Daily Herald opinion: More than ‘just trying’: Activist has amassed meaningful career advancing justice, equity in the suburbs

To hear him talk, you might be tempted to think that Saturday night’s Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Remembrance Dinner was the last that will be hosted and organized by 90-year-old Rev. Clyde Brooks. But don’t be too quick to come to that conclusion.

“I’ve been saying this is my last dinner for 35 years,” Brooks, of Arlington Heights, told our Madhu Krishnamurthy for a report last week.

“I don't think I'll ever retire, because there’s so much to be done … but I am tired,” he added.

Yet, he persists. He confesses he is growing interested in letting a new generation of suburban civil rights activists take up the cause he has championed for more than six decades, ever since he marched with King in the 1960s. But he also laments that he still doesn’t have “the feeling of achievement” for the goals he has pursued.

Indeed, he sometimes seems to believe that the objectives of racial and social equity in the 21st century have been obscured by the successes of the late 20th.

“The dream of Dr. King is dead,” he told the 600 attendees of the 2021 King Dinner, decrying not hate groups or emerging anti-civil rights activism but people “who say nice things, but when they see evil and hear evil, they elect to say nothing and to remain silent. Because evil cannot exist unless good people allow it.”

Brooks, longtime chairman of the Illinois Commission on Diversity and Human Relations, has spent his career scolding, cajoling, befriending, appealing to and collaborating with “good people” throughout the suburbs and all of Illinois in an effort to honor and advance King’s dream of a society defined by equity and social justice.

He has sponsored countless community conversations, worked to fight hunger, celebrated diversity, stood up for immigrants and the poor, confronted local leaders about hiring policies and more. Even now, the Diversity and Human Relations commission is hosting a series of workshops aimed at helping people confront and overcome biases.

It is a remarkable legacy.

And, yes, it may not always feel successful. But it is important to remember that because of the work of social, religious and political activists like Brooks, the dream — the cardinal goal — of universal respect and equity never fully flags.

So, as the 55th annual Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Remembrance Dinner fades, we take a moment to thank Brooks for his work and to thank the hundreds and the thousands of “good people” throughout the suburbs who maintain the dream because of it. And we look forward to that new generation of leaders Brooks invoked and the work they will do.

Perhaps we will not soon reach the level of accomplishment that Brooks has found elusive, but we must at least strive to share in his driving wish:

“I would hope,” he told Krishnamurthy for last week’s report, “that I am remembered for just trying.”

In his case, he will be for that and more.