You might imagine the director of an institution named the Chicago Christian Industrial League to be a grim, black-frocked fellow, passing out bowls of greasy soup.
Roberts worked hard, went to college, and got a job as a recreation therapist at the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago. From there he joined the staff of the Fox River Rehabilitation Center, got involved in hospital administration, and eventually became a public-relations man for nonprofit organizations. A family illness took him to Florida, where he hosted a radio talk-show program on which he interviewed clergy on social issues of the day. WTTW got word of the show, and invited him up to Chicago to do a pilot. But the pilot didn’t sell, and Roberts found work as a businessman. He carried a briefcase in the Loop, had a nice flat, and enjoyed the amenities of “access to the system.” “I was finally out of the west side. I was finally making money.”
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No matter what program residents are in, Roberts insists that no one tries to “pound the Bible into them.” The focus, he says, is strictly ecumenical.
“The first step is being in touch with who you really are. And on the way, you begin to reach out to other people. Then the most striking step is to take the risk of doing something,” Roberts says. “That might mean, as it did in the civil rights movement, going out and protesting. Today it might mean going into an area that’s not real friendly and working in a soup kitchen. . . . This is not simply the agenda for change, this is the agenda for helping ourselves. If we forget about ourselves, and become martyrs, it doesn’t work.”
