40 years later, new crowd marks King's trip
Like many of the other activists who converged Saturday on the South Side to commemorate the 40th anniversary of the Chicago Freedom Movement, Aquil Charleton wasn't born when Martin Luther King marched in Chicago in 1966.
But Charleton, 26, who runs the Crib Collective, a youth activism organization in North Lawndale, still hears echoes.
"The civil rights movement wasn't just a period of time," said Charleton. "There are young people today who are very active and organized in the vein of those who came before us, with concerns about gentrifying neighborhoods and access to health care, as well as teen homelessness."
But Charleton, 26, who runs the Crib Collective, a youth activism organization in North Lawndale, still hears echoes.
"The civil rights movement wasn't just a period of time," said Charleton. "There are young people today who are very active and organized in the vein of those who came before us, with concerns about gentrifying neighborhoods and access to health care, as well as teen homelessness."
Charleton and his generation joined civil rights veterans Saturday in a tour of historic sites in the movement that brought King and his family to North Lawndale in 1966 to live in a slum.
The tour, including stops in Marquette Park and at Edna's Restaurant on the West Side, which regularly fed King for free, kicked off the "Fulfilling the Dream" conference, running through Tuesday at the Harold Washington Cultural Center.