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1
SENATE RESOLUTION

 
2    WHEREAS, The members of the Illinois Senate are saddened to
3learn of the death of Hester Barbara Nelson Suggs; and
 
4    WHEREAS, Hester Suggs was born to Cecil and Carrie
5(Earnest) Nelson in Champaign on April 30, 1928; she graduated
6from Champaign High School in 1945 and entered the University
7of Illinois in the fall of 1945; in 1947, she pledged the Gamma
8Chapter of Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Inc., where she remained
9a lifelong member and served four terms as baselius for the
10graduate chapter, Epsilon Epsilon Omega, and as a graduate
11advisor to Gamma; she married Raymond Eugene Suggs in June of
121948; and
 
13    WHEREAS, In the late 1940s, Hester Suggs served as a
14teacher in the Douglas Center Kindergarten Association, a
15community-based organization that provided early childhood
16education for African American children in Champaign-Urbana,
17during the time of a segregated school system; beginning in the
18early 1950s, she concentrated on raising her family; and
 
19    WHEREAS, In 1961, Hester Suggs resumed her career as an
20educator, serving as the afternoon kindergarten teacher at
21Booker T. Washington School; she returned to the University of
22Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 1961 to complete her bachelor's

 

 

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1degree in elementary education, completing it in 1963; she
2completed her student teaching at Leal Elementary School in
3Urbana, where she was later hired; both Champaign and Urbana
4Schools were in the process of desegregation and her early
5experiences of combating racism were documented in a 1984
6article in the Illinois Times, "Black Women Who Beat the Odds";
7she finished her master's degree in elementary education from
8the University in 1965; and
 
9    WHEREAS, Hester Suggs joined Champaign School District
10Unit 4 as a fifth grade teacher at Dr. Howard School; with the
11establishment of the gifted program in Unit 4, she was
12designated as the teacher for the gifted for fifth grade; she
13served as a teacher trainer for the Illinois State Board of
14Education, spending weekends conducting workshops in the area
15of gifted education for teachers across east central Illinois;
16and
 
17    WHEREAS, In 1971, Hester Suggs was selected as the
18principal of Booker T. Washington Elementary School in
19Champaign Unit 4, a position she held for 22 years, retiring in
201993; in 1980, she successfully secured a grant from the United
21States Department of Education to establish programs that
22emphasized "foreign languages, music, cultural and performing
23arts, and interpretive thinking for children in kindergarten
24through the fifth grade"; and
 

 

 

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1    WHEREAS, In 1988, Hester Suggs received the Service
2Recognition Award for Administrators from the Illinois
3Alliance for Arts in Education; in 1997, she was honored at a
4dinner given by the National Council of African-American Men;
5she received the Booker T. Washington Award for education from
6the Urban League and the Champaign County Chamber of Commerce;
7the Champaign Urbana Schools Foundation established the Hester
8Suggs Endowment Fund to provide grants expanding the arts and
9humanities for African-American children in Champaign Unit 4;
10in 2012, she was a recipient of "A Living Legend" award from
11the Champaign County Section of the National Council of Negro
12Women; at the 2014 Centennial Celebration of the Gamma Chapter
13of Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Inc., she was honored for
14"extraordinary sisterhood and exemplary service" to the
15chapter; and
 
16    WHEREAS, Hester Suggs served on the boards of the Community
17Foundation of Champaign County, Mercy Hospital, the Girls Club,
18and the Illini Rebounders; after retirement, she continued her
19community service; she volunteered with the local Illinois
20Retired Teachers Association and was a member of the Champaign
21County African-American History Committee; she is a lifelong
22member of Bethel AME Church in Champaign; and
 
23    WHEREAS, Hester Suggs was preceded in death by her husband

 

 

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1of over 66 years, Eugene; therefore, be it
 
2    RESOLVED, BY THE SENATE OF THE NINETY-NINTH GENERAL
3ASSEMBLY OF THE STATE OF ILLINOIS, that we mourn the passing of
4Hester Barbara Nelson Suggs, and extend our sincere condolences
5to her family, friends, and all who knew and loved her; and be
6it further
 
7    RESOLVED, That a suitable copy of this resolution be
8presented to the family of Hester Suggs as an expression of our
9deepest sympathy.