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1
HOUSE RESOLUTION

 
2     WHEREAS, State Representative Monique D. Davis and the
3 members of the Illinois House of Representatives are pleased to
4 congratulate Margaret Taylor-Burroughs of Chicago on the
5 occasion of her 90th birthday; and
 
6     WHEREAS, Margaret Taylor-Burroughs was born on November 1,
7 1917, in St. Rose, Louisiana; her parents, Alexander and
8 Octavia Taylor, moved their family to Chicago in search of a
9 better life; Margaret Taylor graduated from Englewood High
10 School in 1933, and from Chicago Teacher's College (renamed
11 Chicago State University) in 1937; she received a Bachelor's
12 (1944) and a Master's (1948) of Fine Arts from the Art
13 Institute of Chicago; and
 
14     WHEREAS, Margaret Taylor married artist Bernard Goss in
15 1939, and later had a daughter, Gayle; in the 1940s, while
16 teaching art at an elementary school, she constructed the egg
17 tempera painting, "I've Been in Some Big Towns"; Margaret
18 Taylor Goss and her husband later divorced; she then went to
19 teach at Dusable High School for twenty-three years; in 1947,
20 her first children's book, Jasper, the Drummin' Boy, was
21 published; Margaret Taylor-Goss was married on December 23,
22 1949 to Charles Gordon Burroughs; and
 

 

 

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1     WHEREAS, Her writing and artworks soared; her additional
2 children's books published were, Did You Feed My Cow? Rhymes
3 and Games From City Streets, Country Lanes (1955), and Whip Me
4 Whop Me Pudding and Other Stories of Riley Rabbit and His
5 Fabulous Friends (1966); her visual artworks include a
6 watercolor, Ribbon Man, Mexico City Market, inspired by her
7 experience at the Institute of Printing and Sculpture in New
8 Mexico; an oil painting, Insect (1963); a marble sculpture,
9 Head (1965); and two bronze sculptures, Black Queen and Head
10 (1963); and
 
11     WHEREAS, The Burroughs' founded the Ebony Museum of
12 African-American History (renamed the Dusable Museum of
13 African-American History) in their home in Chicago; their aim
14 was to make art, history, and literature on the Black
15 experience accessible to the community; the museum was
16 eventually moved to Washington Park, with Margaret Burroughs as
17 the executive director ; and
 
18     WHEREAS, In 1967, she and Dudley Randall of the Broadside
19 Press edited an anthology of poems by Black writers and leaders
20 entitled, For Malcolm: Poems in the Life and Death of Malcolm
21 X; Margaret Burroughs published her own book of poems, What
22 Shall I Tell My Children Who Are Black? (1968), describing the
23 effects of racism on one's mental state; her poems, including,
24 " Open Letter to Black Youth of Alabama and Other Places", sent

 

 

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1 a message of Black pride; some poems encompass familial themes,
2 such as, "Apology to My Daughter for Apparent Neglect", "Lines
3 for My Mother", and "Memorial for My Father"; her second volume
4 of poetry, Africa, My Africa, was published in 1970; the poems
5 in this volume explore the topics of slavery, African culture,
6 and African life; and
 
7     WHEREAS, Margaret Burroughs taught humanities at
8 Kennedy-King Community College between the years of 1969 and
9 1979; during the 1980s, she served on the Chicago District's
10 Board of Education; she received many awards and honors for her
11 achievements, including a Doctorate of Humane Letters from
12 Lewis University in Illinois, as well as honorary degrees from
13 the Art Institute of Chicago, where she taught humanities in
14 1968, Chicago State, and Columbia College; a day was named in
15 her honor by the former Mayor of Chicago, Harold Washington, on
16 February 1, 1986; therefore, be it
 
17     RESOLVED, BY THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES OF THE
18 NINETY-FIFTH GENERAL ASSEMBLY OF THE STATE OF ILLINOIS, that we
19 congratulate Margaret Taylor-Burroughs on the many
20 achievements of her life and wish her the best on the occasion
21 of her 90th birthday; and be it further
 
22     RESOLVED, That a suitable copy of this resolution be
23 presented to Margaret Taylor-Burroughs as a symbol of our

 

 

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1 respect and esteem.