(CHICAGO) Landmark status may be coming for a church on Chicago’s West Side where Martin Luther King Jr. preached several times in the late 1950’s and 60’s. Mayor Rahm Emanuel says the city’s Landmarks Commission will consider the designation for Stone Temple Baptist Church.
The church in the North Lawndale neighborhood was built as a synagogue when the neighborhood was primarily Jewish in 1924. An African-American Baptist congregation purchased the church in 1954, and King spoke there several times starting in 1959.
Landmark status would protect the church from demolition, or significant alteration. The Landmarks Commission will consider the issue at it’s meeting on February 4th.
Since Emanuel appoints the members of the commission, the group is expected to go along with Emanuel’s suggestion. The final decision is up to the City Council.
It’s the latest attempt by the embattled Mayor to reach out to the black community, in the wake of anger at Emanuel in the wake of the release of a video showing a white police officer shooting black teenager LaQuan McDonald 16 times, and killing him.
@ 2016 WLS-AM News
