Full Text of HR0884 95th General Assembly
HR0884 95TH GENERAL ASSEMBLY
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HR0884 |
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| HOUSE RESOLUTION
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| WHEREAS, The members of the Illinois House of | 3 |
| Representatives are pleased to honor Eugene Redmond on his | 4 |
| seventieth birthday, December 1, 2007; and
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| WHEREAS, Eugene Redmond was born December 1, 1937 in St. | 6 |
| Louis, Missouri; he was orphaned at age nine and was raised by | 7 |
| his grandmother and "neighborhood fathers," made up of members | 8 |
| of the Seventh Day Adventist Church and friends of his older | 9 |
| brother; during high school he worked on the newspaper and | 10 |
| yearbook, performed in school and church plays, and composed | 11 |
| for neighborhood singing groups; and
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| WHEREAS, From 1958 to 1961 Eugene Redmond served as a U.S. | 13 |
| Marine in the Far East, acquiring a speaking knowledge of | 14 |
| Japanese; he was an associate editor of the East St. Louis | 15 |
| Beacon from 1961 to 1962; in 1963 Redmond co-founded a weekly | 16 |
| paper in East St. Louis, the Monitor, working at different | 17 |
| times as a contributing editor, executive editor, and editorial | 18 |
| page editor; at Southern Illinois University he was the first | 19 |
| African-American student editor of the university newspaper; | 20 |
| after receiving his bachelor's degree in English literature in | 21 |
| 1964, he earned a master's degree in English literature from | 22 |
| Washington University in 1966; and
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| WHEREAS, In 1965, while still in graduate school, he won | 2 |
| first prize in the Washington University Annual Festival of the | 3 |
| Arts for his poem "Eye in the Ceiling"; in 1968 he published | 4 |
| his first volume of poetry, A Tale of Two Toms, or Tom-Tom | 5 |
| (Uncle Toms of East St. Louis and St. Louis); he has been | 6 |
| poet-in-residence at Oberlin College, California State | 7 |
| University, the University of Wisconsin, and Wayne State; and
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| WHEREAS, From 1967 to 1969 he was a senior consultant to | 9 |
| Katherine Dunham at Southern University's Performing Arts | 10 |
| Training Center, where he acted, directed, wrote plays, and | 11 |
| supervised the drama and writing departments; twelve of his | 12 |
| plays, ballets, and choral dramas have been produced on | 13 |
| university campuses and on California television; and
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| WHEREAS, Eugene Redmond has been a professor at Southern | 15 |
| Illinois University since 1990; he also works in the public | 16 |
| schools and has established a feeder system, following some | 17 |
| writers from elementary school through high school as a way of | 18 |
| bringing "literacy to the many and the literary to the few"; | 19 |
| his other community activities include organizing the annual | 20 |
| "Break Word with the World" event in East St. Louis, a | 21 |
| month-long "mock trial of the media" culminating in a reading | 22 |
| and publication; and | 23 |
| WHEREAS, He has received wide recognition as a poet and |
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| teacher; in 1976 he became poet laureate of East St. Louis, the | 2 |
| first poet laureate named by a municipality; he was awarded a | 3 |
| National Endowment for the Arts
creative writing fellowship in | 4 |
| 1978; the Eugene B. Redmond Writers Club was founded in 1986, | 5 |
| with writers such as Maya Angelou and Amiri Baraka on the board | 6 |
| of directors; Eye on the Ceiling won an American Book Award in | 7 |
| 1991; in 1993 Pan-African Movement USA awarded him a Pyramid | 8 |
| Award for lifetime contributions to Pan-Africanism through | 9 |
| poetry; and he received a "Tribute to an Elder" award from | 10 |
| African Poetry Theater in 1995; therefore, be it
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| RESOLVED, BY THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES OF THE | 12 |
| NINETY-FIFTH GENERAL ASSEMBLY OF THE STATE OF ILLINOIS, that we | 13 |
| congratulate Eugene Redmond for his many contributions to | 14 |
| society and culture and wish him a happy birthday; and be it | 15 |
| further
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| RESOLVED, That a suitable copy of this resolution be | 17 |
| presented to Eugene Redmond as a symbol of our respect.
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