Chicago Teachers Union Martin Luther King Jr. breakfast attended by 450 people around the theme of speaking out and organizing for justice...
Jenner Elementary School students pose with teacher Tara Stamps (center, in red hat) at the Chicago Teachers Union's Martin Luther King Jr. breakfast. Substance photo by Jean Schwab.The P.E.A.C.E. steering committee and Chicago Teachers Union officers held a breakfast on Friday, January 15, 2016, in honor of the memory of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. to continue to promote the work of Dr. King. January 15 is the anniversary of Dr. King's birth, although the official holiday for Chicago Public Schools children in Monday, January 18. The union's breakfast was held at the Operating Engineers union hall adjacent to the Chicago River, while about a mile away Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel was holding his King breakfast behind a phalanx of police and hotel security.
According to the organizers of the event, one of the purposes of the breakfast was "to challenge and reward people, especially young people, to speak out against social injustice such as police brutality..." The event was also to protest disinvestment in our communities, the closing of 50 schools, and schools becoming a pipe line to prison.
Approximately 450 people attended the 5th Annual Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Breakfast. Tara Stamps, a teacher at Jenner Elementary School, brought a group of students. The keynote speaker was Rev. Osagyefo Uhuru Sekou. who said he recently returned from Palestine. The information booklet also states that Sekou "has been on working with the Fellowship of Reconciliation, the country's oldest interfaith peace organization, in Ferguson and participated in daily protest and co-led trainings for over 800 people in nonviolent civil disobedience. He is an author, documentary filmmaker, public intellectual, organizer, pastor and theologian. He studied continental philosophy at the New School, systematic theology at Union Theological Seminary and is currently studying religion at Harvard University, Rev. Sekou is a statesman for peace and justice throughout the world."
