Black History Month In Chicago: Landmark West Side Church Played Pivotal Role In Civil Rights Movement, Push For Housing Equality
CHICAGO (CBS) -- As we celebrate Black History Month, we're going to take you to a West Side church that has a powerful connection to the civil rights movement and the fight for housing equality.
CBS 2's Suzanne Le Mignot reports Stone Temple Baptist Church in North Lawndale gained national recognition through the work of two men: founding pastor Rev. James Marcellus Stone, and the late Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
Stone Temple Baptist Church is an official Chicago landmark. A plaque outside the West Side church details its rich history.
In 1926, it was a synagogue, where Jewish immigrants, who came to the United States to escape anti-Semitism in Romania, came to worship.
In 1954, the Rev. James Marcellus Stone would buy the building. Stone led his congregation to support the civil rights movement.
In the 1960s, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. gave sermons at the church many times.
The pulpit where King spoke still stands inside the sanctuary.
Derrick Fitzpatrick is the bishop at Stone Temple Baptist Church. Rev. Stone was his grandfather.
"Dr. King would come and talk about the housing problems in the city. He would come and talk about racial issues in the city. So he was still continuing his social justice movement here, and I'm so grateful that my grandfather allowed him to come here," Fitzpatrick said.
King's sermons took place while he led the Chicago Freedom Movement, the fight to end housing discrimination in the city. Fitzpatrick said King's sermon's were met with opposition.
"In that timeframe, the mayor, Mayor [Richard J.] Daley at the time, told the African-American preachers, 'We don't need Dr. King in the city of Chicago. So we don't want you to let him in your church.' Not only to my grandfather, who was the founding pastor of the church, Rev. Stone but to all the African-American pastors," he said.
His grandfather's response to Daley's request?
"The mayor doesn't run my church, God does," Fitzpatrick said.
Fitzpatrick said King continued preaching his message of non-violence and love at Stone Temple Baptist Church to create change.
Stone Temple Baptist Church not only received landmark status because of Dr. King's numerous sermons there but because the queen of Romania also visited when the building was a synagogue, where immigrant Romanian Jews came to worship.
