Full Text of HR0419 096th General Assembly
HR0419 96TH GENERAL ASSEMBLY
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| HOUSE RESOLUTION
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| WHEREAS, The members of the Illinois House of | 3 |
| Representatives are saddened to learn of the death of former | 4 |
| Chicago Alderman Leon Despres, who passed away on May 6, 2009; | 5 |
| and
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| WHEREAS, Leon Despres was born Leon Mathis Despres on | 7 |
| February 2, 1908; he was the son of Samuel and Henrietta | 8 |
| Rubovitz Despres; he married Marian Alschuler on September 10, | 9 |
| 1931; and
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| WHEREAS, Leon Despres and his family moved to Hyde Park | 11 |
| when he was three; after beginning his high school education at | 12 |
| Hyde Park High School, his mother decided he wasn't working | 13 |
| hard enough, so she sent him to boarding school in Rome and | 14 |
| then Paris; he then returned to Hyde Park to attend the | 15 |
| University of Chicago; he received his undergraduate degree in | 16 |
| 1927 and his law degree in 1929; and
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| WHEREAS, From 1935 to 1937, Leon Despres served as a trial | 18 |
| examiner for the National Labor Relations Board; always a | 19 |
| strong voice for organized labor, in 1937, after police killed | 20 |
| 10 demonstrators at a Memorial Day march against Republic | 21 |
| Steel, he helped organize a protest rally that is now regarded | 22 |
| as a seminal event in American labor history and the cause of |
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| workers' rights; during this time, he visited Leon Trotsky in | 2 |
| Mexico, a trip that featured him escorting legendary artist | 3 |
| Frida Kahlo to the movies while her husband, Diego Rivera, | 4 |
| painted a portrait of Marian Despres; and
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| WHEREAS, Leon Despres served as general counsel for the | 6 |
| American Civil Liberties Union's Illinois division from 1948 | 7 |
| until 1955, when he was elected to serve as alderman of | 8 |
| Chicago's 5th Ward; determined to serve his constituents in the | 9 |
| face of the Chicago machine, he fought bitter election battles | 10 |
| in 1955 and 1959; in 1967, the Chicago machine gave way and he | 11 |
| became the only aldermanic candidate endorsed by both Democrats | 12 |
| and Republicans; after his retirement in 1975, he continued his | 13 |
| active presence in his community and became involved in the | 14 |
| fight against a high-rise condo in his neighborhood; and
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| WHEREAS, Leon Despres often served as the sole voice of | 16 |
| equality and freedom during his tenure on the Chicago City | 17 |
| Council; he voted against the council's ban on the Reverend | 18 |
| Martin Luther King Jr.'s open-occupancy marches in August of | 19 |
| 1966, despite the ban's near-unanimous approval; only one other | 20 |
| alderman supported Mr. Despres when he opposed the construction | 21 |
| of new Chicago Housing Authority high-rise buildings, | 22 |
| buildings that would become centers of crime and poverty in the | 23 |
| city for decades; he fought against discrimination in hospital | 24 |
| staff appointments, cemeteries, and housing and opposed de |
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| facto school segregation, fights that would gain him long and | 2 |
| hard-earned victories for equality; he was also an early voice | 3 |
| for women's rights and, among his successes, was persuading the | 4 |
| Chicago Transit Authority to hire female bus drivers; and
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| WHEREAS, Leon Despres was well ahead of his time in | 6 |
| advocating important causes regarding the health, heritage, | 7 |
| and rights of all citizens; he was the first to speak openly | 8 |
| about lead paint and the dangers it posed; he drafted Chicago's | 9 |
| first ordinance establishing a landmarks preservation | 10 |
| commission and initiated the fight to save Robie House, a | 11 |
| structure built by Frank Lloyd Wright, from destruction by the | 12 |
| Chicago Theological Seminary; Mr. Despres, along with fellow | 13 |
| Alderman Charles Chew, chartered two airplanes to take 184 | 14 |
| people to Alabama to participate in Dr. Martin Luther King's | 15 |
| famous voting rights march from Selma to Montgomery in March of | 16 |
| 1965; he fought against official artistic censorship, having | 17 |
| opposed a City Council vote to condemn Wright Junior College | 18 |
| for putting James Baldwin's "Another Country" on the required | 19 |
| reading list of a contemporary literature class; he tried to | 20 |
| end funding to the city panel in charge of determining which | 21 |
| movies could be shown in Chicago; he also fought to abolish the | 22 |
| police department's secret spying unit and urged the Chicago | 23 |
| Housing Authority to consider the use of low-rise, | 24 |
| scattered-site housing for needy Chicago residents; and
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| WHEREAS, While Leon Despres fought many lofty and | 2 |
| principled battles, he took great care to ensure that the more | 3 |
| routine requests for services and assistance from his | 4 |
| constituents did not fall by the wayside; the Chicago History | 5 |
| Museum houses his archives, which include the records of 20,000 | 6 |
| aldermanic requests he received from constituents, along with | 7 |
| the evidence of his follow-through on every one of them; and | 8 |
| WHEREAS, Leon Despres served as parliamentarian for the | 9 |
| Chicago City Council from 1979 to 1987; he also served on the | 10 |
| Chicago Plan Commission during the period; in the last decade, | 11 |
| he returned to the private practice of law; even past 100 years | 12 |
| old, he remained vital and active in the community, listening | 13 |
| to people's problems, speaking before groups, supporting | 14 |
| candidates, fighting on behalf of displaced Chicago Housing | 15 |
| Authority tenants, and writing postcards almost every day to | 16 |
| applaud the good that others were doing; and
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| WHEREAS, Leon Despres published his memoirs, entitled | 18 |
| "Challenging the Daley Machine: A Chicago Alderman's Memoir", | 19 |
| in 2005; and | 20 |
| WHEREAS, Leon Despres' wife, Marian, was a remarkable and | 21 |
| accomplished woman in her own right; she helped lead the fight | 22 |
| to integrate the University of Chicago Laboratory Schools, | 23 |
| initiated the Chicago Architecture Foundation's docent |
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| program, and was appointed by her former student, former | 2 |
| Chicago Mayor Harold Washington, to the Chicago Landmarks | 3 |
| Commission; and | 4 |
| WHEREAS, Leon Despres is survived by his children, Linda | 5 |
| Despres Baskin and Robert Despres, and his grandson, Frederick | 6 |
| Despres; and | 7 |
| WHEREAS, Despite regular ridicule and denunciations from | 8 |
| fellow elected officials, Leon Despres unwaveringly maintained | 9 |
| the courage of his convictions; many of his early principled | 10 |
| and progressive humanitarian stands in the face of | 11 |
| full-throated opposition on a variety of issues were, in time, | 12 |
| fully vindicated and came to be widely accepted as correct; the | 13 |
| words written by Robert Whittington more than 450 years ago in | 14 |
| praise of Sir Thomas More apply equally well to Leon Despres, | 15 |
| "...a man of an angel's wit and singular learning. I know not | 16 |
| his fellow. For where is the man of that gentleness, lowliness | 17 |
| and affability? And, as time requireth, a man of marvelous | 18 |
| mirth and pastimes, and sometime of as sad gravity. A man for | 19 |
| all seasons."; therefore, be it
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| RESOLVED, BY THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES OF THE | 21 |
| NINETY-SIXTH GENERAL ASSEMBLY OF THE STATE OF ILLINOIS, that we | 22 |
| mourn, along with his family and friends, the passing of Leon | 23 |
| Despres; and be it further
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| RESOLVED, That a suitable copy of this resolution be | 2 |
| presented to the family of Leon Despres as an expression of our | 3 |
| sympathy.
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