The speaker asked the gathering to indulge a fantasy: Imagine if Martin Luther King Jr. were still alive and returned to Chicago in 2020 after a 55-year absence.
He wouldn’t recognize the “splendor” of Michigan Avenue, the Chicago Riverwalk, Millennium Park, said Rabbi Samuel N. Gordon, the keynote speaker at the 30th Annual Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Scholarship Breakfast at the Hyatt Regency downtown.
Gordon, founding rabbi of Congregation Sukkat Shalom of Wilmette, applauded the political strides Chicago, Cook County and the nation have made since King’s passing, including the election of President Barack Obama.
But King would not be surprised by what he saw in other parts of the city, Gordon said.
“If he were to return to the old neighborhoods in which he did his greatest work — the South and West sides of the city — he would immediately recognize that Chicago,” Gordon said. “That Chicago has not been transformed — if anything, it is worse than it was 55 years ago.”
Gordon also noted: “We are living in a nation that is more divided than ever and where battles we thought we had won are being overturned on a daily basis.”
Among other things, the event Monday honored recent recipients of PUSH Excel scholarships awarded to “young people who are qualified but lack the financial resources to attend college.” The scholarship program was founded by the Rev. Jesse Jackson in 1975.
The gathering included several high-profile area leaders, including U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin, Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle, Cook County State’s Attorney Kim Foxx, as well as Mayor Lori Lightfoot.