For years, I have watched so-called experts look at the 6400 block of South Dr.Martin Luther King Jr.
Drive — O Block, Chicago's most dangerous block — and write it off.They prescribed programs, funding and initiatives.
The funerals kept coming.Not much changed.
They were wrong not about the problem but about the solution. What was dying on that block wasn't something a program could cure.
It was hope.I have seen children come into this world with a brightness in their eyes.That spark of life that you see in the big ole eyes of a baby.
God-given, undeniable, unmistakable.Every one of them.
And as the baby grows into a child or teen, I have watched that spark deaden into coal blackness.What happened in between? What killed that spirit? Was it hopelessness? Hate? The slow, grinding daily message that the world had already decided the child’s limits? Once that spark goes out, is that it? Is it over? The hope forever gone?OBAMA’S LEGACY PROJECT OFFERS LITTLE HOPE FOR CHICAGO’S SOUTH SIDE RESIDENTSHundreds of men gather outside the nearly completed Robert R.
McCormick Leadership & Economic Opportunity Center during Pastor Corey B.Brooks’ "1000 Men Unity Gathering" on Chicago’s South Side.
(Credit: Corey B.Brooks)I've sat with hardened felons fresh out of prison, men who were determined or resigned to go right back to the life of violence and crime.
Most of them had no hope left.None.
They were coming back to the streets that took the hope away from them.I’ve looked at these men and I have told them the truth.
I believe God has created a uniqueness in each one of us.He put that spark in the eyes of the baby.I’ve told these men that we have to find what that uniqueness is in each one of you.
I've told them it won't be easy.But each one of us has a purpose, and we know God didn't put us here to be killing, robbing or hurting.
That's the devil.If you're doing that, you're doing the devil's work.
God is light.God is hope.
And my job, my ...