On June 30, 1966, Martin Luther King spoke at Congregation Solel in Highland Park. 600 people packed the sanctuary to attend the event sponsored by the North Shore Fellowship of Rabbis. During that summer, Dr. King and Al Raby lead the Chicago Freedom Movement, the first large-scale movement to end racial segregation in a large city.
Martin Luther King at Highland Park's Congregation Solel, 1966
Dr. King and Al Raby
Michael Ebner, James D. Vail III Professor of History at Lake Forest College writes about Dr. King’s appearance at Congregation Solel:
The speech delivered at Congregation Solel on June 30, 1966 by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. consists of multiple storylines.
Chicago provides a central motif. Dr. King launched his Chicago crusade known as the Freedom Movement late in 1965. Its focus was the segregated housing market on the West side. His first venture outside the South, it followed the triumph of the Alabama civil rights march from Selma to Montgomery as well as his receipt of the Nobel Peace Prize. King expressed high expectations as he embarked on this major initiative. In his often-quoted depiction based upon a report issued by the United States Civil Rights Commission, Chicago comprised “the most segregated city in the North.”
It is sometimes overlooked that Dr. King’s speech was a community initiative. The official sponsor of record was the North Shore Fellowship of Rabbis. We know that Rabbi Harold L. Kudan, then of North Shore Congregation Israel, and Rabbi William Frankel, Beth Hillel Congregation, assumed key roles in working with Rabbi Arnold Jacob Wolf of Congregation Solel. The occasion was widely publicized and admission free.
Chicago, 1966
Dr. King’s visit to Congregation Solel – he also spoke during this period in Lake Forest, Naperville, and Winnetka, among other locales in the collar counties on other occasions during his stay in Chicago – was filled with drama and apprehension. The archives of the congregation help us to appreciate this. We know that the John Birch Society, an extreme right-wing organization, publically chastised the sponsorship of the visit. Milton Bram, a Solel congregant, countered this criticism with a letter-to-the-editor of the Deerfield Review affirming the right of public assembly.
Louis I. Heller, administrator of the congregation, diligently worked behind the scenes with Michael Bonamarte, Jr., chief of police in Highland Park, to assure the safety of both Dr. King and members of the audience listening to his address. Indeed, the very next day Heller wrote to Chief Bonamarte: “ . . . I wish to express our tremendous gratitude to you personally and to all those whom you were able to get for the fine job of security that was provided.” And Rabbi William Frankel of Beth Hillel Congregation in Wilmette wrote to Louis Heller– again on July 1 – praising his “magnificent help” in making these arrangements.
One final aspect of Dr. King’s speech in Highland Park merits our notice. Not until 2009, forty-three years after the fact, no one came forth with a photographic record of the occasion. But when the current police chief in Highland Park learned about this fact – via an article in the Chicago Tribune – he recalled a batch of images in his department’s own archives and shared them with Congregation Solel. But still to be uncovered is a transcript of the speech delivered nearly forth-four years ago. And despite a relentless search in area newspaper archives, also missing are journalistic reports in the aftermath of Dr. King’s speech on June 30, 1966.
Scholars continue to debate whether Dr. King’s campaign in Chicago proved a success or a failure. Four years ago the Chicago Tribune (January 15, 2006) interviewed James R. Ralph, Jr., who is the author of Northern Protest, Martin Luther King, Jr., Chicago, and the Civil Rights Movement (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1993). If you are curious about this debate, consider the words of Professor Ralph, who teaches at Middlebury College: “It is a mistake to view the Chicago Freedom Movement as a defeat. There is no doubt that it did not live up to expectations. But it did spotlight like never before national attention on housing discrimination. This was a tough issue for a lot of white citizens across the country. They feared having a black neighbor more than they did sitting next to a black person at a lunch counter.”
There are number of eyewitness accounts, including a video of Rabbi Arnold J. Wolf (1924-2008) from a documentary about Solel, entitled “Blazing the Trail” produced for Solel’s 40th anniversary.
Rabbi Wolf refers to the speech as similar in tone to “I’ve Been to the Mountaintop,” Dr. King’s speech in Memphis on April 3, 1968, the day before he was killed.
I remember those visits by Dr. King. It was a very scary time for the Civil Rights Movement and his visit to Cicero was an example of that. It was a success in my eyes in that peoples minds were opened to the need for an end to segregation everywhere. We are not done with that job, but these visits were the beginning of the end to blatant segregation.
this clip of Arnold about MLK is wonderful as is the whole newsletter —-better than ever!
I was 12 when my 14 year old friend Mary Ann’s older sister Joanne was “dating a negro.” My parents were very liberal, and heard that someone had put trash on Joanne’s parent’s lawn, so they went to another neighbpr who was instrumental in the Jaycee’s to have it stopped. Mary Ann invited me to go along with her and Joanne, and Joanne’s fiance because, “The King is Coming!.” My parents let me go to a candlelight vigil where I met Dr. Matin Luther King, and sang “We Shall Overcome” holding hands in a group. I think it was somewhere at or near Northwestern U., but I am not certain where. It was very moving, even then, without historical context. When Mary Ann invited me to the march on Washington, my parents said no, to their 12 year old going. I will never forget that night.