Chicago+Freedom+Movement

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The Chicago Movement
In Chicago in 1965 and 1966, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and other civil rights leaders focused The Chicago Freedom Movement on open housing. Thousands of people participated in the marches and rallies in Soldier Field, Marquette Park, Grant Park and in front of Chicago City Hall. It was the first large scale fair housing campaign in the country and the most ambitious civil rights campaign in the North. It placed the issue of equal opportunity in housing not just before the people of Chicago, but also before the Nation. SCLC had allied with the Coordinating Council of Community Organizations to launch a campaign to end slums in the city, which also became known as the Chicago Freedom Movement. Martin Luther King, Jr. participated in two dramatic marches. Which were, into all-white neighborhoods during a two-month open-housing campaign during the summer of 1966. These fair-housing protests brought real estate, political, business, and religious leaders to the conference table for “summit” negotiations. In late August, King and Mayor Richard J. Daley announced that an agreement had been reached: the marches would stop, while city leaders promised to promote fair housing. The impact of the 1966’s Chicago Freedom Movement campaign was as significant by bringing the freedom struggle to Chicago, where the Democratic Party was closely linked to the national party and the White House of President Lyndon Johnson, the movement raised the bar and gave the struggle for a national focus. Martin Luther King, Jr. and Ralph Albernathy found a substantial base of support among both white and Black ministers, a base of Black and white activists, steeled in struggles against racist hiring practices, police brutality and racial discrimination, housing and education.



