By Chinta Strausberg, Chicago Crusader
The Rainbow PUSH Coalition & Citizenship Education Fund’s 47th annual International Convention will make both local and global historic announcements that will create jobs including unveiling the “Urban Construction” agenda, which will create a city within a city.
The convention kicks off on Wednesday, June 13, from 8 a.m. to 12 Noon at the ComEd Training facility located at 3535 S. Iron Street, where a number of contractors, developers and elected officials will gather to unveil the “Urban Construction” agenda.
Part of this agenda being unveiled Wednesday includes a 62-acre redevelopment plan for the South Loop area between Roosevelt Road and Clark Street. “We’re going to build a whole new city there including stores, housing, a mall and activities for young people for decades to come,” said Omar Shareef, president of the African American Contractors Association (AACA).
“We’re changing the whole landscape of the South Loop area between Roosevelt Road and Clark Street. It will be developed by the Related Midwest Co.,” Shareef said.
Wednesday, June 13, from 6 p.m. to 9 p.m., the annual Rev. Clay Evans Gospel concert will be held at the Apostolic Faith Church, 3823 S. Indiana Ave.
It will feature Santita Jackson, co-host, Deandre Patterson, co-host, Pastor Charles Jenkins, Darius Brooks, Mass Choir director, Bebe Winans, Grammy Award winning artist, Audrey DuBois-Harris, opera singer, Kim Stratton, famed gospel singer, and the Tommies reunion Choirs Choir.
Also historic will be 43-year-old Stacey Yvonne Abrams, House Minority Leader for the Georgia General Assembly, who will keynote the Rainbow PUSH Women’s luncheon chaired and founded by Jacqueline Jackson, the wife of Rev. Jesse L. Jackson, Sr. This will be held Friday, June 15, 11:45 a.m.-2 p.m. at the Hyatt Regency Hotel, 151 E. Wacker Drive.
“This year will be my official last women’s luncheon because I am passing the torch,” Mrs. Jackson said. However, she is very excited about Abrams calling her presence “an historic moment of revolutionary proportion because we are experiencing our first African American female governor in Georgia.
“We’re all revved up, and we want to hear what she has to say because she’s a young woman for this century and proof that if we have turnout, we can win,” Mrs. Jackson said. “We’re introducing her to Chicago, but we’re going to Georgia to ring some doorbells, knock on doors to give her some support.
“She has had the courage and sense of bravery to pierce this glass window, and we want her to step in and do some great things for Georgia,” Mrs. Jackson said.
At the conference yet another historic plan will be unveiled. According to Rev. Janette Wilson, national director of PUSH Excel, there is a plan to develop an African HBCU student exchange program to work with African countries studying scientific farming.
Wilson said one of the HBCUs is Kentucky State, which has developed scientific farming. The plan is to share this technique with African universities.
With confirmations continuing to come in daily for the 47th annual International Convention, these are just a few of the many confirmed guest speakers, leaders, performers and moderators.
