Chicagoland | Two pastors from IBSA network churches recently honored leaders in the civil rights movement who served as mentors and role models. Pastor Maurice Gaiter of Empowerment Community Church in Chicago’s Austin neighborhood was invited to pray at a remembrance service for Rev. Jesse Jackson, who died Feb. 17 at age 84.
“He gave us the ability to believe in ourselves when so many would not believe in us,” Gaiter said at the Feb. 26 gathering. “He gave us hope when it seemed that our back was against the wall…. We shall never forget that we are called to keep hope alive.”
Gaiter was a personal friend of Jackson for 20 years, starting at age 12 under Jackson’s community outreach. “I follow Christ’s footsteps, following after Rev. Jackson,” Gaiter said. “His impact on me was life changing.”
Of the lessons Gaiter learned from Jackson, one stands out:
“Rev. Jackson would say to us, ‘I thank God that he has always been with me in tight places. Whenever you are in a tight place, Jesus will always be the answer. He always has been for me.’
“I have carried that with me to this day,” Gaiter said with gratitude. “And like he said, Jesus has always been with me in tight places.”
Gaiter said Jackson sought to impact humanity with his ministry through social service and political action, while Gaiter’s work is to empower people through personal relationship with Jesus Christ. Gaiter was chosen to pray from more than 100 pastors in the city. “It was the honor of a lifetime,” he said.
After a period of repose in his Columbia, South Carolina hometown, Jackson’s body was returned to Chicago for a final service on March 7. The funeral was attended by former presidents Joe Biden, Bill Clinton, and Barack Obama.
Rev. James Shannon (Photo courtesy of Elmhurst University)
In February, Pastor James Shannon of People’s Community Church in Glen Ellyn spoke on the legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. at Elmhurst University. As a child, Shannon was saved under King’s ministry at Dexter Avenue Baptist Church in Montgomery, Alabama in the late 1950s. “When Dr. King came to Dexter, I was seven years old, and I was 13 when he left,” Shannon said in a story reported by Devin Oommen for Shaw Local, a suburban news website. Shannon was baptized by King and lived in Montgomery at the time of the 1955-56 bus boycott.
“The night after Rosa Parks was arrested, Dr. King said that our weapon is going to be a weapon of love,” Shannon said. King preached non-violence learned from Mahatma Ghandi and theologian Reinhold Neibuhr. “The thing we have to do is withdraw ourselves from an evil system,” Shannon recalled the young King saying.
Shannon drew contrasts and some similarities between those times and today. “When Dr. King said that his children will be judged by the content of their character and not the color of their skin, to our community, that was a very profound statement because everything that happened to us was by the color of our skin,” Shannon said.
The Glen Ellyn pastor, named citizen of the year in 2024, moved to the Chicago suburb 40 years ago. He spoke about how race relations have changed significantly over those decades, yet there are still challenges to overcome.
More than 70 years after Shannon first met him, Dr. King’s teaching and legacy still shape the Illinois pastor’s ministry today.
–IB Staff