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CHICAGO (FOX 32 / AP) — A group of Chicago ministers is calling for a boycott of Mayor Rahm Emanuel's annual breakfast honoring Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
"I will not be attending Mayor Emanuel's MLK breakfast because, if Dr. King were alive, he would not be welcomed, nor would he attend," said Rev. Ira Acree of Greater St. John's Baptist Church.
The ministers have been voicing their anger at Emanuel in the weeks since a video of a white police officer fatally shooting black teenager Laquan McDonald and on Wednesday they urged community leaders to join their boycott of Friday's breakfast.
Rev. Acree says he does not want to provide "political cover" for a mayor who he says tried to keep the public from seeing the video that was ultimately ordered released by a judge.
Several aldermen say it's a mistake to "politicize" an event that honors King. Emanuel says the breakfast is not about him but about honoring the civil rights icon.
Emanuel also suggested it would be wrong to cancel the breakfast tradition started by the late Mayor Harold Washington.
"The Martin Luther King mayoral breakfast is not about me. It's about Dr. King," Emanuel said. "It is a time in which the city, regardless of our differences, comes together to honor Dr. King, honor his life, honor the message of his life, and use that to re-energize ourselves toward economic and social justice."
Rev. James Dukes is of the Liberation Christian Center.
"We don't think that a kumbaya breakfast at this moment is the time that we should be at the table with our mayor," he said.
While there were only three pastors at Wednesday's news conference, they claimed to have persuaded at least 50 others to join their boycott of the mayor's event on Friday.