race relations.

There also will be some people who will pipe down, gritting their teeth in disgust at the thought of paying tribute to King but also not wanting to say something stupid even though it reflects their true feelings.

IF ANYTHING, IT is those people who interest me more than anyone who comes up with some sort of rhetoric praising King’s memory, his work to strive for equal rights for all (at a time when many people seriously thought that segregation was a part of the American Way of life).

They keep quiet, but then take some subtle action meant to maintain some sense of the old way of doing things.

It is those people who most have me wondering about the upcoming mayoral elections. Because I think they are the ones who will impact the outcome.

I honestly believe that the significance of this particular election cycle is that we will learn just how far we have advanced in race relations in the past few decades.

IT HASN’T BEEN that much of a factor thus far, because we’re at the point where there are so many candidates that the individual campaigns can focus on themselves and pretend everybody else doesn’t exist.

In fact, there really have been two significant storylines taking place during this election cycle, with the followers of each story pretty much ignoring the other.



Martin Luther King Jr.'s birthday holiday gives us one day a year to assess the status of our race relations, when we ought to be concerned about that topic year-round. Photograph provided by Library of Congress collection.



One cycle has centered around Rahm Emanuel and his attempt to build up a campaign structure so overwhelming that his election on April 5 will be inevitable. Let all the local candidates with their neighborhood bases of support (and the opposition of everybody who can’t stand their particular neighborhood) dump all over each other, while Emanuel gets the business community’s backing and becomes the new chief executive of Chicago city government.

The other cycle has focused on the attempt by African-American activists to narrow down their field to a lone candidate, in hopes that all the non-black candidates dump all over each other – clearing the way for a black person to become mayor of Chicago. I realize there are actually three African-American people out of the six mayoral candidates, but I’m not convinced that William “Dock” Walls or Patricia Van Pelt-Watkins can gain enough support (even though personally, there are times when I think Watkins is the only one of the six candidates worth taking seriously).

BUT ONCE WE get past the Feb. 22 election that will narrow the six down to two, we’re going to see how enlightened we truly are.

I don’t think we’ll get the blunt rhetoric like we saw back in ’83. No watermelon jokes or campaign ads about voting against the black guy, “before it’s too late.” But it will be the more subtle type of hostility – which can be just as negative as the most blunt-spoken nitwit wearing a Klan hood.

The cynic in me wonders how many of the people who are now screaming they will vote for Anybody But Rahm will manage to overcome that politically partisan hang-up if the “anybody” turns out to be an African-American person – most likely in the form of former Sen. Carol Moseley-Braun.

Or what happens if Moseley-Braun’s political hang-ups wind up dragging her into third place – and out of the running for a run-off election? Will a large segment of the city population (the African-American part) suddenly pout and whine about being excluded if the election becomes one of Rahm Emanuel versus Gery Chico?

THE DEGREE TO which either of these scenarios occurs will be the evidence of how far we have come in race relations.

Because for all the people who claim they don’t want race or ethnicity to be factors in the mayoral campaign, all too often their rhetoric indicates they only see this as a problem if a non-white candidate gains voter support due to it.

Did anyone think that that famed political science professor Milton Rakove was being irrelevant when, in his two classic books about Chicago politics (“We Don’t Want Nobody Nobody Sent” and “Don’t Make No Waves, Don’t Back No Losers”), he went out of his way to identify the ethnic backgrounds of every single political person he wrote about?

Considering the degree to which ethnicity and ethnic ties have been a part of Chicago political alliances throughout the decades, I can’t help but wonder if this is just part of the city’s multi-ethnic texture – and that African-American interest in such factors merely means they’re fitting in with everybody else.

THE FACT IS that race and ethnicity are factors in our society. Sometimes they help us rise to higher levels, while other times they drag us down into the muck.

So while some people are going to use Monday as the day by which they judge where we as a society are and how far we have advanced in terms of race relations, I honestly believe that April 5 will be the better date to judge us here in Chicago.

At the very least, I hope we have advanced significantly since that August day in 1966 when King protested in the Marquette Park neighborhood – also the day that we became the city where King himself got hit in the head with a brick.

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