Martin Luther King speech plaque in Winnetka, Illinois

MLK plaque, Winnetka

Winnetka, an affluent north shore suburb of Chicago, was the site of a speech by Martin Luther King on July 25, 1965. Although the town had few black residents, 8,000 came out to see King.

He spoke in Winnetka's Village Green and a plaque there commemorates the occasion.

Plaque pedestal, Winnetka's
Village Green

The following year King rented an apartment on Chicago's West Side and organized a series of marches calling for open housing. The minister's relations with Mayor Richard J. Daley were frosty. In Marquette Park on the then all-white Southwest Side, an angry mob jeered King--one thug hit him in the head with a rock.

But things went much better for King in Winnetka.

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