In the mid-60s Chicago was in a critical phase of the Civil Rights Movement. King’s decision to come to Chicago owed in large part to the efforts of two men: Al Raby and James Bevel. Raby, a schoolteacher, activist, and spokesperson, was mild-mannered but headstrong. For several years, he had led massive protests over segregation of the city’s public school system, while also acting as a spokesperson for the Coordinating Council of Community Organizations (CCCO). Raby asked King and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) to join them in a major non-violent campaign geared specifically at achieving fair housing practices. The partnership of the CCCO and SCLC formed the Chicago Freedom Movement. James Bevel, an outspoken young minister who had been an indispensable strategist in some of King’s most pivotal campaigns. Bevel had recently moved to Chicago with his wife, Diane Nash, a native South Sider, and started working at the West Side Christian Parish, an outreach ministry across from Union Park.
Another key individual, who was critical to King’s presence in Chicago was Reverend C.T. Vivian. Vivan served on the SCLC’S executive staff and he noted that “Chicago was a major city and a laboratory with all the problems, and we all felt like if we could do the thing here, we’d pretty well have a formula for doing it anywhere. We told Martin, if he didn’t already know, we had a tough town. It was hard to crack.” Dr. King believed turning SCLC’s attention to the North made sense and moved to Chicago to highlight issues facing not only African American residents of Chicago, but across major Northern cities including Detroit, Philadelphia, and New York. “It is reasonable to believe that if the problems of Chicago, the nation’s second-largest city, can be solved, they can be solved everywhere.”
In January 1966, Martin Luther King Jr. and his family moved to a $90-a-month flat of a rundown building in Lawndale, a neighborhood in Chicago’s west-side. Lawndale was extremely affected by segregation and many residents were victims of contract housing. Over half of the buildings were sold on contract to African Americans marked up by $10,000--$15,000 more than what they had been previously purchased for. Coretta King said at the time, "If Martin Luther King Jr. and his family moved into a slum area, I think even the media would begin to look at the slum area a little more closely,"