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The Rev. John I. Caples has been the pastor at Jesus Name Apostolic Church in Waukegan for 21 years. He lives with his wife Celeste and together they have a 21-year-old daughter, Vanessa.
Caples, 56, leads a congregation of 5,000, many of them young couples with children. He believes family is the foundation of the community. Caples preaches to his congregation that what you don't value is what you lose, and family is what makes America strong.
He attended the first inauguration of President Barack Obama in 2009 as a guest of Congressman Mark Kirk and today, Feb. 21, he’ll speak about black history at the Naval Station Great Lakes during a Black History Month program.
Predominantly black, Jesus Name Apostolic Church also has congregation members of at least 19 nationalities including those who are from Jamaica, Mexico, Puerto Rico and Africa. Flags representing those countries are flown inside the church.
Across the street from the church is the Family First Center. The church started the center with Kirk after two high school youth in the community were murdered by gang members. At the center are a fitness facility, nutrition workshops, counseling services, literacy programs and gang-intervention programs.
Caples believes black history should be a part of American history year-round.
What was it like for you to see America's first black president?
You know, Nancy Pelosi, the speaker of the house at the time, asked me how it felt to have an African-American for president. This is what I said. The struggle continues, because in my life time I have been colored; on my birth certificate it says colored. I have been black in the 60s. I have been Negro. I have been nigger. Now, I’m African, hyphen, American. And as long as that hyphen stays there, I don’t feel I have full American rights.
When the day comes that I am just an American, I'll have full American rights, but as long as you can identify me and put me in a group, then I don't care if we do have a black president, we will be limited because the experience we have is for all Americans. As long as we can separate people through groups, we will never ever have full American rights. That hyphen separates us.
Why is it a problem for you to be labeled as African-American?
People who come from other countries get labeled or recognized as their ethnicity, too.
In the 70s there was a movie called ‘Roots.’ It was written by Alex Haley, and the reason why this movie was so important is because it showed that when the African people came to these shores, their roots were cut off.
Other people can still go back to their countries and find people in their family; grandma, grandpa or whomever is still back there. So, they can retain their roots. They know their culture. But to call me African-American, basically you're talking about descent, but not about roots. Because our roots were so severely cut off, are we really African then? We've never been to Africa. We don't have the African experience. All we know is America.
Do you think we still have much to learn about prejudice?
Anyone who thinks there is still not prejudice in this country has missed the boat. But Dr. [Martin Luther] King would not have liked us to sit around and sing ‘Kum Ba Yah’ and just remember him while we’re dropping out of school or not working a job. That is a discredit to Dr. King.
What do you believe are some issues slaves faced that are still prevalent in society today?
There are five basic [elements of] slavery. The first is to remove the male from the household.
The way it was done through slavery was simple, you would take the man away from the woman, say they came from Africa. That man would protect his woman, so the plantation owner had to get rid of that man. He would send him away to another plantation and bring her another man that she didn't love. In her lifetime, she was never married, she'd just have many baby daddies – we still have to fight that male out of the home now in our community.
The second [element] of slavery was slaves could not own property. So, it’s still very difficult for us to own property even if it comes down to banks redlining certain communities; [home] insurances being higher in certain communities. Part of the American dream is to own a piece of the pie. We could not own property because we were property.
The next one is access to education. Slaves could not read.
The right to assemble is another. That’s a great right in America. Slavery kept us separated. If you come together, you’re strong.
The fifth is the right to vote. That’s what Martin Luther King was marching about. We had the right to vote, but we didn’t have access to the vote. If you can vote and own property, you were a true American, because now you are as powerful as the president who also has one house and one vote. If you own land and you vote, you’re valuable. The reason many of us don’t have the schools and the things we need in the community is because those are grids that don’t vote and if they don’t vote, politicians don’t service them.
What was Black History month like for you as a child?
When I was a child I didn't even know it existed. We were living it. We were making black history. There wasn't this big push. I was around when Martin Luther King was still alive. As I got a little bit older, what happened to me is I went into the white community. I went to a white college and then went into the white community in my ministry for training and so I saw things from the southern, white perspective. A lot of it did not lend to black history. As a matter of fact it is very easy to get caught up in another culture and to forget your own. When I came back here to pastor this church, I was reintroduced to the struggle of black people. And now black history means something because the problem with our people is if you don't understand history then you're bound to repeat it. If you know your history, you understand that the thing that keeps you down is lack of education. Why would you not get an education?
Black history doesn't make us mad about what happened, it shows us the pitfalls.
How do you view Black History Month today?
If we only focus on the struggle of the civil rights, I think we miss the whole point. There are some people who still don't see us as citizens, and that's where the struggle is.
When you have a president that came from a single-mom household and not be accepted by such a large part of the country even as a citizen, then you know Joe Blow on the street is not accepted.
What we have to do during Black History Month is make our people understand that we have to take our place. Step up. Be an American, Own a home. Get your education.