HR0129 97TH GENERAL ASSEMBLY

HR0129 LRB097 10792 KXB 51568 r

HOUSE RESOLUTION

WHEREAS, The annual University of Illinois-Chicago Gender and Women's Studies Program's Women's History Month Reception honors Civic Engagement, Community Service, and Community Organizing (CECSCO) Award recipients; and

WHEREAS, Cleo Wilson is a founding board member of Intuit: The Center for Intuitive and Outsider Art and served as its president from 2002 to 2006; established in 1991, Intuit is grounded in the belief that the instinct to be creative is universal and the arts must embrace all, celebrate all, and be accessible to all regardless of education or socio-economic status; and

WHEREAS, She was the editor of Intuit's magazine, The Outsider, from 1992 until 2002, and in 2004, curated an exhibition at Intuit entitled "Sistuhs: Four African American Self-Taught Artists"; prior to accepting the position of Executive Director at Intuit in 2006, with responsibility for the day-to-day operations of Intuit, including supervision of artistic and administrative personnel and programs, she served for 25 years as the Executive Director of the Playboy Foundation, a corporate giving program of Playboy Enterprises, Inc.; and

WHEREAS, Serving as a Playboy employee since 1976, she was named Foundation grants and programs manager in 1982; she was promoted to executive director of the Foundation in 1984 and named director of public affairs in 1989, and appointed vice president in 2000; and

WHEREAS, She serves on a variety of State and municipal grant-review panels, including the Illinois Arts Council, City Arts, and most recently the Propeller Fund; she has served as a member of the board of directors of the National Coalition Against Censorship (1997 to 2000), and was a member of the AIDS Foundation of Chicago's board of directors (1989 to 1999), and its president from 1990 to 1993; and

WHEREAS, She also was on the board of the American Civil Liberties Union of Illinois, serving as vice president from 1997 to 2004; she has been listed since 1988 in Who's Who Among African-Americans and, since 1990, in Who's Who Among American Women; she was saluted as one of Chicago's up-and-coming black business and professional women in 1985 by Dollars and Sense magazine; in 1984, she was inducted into the Black Woman Hall of Fame in recognition of her community service; and

WHEREAS, In 1991, she was honored as a "Friend for Life" by the Howard Brown Medical Center; she received the "Phenomenal Woman Award" in 1997 at Chicago's Expo for Today's Black Woman, in recognition of her leadership and dedication to community issues; in 1999, she was honored by the AIDS Foundation of Chicago for her "leadership, compassion, and generosity"; and

WHEREAS, In 2004, she received the Handy L. Lindsey Award for Inclusiveness in Philanthropy, and also that year, an award for outstanding leadership in support of reproductive rights from Personal PAC; in 2006, she was awarded the Edwin A. Rothschild Civil Liberties Award for her "persistent and clear voice in defense of civil liberties"; in October 2010, she was inducted into the HistoryMakers, the single largest archival collection of interviews of both well-known and unsung African-American history makers; she is a native Chicagoan and a 1976 graduate of the University of Illinois-Chicago; and

WHEREAS, She will receive the Civic Engagement, Community Service, and Community Organizing (CECSCO) Award during the annual University of Illinois-Chicago Gender and Women's Studies Program's Women's History Month Reception on March 4, 2011; therefore, be it

RESOLVED, BY THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES OF THE NINETY-SEVENTH GENERAL ASSEMBLY OF THE STATE OF ILLINOIS, that we congratulate Cleo Wilson on receiving this award and wish her continued success for years to come; and be it further

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