Chicago pastor: ‘I live on a roof to raise cash for black youths—but BLM won’t help’By Rev. Corey B. Brooks
May 28, 2022
Since Nov. 20, 2021, Rev. Corey B. Brooks has been living on a roof on the South Side of Chicago. He won’t come down until he gets $35 million in donations to build a new 84,000-square-foot community center across from his New Beginnings Church, which he established 20 years ago as a place of worship where local youths can get an education and train for jobs. A leader in the fight against violence on Chicago’s South Side for almost three decades, Brooks, 53, had hoped that Black Lives Matter, which took in $66 million in donations following the death of George Floyd in May 2020, would help him with some funding. But though he reached out to the group, he said he never got a response. Here, Brooks tells The Post’s Dana Kennedy his story…
I’m living up on the roof to bring attention and awareness to the violence that is so commonplace in Chicago. I want people to know what goes on here.
I stay up here 24/7. I make phone calls. I sleep in a tent, and I do pretty much everything by Zoom. I have a baby’s bathtub that I fill with water to clean myself. I use a five-gallon paint bucket with trash can liners to relieve myself. For food we either have restaurants who donate or we order from UberEats. I get by in the cold months by layering up but it feels like the Arctic up here in the winter.
We’re fighting to change the mindset. We are about making people take responsibility for their actions and not blame others. I also hope to bring in some money so that we can build a community center here across the street from the church.
We’re up against a lot in our immediate area. First of all, a bad education system. The elementary school has a 4% reading proficiency level, a 6% math proficiency level. So we get a lot of young men who are growing up but can’t read and so when they get to ninth grade they drop out because they’re so frustrated. Secondly, we have one of the highest unemployment rates in the country in our area, especially among young black males. Then when you add the fact that we have so many gangs from block to block those issues compound. We’re dealing with the Gangster Disciples, the Black Disciples and the Black P Stones among others.
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Source:
https://nypost.com/2022/05/28/chicago-pastor-lives-on-roof-raises-cash-for-black-youthbut-blm-wont-help/
