(WBBM NEWSRADIO) – The federal lawmaker who led the U.S. House investigation into the Jan. 6 insurrection was the keynote speaker Friday for Chicago’s annual interfaith breakfast honoring Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
Rep. Bennie Thompson, D-Mississippi, said he worked at Chicago’s Ford plant and lived with his sister during the summers when he was in college. He currently represents the district where Chicago’s Emmett Till was lynched in 1955.
He talked about the importance of doing things “in the spirit of Dr. King,” like the city’s plans to use an old school in the Woodlawn neighborhood to house migrants.
“In this city, that’s what we do, especially if the school is empty,” he said.
The longest-serving elected official in Mississippi went on to say there’s still more work to be done in the name of equality.
“If that had been black folk or brown people breaking into the United States Capitol, the results would have been absolutely different because that is what happens,” Thompson said. “So, those folk who are trying to say it was the equivalent of a congressional tour, give me a break!”
Also during the breakfast, the mother of lynched Chicago teenager Emmett Till was honored posthumously with the Champion of Freedom Award.
Accepting the award on behalf of Mamie Till Mobley was Rev. Wheeler Parker Jr., who was with Emmett Till when his killers abducted him, and Mobley’s cousin, Ali Gordon.
“If only she could be here to see the fruits of her labor, to see how she has touched the world,” Gordon said.
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