Editorial: Diversity commission's work a hopeful end to troubling year

This year has been one of turmoil, with much of it arising from differences in race, ethnicity and nationality.

Chicago police officer Jason Van Dyke was charged with murder in November, just after release of a now-infamous video showing an officer identified as Van Dyke gunning down black teenager Laquan McDonald more than a year earlier, in October 2014.

A Baltimore jury deadlocked Wednesday, leading to a mistrial in the case of police officer William Porter, who was accused of involuntary manslaughter and other charges after 25-year-old Freddie Gray broke his neck while being transported in a police van shackled, but without a seat belt, on April 12. Gray died a week later.

A white man is accused of murdering nine black members of the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, S.C., on June 17, broadening fears about security during worship that have also intensified at U.S. mosques in the midst of terrorist acts around the world linked to ISIS.

Race relations in the U.S. are at a low point, a September survey by PBS NewsHour and Marist College's Institute for Public Opinion suggested. We can't think of a better time for a new initiative launched by the Illinois Commission on Diversity and Human Relations, led by The Rev. Clyde H. Brooks and based in Bolingbrook.

Brooks, a longtime activist for civil rights in the suburbs, echoes the sentiment of the PBS poll: "We've got to get people together; the black and white communities must come together and address this," he told Daily Herald Correspondent Eileen O. Daday. "This is more serious than before the 1960s, so why isn't there an outcry?"

Clyde and the commission are embarking on what they call the "Racial Divide" initiative, which is meant to get people talking about race. Brooks said the initiative was born out of the conflicts between police and black men and women. It specifically addresses black-white relations, but sets the tone for an increase in understanding among all races and ethnicities.

While the Racial Divide initiative is getting under way, Brooks' organization also is planning a symposium set for Jan. 21 at Motorola Solutions in Schaumburg. Honoring the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., the breakfast symposium is intended to focus on creating safer communities and bringing people and organizations together across gender, racial and cultural lines.

Work like that of Brooks and the Illinois Commission on Diversity and Human Relations provides a hopeful note on which to end a discouraging year.