occupyallstreets:

Rally speakers emphasize similarities between civil rights leader’s message then and protest movement today

Religious and civil rights leaders joined forces Sunday with the Occupy Chicago movement, urging those fighting for economic and political equality to remember the passion and purpose with which the Rev.Martin Luther King Jr. helped change the country.

King’s message and “solutions for a community and a nation in crisis are as relevant today as when he uttered them some 40-plus years ago,” said the Rev. Dwight Gardner, the keynote speaker Sunday afternoon at a rally and public meeting at The Peoples Church of Chicago in the Uptown neighborhood.

The event — dubbed Occupy the Dream and organized by several religious and social organizations — drew people from throughout northeast Illinois and northwest Indiana. The crowd filled the auditorium’s three seating levels and cheered as various speakers discussed King’s legacy and praised the Occupy movement and others pushing for large-scale societal change.

Although King is remembered for his leadership of the American civil rights movement, he would undoubtedly support the Occupy movement and other people trying to effect social change, said Joyce Haskell, who attended the event with other members of Jubilee Faith Community Church in Country Club Hills.

“He would want justice for everyone,” Haskell, 57, said as she waited to board a bus back to her church after the rally. “Now, it’s not even black rights anymore. It’s American rights. The rich should not be taking over America.”

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(via occupyallstreets)

3 months ago  /  29 notes  /  Source: occupyallstreets