A History Not Forgotten: Annual MLK birthday celebration at Stone Temple Baptist Church celebrates the civil rights leader’s life and legacy on the West Side
CHICAGO - On Martin Luther King, Jr. Day 2020, residents of North Lawndale and visitors from beyond the neighborhood’s borders showed up to the historic Stone Temple Baptist Church for its annual community breakfast and commemoration event honoring civil rights leader Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. With justice, service and community in mind, people came together for a group breakfast, with bacon, sausage, bagels, salmon, yogurt, fruit and more on the menu to enjoy part one of the day’s two-part event. Following the breakfast was the commemoration, in which notable Chicago politicians and community leaders spoke about King’s life, death and relevance.
The event was organized by the North Lawndale Historical & Cultural Society, Stone Temple Baptist Church and the Jewish United Federation in part to celebrate the groups’ shared history at the church (Stone Temple Baptist church was originally a Jewish synagogue) and King's important legacy of fighting for the rights of African-Americans. Through speeches and musical performances, event organizers like Blanche Suggs-Killingsworth of the NLHCS and Stone Temple Pastor Rashorna Fitzpatrick hoped to open a frank discussion on restorative justice as a tenant of King’s message and a practice people should embody.
Another notable focus of the event was the acknowledgment of the history of King's life and work in Chicago during the ‘60s. During the height of his civil rights work, King preached at Stone Temple Baptist church, located at 3622 W. Douglas Blvd., hoping to shine a light on the issues affecting Chicago’s black community, particularly redlining, contract buying and other unfair housing practices. King would later move to the North Lawndale in 1966 in order to advocate for changes in these practices during the Chicago Freedom Movement. By doing so, King put a focus on the plight of Chicago’s black community - an effort that still resonates with many West Side residents to this day. With his assassination in 1968 spurning riots across the city, the subsequent violence had the largest impact on the West Side, leaving many vacant lots in its wake that have become physical reminders decades later. The history, which was discussed heavily at the event, is one that people like Suggs-Killingsworth and Fitzpatrick hope can be reflected on in order to create a better North Lawndale.