Happy Birthday
By
In Chicago, a number of people gathered to mark Dr. Martin Luther King Jr’s birthday in a suitable manner.
Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel hosted the city’s Martin Luther King Jr. breakfast Friday amid growing calls for his resignation and backlash surrounding the annual event.
The breakfast celebrating King’s life is in its 30th year, but some notable black leaders will be sitting this one out, as dozens pledged to boycott in their belief that King’s life and legacy has not been honored on the streets of Chicago.
Surely this was not what the late Mayor Harold Washington envisioned when he hosted the first MLK breakfast in 1985. The event was a target for protest groups calling for the resignation of Chicago’s current Mayor Rahm Emanuel.
The advertised guest speaker, author Isabela Wilkerson who boycotters asked not to speak, did not appear. The crowded ballroom included many seniors, some who say they were invited within the past 24 hours.
“I did mine yesterday. Got your invitation yesterday? Yeah,” said Richard Lackey, a breakfast guest.
“This was not about me. It’s about Dr. King, his life and his life’s work,” said Mayor Rahm Emanuel.
Mayor Emanuel just wants you to focus on the photo op. related to a dead black man.
No, not that one, y’ fool!
