Brandon Johnson’s attendance commemorating the “Bloody Sunday” march in Selma, Alabama, as he bids to become Chicago’s next mayor, was more significant and symbolic than the Sun-Times coverage reflects. The newspaper mentioned the trip but did not do so in context of who Johnson actually is. The son of a pastor, Johnson grew up with the dual traditions of service and standing up for justice. He is a respected labor organizer, but he also serves as a Cook County commissioner, an educator and a consummate coalition-builder.
We remember Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., the preeminent symbol of a movement that included hundreds of thousands, as someone who fought for racial justice, but many forget that he also fought for the rights of working people. Indeed, he died fighting alongside striking Memphis sanitation workers. And the famed 1963 March on Washington, where King delivered his “I Have a Dream” speech, was a march for “freedom and jobs.”
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Teachers were also instrumental in civil rights organizing throughout the South, from Freedom Schools to supporting activism at historically Black colleges and universities. Johnson’s career as an educator, public servant, elected official, labor leader and minister’s son, are all relevant to his presence in Selma over the weekend. The Chicago Freedom Movement of the 1960s demanded the kind of progressive agenda Johnson is promising to deliver. His leadership is what so many civil rights champions dreamed of for cities like Chicago, and for the country as a whole. It is powerfully symbolic that he marched alongside those remaining movement elders in Selma. He stands in their tradition.
Dr. Barbara Ransby, civil rights historian, professor at University of Illinois Chicago
Bad taste test
Nikki Haley took a cheap shot at President Joe Biden recently by proposing that all presidential candidates over 75 should take a “mental capacity test.” What Republican candidates like her really need to take is a lie detector test.
Richard Keslinke, Algonquin
Rock recommendation
I never saw any of Chris Rock’s work until I watched his latest special on Netflix over the weekend. I was blown away by his brilliance. He’s right up there with Richard Pryor and George Carlin. While I love the safer comedy by Jerry Seinfeld and Jim Gaffigan, Rock’s show not only entertained, but also educated and enlightened me. He used humor, wit, verbal gymnastics, and honesty with great power and skill. He hit full on “hot” topics that people like me think about but are too afraid to talk about outside of a few trusted loved ones.
I was captivated by every moment of his performance, from the shocking (to me) bits about abortion and kids to America’s “attention” epidemic to the poignant and emotionally resonant bits concerning his mom and daughters.
Simply put, Chris Rock rocks.
Marie Anderson, Western Springs
