HR0423 102ND GENERAL ASSEMBLY

HR0423 LRB102 19599 ECR 28367 r

HOUSE RESOLUTION

WHEREAS, The members of the Illinois House of Representatives wish to recognize Timuel "Tim" D. Black Jr. for his accomplishments and especially his local and national work in the civil rights movement; and

WHEREAS, Timuel Black was born in Birmingham, Alabama on December 7, 1918; his family became part of the first Great Migration of African Americans from the Deep South and settled in Chicago in 1919; during his early school years at Edmund Burke Elementary School and DuSable High School, he worked as a paper boy for the Chicago Defender; as a teen during the Great Depression, he worked as a delivery boy for a local grocery store, where he had his first experience as an organizer; and

WHEREAS, In the early thirties, Timuel Black helped organize the "Don't Spend Your Money Where You Can't Work" campaign, which led to the formation of the Negro Retail Clerks Union; in the 1940s, he was an active organizer of the Congress on Racial Equality (CORE), which worked to desegregate Chicago department stores and public accommodations; and

WHEREAS, Timuel Black served in the U.S. Army during World War II and was awarded four battle stars and a Croix de Guerre, the highest military honor accorded by France to non-citizens; and

WHEREAS, After the war, Timuel Black received a bachelor's degree from Roosevelt University and later pursued a master's degree from the University of Chicago; in 1955, after seeing Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. on television, he was motivated to abandon his doctoral studies at the University of Chicago to become an active participant in the civil rights movement; and

WHEREAS, Immersing himself in civil rights work, Timuel Black served as the Chicago chair of the historic 1963 March on Washington; as a pioneer in the independent Black political movement, he was one of the first African Americans in Chicago to challenge the "Regular Democratic Organization" and coined the phrase "Plantation Politics"; he ran for public office several times and was a leader in the massive voter registration campaign that resulted in the election of former Chicago Mayor Harold Washington; and

WHEREAS, In 2000, Timuel Black served as the lead plaintiff in Black v. McGuffage, a lawsuit that charged the Illinois voting system with systemic discrimination against minorities; and

WHEREAS, In January of 2012, the Timuel D. Black Jr. Archive was officially inaugurated and opened to researchers; the massive archive of Timuel Black documents, letters, and memorabilia is housed in the Vivian Harsh Collection at the Carter G. Woodson Regional Library in Chicago; and

WHEREAS, In 2008, Timuel Black received an honorary doctoral degree from his alma mater, Roosevelt University; in 2010 and again in 2015, he traveled to the Netherlands and The Hague to be honored and lecture at the annual Dr. Martin Luther King Day Dinner of the United States Embassy; in June of 2012, half a century after he withdrew from the University of Chicago in order to join Dr. King, he was awarded the 2012 Benton Medal for Distinguished Public Service from the University of Chicago and was the first person of color to receive this award; in 2013, he was honored by the City of Chicago with the inaugural Chicago Champion of Freedom medal in recognition of his work in the civil rights movement both locally and nationally; on December 9, 2018, he was awarded the French Legion of Honor by the French Consul General of Chicago during the gala celebration of his 100th birthday; and

WHEREAS, Two volumes of Timuel Black's three-volume work, Bridges of Memory: Chicago's First Wave of Great Migration, have been published, and the third volume is in production; these books chronicle the history of Black Chicago from the 1920s to the present; his memoir, Sacred Ground, which focuses heavily on his lifelong home of the Chicago's South Side, was published in December of 2019 by Northwestern University Press; therefore, be it

RESOLVED, BY THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES OF THE ONE HUNDRED SECOND GENERAL ASSEMBLY OF THE STATE OF ILLINOIS, that we recognize the lifelong accomplishments of Timuel "Tim" D. Black Jr., respected educator, political activist, community leader, oral historian, philanthropist, and philosopher; and be it further

RESOLVED, That a suitable copy of this resolution be presented to Timuel Black as a symbol of our esteem and respect.