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HOUSE RESOLUTION


 
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    WHEREAS, A banquet will be held on Saturday, April 8, 2006, 
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for the Reverend Lee Grant Cook in honor of his 40-year 
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anniversary and retirement; and

 
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    WHEREAS, Pastor Cook came from a family of humble 
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circumstances; he lived with his parents, Deacon Dorsey Cook 
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and Mother Virginia Cook, and his older sisters, Cleo and the 
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late Bessie Cook, in a one-room house in Montgomery, Alabama; 
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at the age of ten, he was converted and baptized at the New 
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Canaan Baptist Church of Montgomery, Alabama; and
 
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    WHEREAS, It was at that church that his educational career 
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began in a one-room church and school house; he finished 
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Loveless Jr. High School and attended Tuskegee Institute, where 
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he met the grandson of Booker T. Washington; he then graduated 
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from Booker T. Washington Sr. High School; and

 
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    WHEREAS, He became a carpenter in 1938 in Montgomery, and 
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he helped build the 99th Air Force Base in Tuskegee, Alabama; 
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in 1948, he became a member of the United Brotherhood of 
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Carpenters and Joiners and is still a member in good standing 
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today; he moved to Chicago in 1943, but then went on to Atlanta 
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six months later; and

 
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    WHEREAS, Rev. Cook was working at an atomic bomb plant in 
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Tennessee on VJ Day in August of 1945; after the bomb hit 
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Nagasaki, he left his job; his father died in 1948, and Rev. 
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Cook returned to Alabama, then moving with part of his family 
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to Chicago; and

 
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    WHEREAS, He joined Omega Baptist Church in 1948, where he 
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served as Superintendent of Sunday School and sang in the 
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choir; he later joined South Side Missionary Baptist Church; 
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this church ordained him as a deacon and when his calling to 
 


 






HR1090
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LRB094 20097 HSS 57707 r




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the ministry became evident, he accepted the call and 
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immediately enrolled in the Chicago Baptist Institute, where he 
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was a student for four years; he was licensed by Rev. Rudolph 
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Poole and in 1951, he was ordained; he served as the assistant 
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pastor at South Side Church until the death of Rev. Poole in 
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1954; and

 
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    WHEREAS, Rev. Cook served as president  of the graduating 
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class of 1958; he was conferred with the degree of Doctor of 
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Divinity by Hamilton State University of Tucson, Arizona, in 
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March of 1975; and
 
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    WHEREAS, He became pastor of True Believers Missionary 
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Baptist Church on April 17, 1966; his motto is "We have climbed 
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the hill. The mountain is still before us. We must continue the 
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task of winning the World for Christ. Then, and only then, can 
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we truly say our work is done."; therefore, be it

 
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    RESOLVED, BY THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES OF THE 
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NINETY-FOURTH GENERAL ASSEMBLY OF THE STATE OF ILLINOIS, that 
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we congratulate the Reverend Lee Grant Cook on the occasion of 
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his 40-year anniversary and retirement; and be it further

 
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    RESOLVED, That  a suitable copy of this resolution be 
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presented to Rev. Cook as an expression of our esteem.