60 years after MLK protested in Marquette Park, marchers carry on his legacy

By Mary Norkol | Aug 1, 2026

The Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.'s daughter Bernice King joined Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson and others in rallying against racism and commemorating the contentious event 60 years ago, when marchers were met with violence.

Bernice King looked out into the crowd of rain ponchos and umbrellas Saturday morning, echoing the calls of her father, who stood in the same spot 60 years before.

The Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and other activists marched to Marquette Park in August 1966 to protest redlining and housing discrimination that spread in Chicago in the decades after droves of Black people moved North and settled in the city during the Great Migration. In Marquette Park that day, King and his associates were met with mobs of angry white people hurling rocks and Molotov cocktails.

This year, Bernice King joined Mayor Brandon Johnson, Chicago-born rapper Common and hundreds of marchers to commemorate the 60th anniversary of the march, reiterating that the fight for racial justice continues decades later.