A coalition of about 700 Chicago pastors and black men marched down the city’s famed Michigan Avenue on Saturday in response to a weekend of chaos at a teenage gathering that led to shootings, fights, and mayhem.
Saturday’s march, organized by Charlie Dates, the senior pastor at Salem Baptist Church and Progressive Baptist Church, was pitched as a way for the community and spiritual leaders to take responsibility for the destruction that some of their own congregants created.
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“I was disappointed, hurt by it, because that is not the character of our young people,” Bishop Horace Smith of Apostolic Faith Church told CBS Chicago, adding that he felt accountable after watching teenagers jump on top of a city bus and learning two boys were shot in the melee.
“‘Our children’ is not just a biological word,” he said. “It really is a commitment spiritually, socially, culturally. Most of these were black young men and women. So yeah, we are accountable.”
Hundreds showed up for the event, chanting, “Black men doing the work,” as they marched from Michigan Avenue to the Chicago River. The men filled two sidewalk blocks, stopping at times to pray as they weathered a wintery mix, the Chicago Tribune reported.
“This is our city. These are our children. We care about them,” Dates said, adding that the march wasn’t against Chicago’s youth but was to show them that faith leaders want to support them.
Hundreds gathered in the Loop to march in response to last weekend’s downtown unrest.
“Chicago refuses to develop its greatest natural resources — our children,” said senior pastor Charlie Dates.
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“We’re here tonight to say that we will walk in the rain for our kids. We’ll push through the hail,” he said.
The pastors also committed to helping the teenagers get jobs and providing other resources to help them succeed.
Chicago has been struggling to control violence for years. Safety concerns have prompted people and big businesses to leave the area, taking thousands of jobs with them.
Outgoing Mayor Lori Lightfoot, the only Chicago mayor in 40 years to lose reelection after her first term, has failed to find a fix for the city’s crime problem.
Incoming Mayor-elect Brandon Johnson, who will be sworn in on May 15, raised eyebrows when he warned against vilifying youth for the chaotic two-night “Teen Takeover” in Chicago.
“It is not constructive to demonize youth who have otherwise been starved of opportunities in their own communities,” Johnson, a liberal, said in a statement. “Our city must work together to create spaces for youth to gather safely and responsibly, under adult guidance and supervision, to ensure that every part of our city remains welcome for both residents and visitors.”
His comments did little to pacify concerns and instead angered some business owners such as Gary Rabine, founder of a multimillion-dollar business services group.
“Our employees are being held up for their wallets and their phones at gunpoint,” Rabine told Fox News. “It’s just not worth it anymore, the danger. You know, we are a very safety-oriented company, and we can’t put up with it any longer.”
Rabine, who has spent the last four decades building his business in Chicago, called it “a terrible place to be” and blamed local officials for turning a blind eye to the problem.
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“This anarchy is not going to stop as long as we have terrible leaders like Brandon Johnson, J.B. Pritzker, and Lori Lightfoot,” he said. “It will not change. It’s only going to get worse. … I have family members and loved ones that live in the city. They all want out and are getting out. Great employees across my companies … would rather be in any state in the country than Illinois. This was never the case five years ago and back. There’s an urgent issue here of change. It’s not going to happen, unfortunately, with the terrible leadership that we have.”
