Free Republic

You can count on three fingers how much Al Sharpton has in common with Pastor Corey Brooks, the pastor who’s on a 100-day rooftop “campout” in frigid, single-digit weather to bring attention to the culture of violence and poverty in Chicago. They’re both black. They’re both focused on issues in troubled black communities. And they both hold titles as members of the Christian clergy. Other than that, these men are worlds apart in their approach to solving the generational problems of blacks – especially young black men – in urban areas. Sharpton curses the darkness from a distance, then adds...

The holiday weekend is often seen here as the start of heightened violence ... That has been particularly worrying this year to community leaders and city officials, as they grapple with a rise in gun violence that has traumatized some neighborhoods and left city officials searching for new ways to subdue street crime. "If something doesn't change, if we don’t get jobs for these kids, if we don’t change the economic situation, I'm worried that we could be looking at a blood bath," said the Rev. Corey Brooks, a pastor on the city’s South Side, a mostly African-American area where...

(CBS) – Corey Brooks, the “Rooftop Pastor” from Chicago’s South Side who endorsed Republican Bruce Rauner for governor, now has a paid appointed position with the Rauner administration.Gov. Rauner’s office on Friday announced Brooks, senior pastor at New Beginnings Church, will be a director on the Illinois Tollway Board, the Downers Grove-based authority that controls toll roads.Brooks was among a group of African-American religious leaders in Chicago who backed Rauner, a wealthy businessman, over incumbent Democrat Pat Quinn, saying Democrats had taken black political support for granted.The tollway appointment would seem an odd fit for Brooks, a social crusader who...