PASTOR COREY BROOKS: My body cannot finish this journey, but our work for the children of Chicago must continue

As I write this, I am sitting quietly for the first time in a while. I’ve been traveling across America for almost 200 days, and I admit I’m itching to get back on the open road. I loved traveling – meeting new people, seeing the hidden corners of America, and reading her stories.

But the doctors have made it clear that I can no longer walk. When I first had surgery to remove a painful growth called a pyogenic granuloma from my heel, I thought I was good to go. However, that growth came back in the same place and had to be removed again. To keep pushing would mean risking serious damage to my foot.

The road to Los Angeles, which began on September 1, 2025, in New York City, is a journey I will not complete on foot. Many of you have walked every step of this with me in spirit, and my heart is broken.

I remember standing in Times Square on the first day, looking up at those skyscrapers, and thinking about how people built this city out of nothing. The people who built this structure were often from other countries and had very little resources. But they had intelligence, desire, and perseverance, and I thought about how children on the South Side must be raised in this same spirit. Anything is possible with commitment, grit, and the unwavering will never quit.

FROM A CHICAGO ROOFTOP TO A 3,000-MILE JOURNEY, HERE’S HOW I FIGHT TO BRING BACK THE AMERICAN SPIRIT

I put on my shoes and started walking.

What followed was one of the most extraordinary moments of my life.

I am so grateful for every dollar, every prayer, every person who walked the city leg with me, shared a post or donated what they could.

I will never forget the time we went on a horse and buggy ride with an Amish woman in Pennsylvania who opened her home to us. Or the pain I felt when I talked about God with drug addicts in Philly’s open drug markets. The variety of people I met showed me the good and the bad of America, but what struck me was that even when it was bad, even when a drug addict told me that God was not equal to this, there was always hope. That hope is what makes America what it is.

WHEN THE ADDICTS IN PHILADELPHIA WORSHIPED TRANQ, I SAW WHY GOD HAS NOT DATED IN AMERICA.

One of the most remarkable moments was when I found myself walking the old slave route in Richmond, Virginia, the very way Africans were marched in chains to the auction house. I felt the weight of ghosts and the presence of grace at the same time. I prayed. And when I left that trail, I was struck by the feeling that too many of our children are on a predetermined path of poverty and violence, and that path needs to be destroyed.

I went into small towns, roadside diners and McDonald’s across the Deep South and stopped to talk to strangers. Media people may call them ordinary, but I found them to be nothing. Each of them was a person with their own dreams, successes, failures, and beliefs. None of them asked about party lines or protest hashtags. They speak of hope and faith. They talk about the future of their children, the price of food, their churches and their communities.

A man in Alabama told me about his son, who had just been released from prison and was looking for a job. A grandmother in Mississippi told me about raising four grandchildren whose parents could not raise them. A truck driver somewhere in Louisiana pulled over just to give me a bottle of cold water and say, “Teacher, I’m praying for you.” He drove away before I got his name. Moments like these never leave you.

MY TRAVEL TO AMERICA IS A LESSON IN GRATITUDE AND GRATITUDE

All those months, the blisters on my feet reminded me of the cost. But conversations heal something much deeper. I kept thinking: We are not nearly as separated as they want us to believe. The elites and politicians earn their bread and butter by creating discord and conflict among us. But out on those streets, I found something different. I found America still working.

Then, on Day 191, I found myself in a hospital examination room. The doctors told me that the growth had returned. The first operation was not yet held. They are planning a second operation. I sat quietly in that room for a long time, thinking about Times Square and the thousands of miles ahead. I wrote that night that I was emotionally broken. That was the truth. I had squandered everything I had put in – physically, spiritually and emotionally – that I brought to that road. I did everything for the children of the South Side to have a better life. There was nothing left in the tank that I had put there.

After the second surgery, the decision was final: Physical mobility was over. My body just doesn’t agree.

I’VE SEEN THE PROOFS ON MY BLOCK — AND I KNOW WHAT REALLY STOPS THE KILLING

We came so far. We raised just over $4 million for the Center for Leadership and Economic Opportunity on Chicago’s South Side, a 90,000-square-foot facility that will house job training, counseling, schooling, and more for youth who have never had anything like it in their neighborhood. Our mission has always been simple: Make opportunity accessible to every child. It is up to them to use this opportunity, if they take that plan we will support them.

I am so grateful for every dollar, every prayer, every person who walked the city leg with me, shared a post or donated what they could.

But we are willing to raise $25 million. And we are still short.

A CONFIDENTIAL STEP TO GET CHICAGO’S YOUTH OUT OF THE LEFT-WORK

Those children on the South side don’t get the silence button because of the circumstances they were born into. The need does not rest while I recover.

So here’s what I’ve learned on this road, and living with the weight of what it called me: Real movement is never meant to rest on one person. Whether it was an Amish woman, a drug addict or a truck driver, the one thing they all had in common was that they had the help of their fellow Americans. It is what gives America its greatness. I know this to be true.

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When I was on the roof in 2011, freezing in the Chicago winter to raise money to tear down a crime-ridden motel – the very site where we’re building today’s community center – people asked me how I could stand it. But I didn’t lose faith. I was able to withstand the cold and stress because I knew I was not alone. And I wasn’t there. We raised enough to buy and tear down that motel. Now, we have a possibility structure and a growing opportunity in that same area.

So, even though my body can’t keep going, my spirit refuses to stop. I know that my work is not my travel. The mission is the children. The mission is the institution. The goal is what happens when a young man from O-Block, once the most violent neighborhood in the country, discovers that his life has direction and value, and that someone is showing it.

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So I am asking you to join me in this project. We all want a better America. We don’t have all the answers. But we know that there must be opportunities for all. We know that everyone deserves an equal shot at the American dream. The rest is up to them. But we must create that equality of opportunity.

So, although I cannot go, I hope you will join me in this difficult task of reversing the damage that post-’60s liberalism did to our communities. I hope you will join us in giving meaning and opportunity to the lives of these young people born in this ZIP code. And I hope you know that you are worth more than you will ever know, and we need you to build a better America.

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