Occupy draws on MLK’s legacy
ART GOLAB Staff Reporter/agolab@suntimes.com January 15, 2012 9:38PM
The crowd cheered as Rev. Dwight Gardner, President, Northwest Indiana Federation of Interfaith Organizations, made the keynote speech at a public meeting and celebration called Occupy the Dream at the People's Church in Chicago. | Al Podgorski~Chicago Sun-Times
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Updated: February 17, 2012 8:21AM
An alliance of community groups joined forces with Occupy Chicago to claim the legacy of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. at a rally in Uptown Sunday.
More than 1,000 people, including a few Democratic politicians, packed the People’s Church in Uptown Sunday for what was billed as “Occupy the Dream,” a King birthday celebration.
Illinois Congressmen Jesse Jackson Jr. and Jan Schakowsky as well as Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle were among the elected officials who pledged to support some goals of the Occupy movement. When asked to come to the stage and affirm they would work to pass bills to create jobs and regulate the financial industry, Jackson and Schakowsky said “Yes.”
Jackson added that the federal government should directly hire 15 million workers to rebuild American infrastructure and bail out state and city governments. Jackson said the projects would cost a “mere $900 billion, slightly more than the last two stimulus packages.”
Preckwinkle said she would work to recycle foreclosed housing Cook County.
In the keynote address, the Rev. Dwight Gardner of the Northwest Indiana Federation of Interfaith Organizations brought the crowd to its feet when he invoked the memory of late civil rights leader.
“Dr. King questioned the fundamental values of an economic system at the root of racial discrimination, poverty and empire,” he said. “His support of the sanitation workers in Memphis, his plan for a Poor Peoples’ march and his controversial and courageous opposition to the Vietnam War condemned a system of profit that racism and discrimination served.”
Other speakers outlined a series of protests that would take place later this week, including an “occupation” of a foreclosed home in Chicago.
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