Suburbs' King event notes mission far from accomplished
In 1963, Martin Luther King Jr. had a dream.
Today, we are about to inaugurate African-American Barack Obama as president.
But there will be no "Mission Accomplished" banner hanging behind the podium tonight for the suburbs' annual Martin Luther King Jr. Remembrance and Celebration at the Sheraton Chicago Northwest hotel in Arlington Heights.
"On the 19th we celebrate his (King's) birthday, and on the 20th we inaugurate the first black president," echoes the Rev. Clyde H. Brooks, a longtime civil rights activist and suburban resident who worked with King in the 1960s. "But it's really not about Barack -- Barack is just a vehicle."
One of the very first people of color to move into the white suburbs, Brooks has a confession of sorts.
"I don't feel any better about Barack than I did about Jack Kennedy," Brooks says. "Dr. King said to judge people not by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character, and I'm supposed get excited about his (Obama's) skin color?"
That said, Brooks does acknowledge the historic significance of Obama's election, and the powerful symbolic message about race it sends the world. He appreciates the excitement and emotions.
"Let people enjoy it for the moment, because they'll sober up eventually," Brooks says with a chuckle. "If people think racism is dead, it's not over any more than sexism is over."
Brooks was instrumental in 1973 when the suburbs hosted the first dinner to honor King's birthday, with Gary Mayor Richard Hatcher delivering the keynote speech. At the 1977 event, boxer Muhammad Ali not only spoke, but ended up in the lobby of an Arlington Heights hotel at 2 in the morning signing autographs for dozens and dozens of suburban white kids who showed up as soon as word leaked out, Brooks remembers.
But Brooks says the King holiday sometimes overshadows the King message. He says he's been to King Day breakfast events where officials barely mention King.
"I think there's still a lot of whites who view Martin Luther King Day as a 'black' holiday. They don't understand," says Brooks, who notes that King's work on issues of housing, jobs and education benefit all Americans.
Electing a man with brown skin to the highest office in the land is a major step on the path of King's dream, says Danise Habun, a white woman who is an honorary chair for the suburban King event. As executive director of the Hanover Township Mental Health Board, Habun says that progress can be celebrated, but also reminds people that "there's still more to be done."
"It's the beginning - again," Habun says. "I'm hoping we can be at a place of comfort where we can engage in more easygoing dialogue of race without people getting defensive and crazy."
Having a black man in the White House doesn't automatically make us diverse, Brooks notes. The suburbs still need to work on diversifying police and fire departments, or adding people of color to the rolls of teachers, administrators, local governments and business leaders.
"We've come a long, long way, and I've seen so much in my life," says Brooks, who remembers the blatant racism that tainted his childhood Downstate, and the sometimes more subtle racism he found in the suburbs.
"A major problem, even today, is that my skin color precedes what I say," Brooks says. "When that changes, then we truly will be in the promised land."
Thursday's event starts at 6:30 p.m. at the Sheraton hotel, 3400 W. Euclid Ave., near Arlington Park in Arlington Heights. For information or to buy tickets, phone the Illinois Commission on Diversity and Human Relations at 847 253-7538 or visit the icdhr.com Web site.