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I first came to Chicago in the summer of 1966 to do community service for the Chicago Presbytery’s “Summer of Service.” I was assigned to a white neighborhood on Chicago’s Southwest Side, not far from where Martin Luther King had been living since January.

My job that summer was to work with kids six to ten years old. My coworkers and I tried to educate them and support them during a frightening time.

My summer in the city was the defining time of my life. My immediate boss, the Rev. Thomas Phillips, saw that my coworkers and I were immersed in every aspect of the city and neighborhood life, from local white citizens’ council meetings, the Catholic youth group, and other neighborhood groups, to broader city political and social events.

The White Sox, who were in our backyard, wouldn’t return our phone calls, but the Cubs gave our kids free tickets every Thursday, so I became a Cubs fan-a heavy price to pay for a summer of service. We also watched Shaw’s St. Joan, performed under moonlight at the University of Chicago, which made the university-my current home-seem like a magical place.

Dr. King joined local civil rights leaders like Al Raby in a series of marches designed to protest the city’s pernicious real-estate policies. The idea of open housing in Chicago spawned riots all over the city. Marquette Park, eight blocks west of where I was living and working, was the scene of an eight-hour riot, as the neighborhood attacked police for protecting Dr. King and his associates. Slogans with the vilest imaginable epithets were displayed in the park and around town.

Many of our neighbors, especially in the local churches, stepped up to the challenge of the times with courage, openness, and charity. Sadly, some of our neighbors were the bottle- and rock-throwing, hate-spewing rioters of Marquette Park.

The intensity of that summer, the pleasure I had in working with the children, the engagement with the city, despite its flaws, made Chicago a part of me, or me part of it, and it has been my home ever since. Hardball takes place in the present, but the heart of the story has its roots in that summer.

As always, many people helped make this book possible. My old coworker Barbara Perkins Wright shared her own perspective on that summer, and helped piece together my memories. Barbara and I heard King speak at Soldier Field, then marched with him to City Hall, where he taped his demands to the mayor’s door-what an exhilarating time. We thought change for good was not only possible, but near at hand. Lately, my long-dormant sense of hope has come back to life.