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1
HOUSE RESOLUTION

 
2    WHEREAS, The members of the Illinois House of
3Representatives wish to recognize Timuel "Tim" D. Black Jr.
4for his accomplishments and especially his local and national
5work in the civil rights movement; and
 
6    WHEREAS, Timuel Black was born in Birmingham, Alabama on
7December 7, 1918; his family became part of the first Great
8Migration of African Americans from the Deep South and settled
9in Chicago in 1919; during his early school years at Edmund
10Burke Elementary School and DuSable High School, he worked as
11a paper boy for the Chicago Defender; as a teen during the
12Great Depression, he worked as a delivery boy for a local
13grocery store, where he had his first experience as an
14organizer; and
 
15    WHEREAS, In the early thirties, Timuel Black helped
16organize the "Don't Spend Your Money Where You Can't Work"
17campaign, which led to the formation of the Negro Retail
18Clerks Union; in the 1940s, he was an active organizer of the
19Congress on Racial Equality (CORE), which worked to
20desegregate Chicago department stores and public
21accommodations; and
 
22    WHEREAS, Timuel Black served in the U.S. Army during World

 

 

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1War II and was awarded four battle stars and a Croix de Guerre,
2the highest military honor accorded by France to non-citizens;
3and
 
4    WHEREAS, After the war, Timuel Black received a bachelor's
5degree from Roosevelt University and later pursued a master's
6degree from the University of Chicago; in 1955, after seeing
7Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. on television, he was motivated to
8abandon his doctoral studies at the University of Chicago to
9become an active participant in the civil rights movement; and
 
10    WHEREAS, Immersing himself in civil rights work, Timuel
11Black served as the Chicago chair of the historic 1963 March on
12Washington; as a pioneer in the independent Black political
13movement, he was one of the first African Americans in Chicago
14to challenge the "Regular Democratic Organization" and coined
15the phrase "Plantation Politics"; he ran for public office
16several times and was a leader in the massive voter
17registration campaign that resulted in the election of former
18Chicago Mayor Harold Washington; and
 
19    WHEREAS, In 2000, Timuel Black served as the lead
20plaintiff in Black v. McGuffage, a lawsuit that charged the
21Illinois voting system with systemic discrimination against
22minorities; and
 

 

 

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1    WHEREAS, In January of 2012, the Timuel D. Black Jr.
2Archive was officially inaugurated and opened to researchers;
3the massive archive of Timuel Black documents, letters, and
4memorabilia is housed in the Vivian Harsh Collection at the
5Carter G. Woodson Regional Library in Chicago; and
 
6    WHEREAS, In 2008, Timuel Black received an honorary
7doctoral degree from his alma mater, Roosevelt University; in
82010 and again in 2015, he traveled to the Netherlands and The
9Hague to be honored and lecture at the annual Dr. Martin Luther
10King Day Dinner of the United States Embassy; in June of 2012,
11half a century after he withdrew from the University of
12Chicago in order to join Dr. King, he was awarded the 2012
13Benton Medal for Distinguished Public Service from the
14University of Chicago and was the first person of color to
15receive this award; in 2013, he was honored by the City of
16Chicago with the inaugural Chicago Champion of Freedom medal
17in recognition of his work in the civil rights movement both
18locally and nationally; on December 9, 2018, he was awarded
19the French Legion of Honor by the French Consul General of
20Chicago during the gala celebration of his 100th birthday; and
 
21    WHEREAS, Two volumes of Timuel Black's three-volume work,
22Bridges of Memory: Chicago's First Wave of Great Migration,
23have been published, and the third volume is in production;
24these books chronicle the history of Black Chicago from the

 

 

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11920s to the present; his memoir, Sacred Ground, which focuses
2heavily on his lifelong home of the Chicago's South Side, was
3published in December of 2019 by Northwestern University
4Press; therefore, be it
 
5    RESOLVED, BY THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES OF THE ONE
6HUNDRED SECOND GENERAL ASSEMBLY OF THE STATE OF ILLINOIS, that
7we recognize the lifelong accomplishments of Timuel "Tim" D.
8Black Jr., respected educator, political activist, community
9leader, oral historian, philanthropist, and philosopher; and
10be it further
 
11    RESOLVED, That a suitable copy of this resolution be
12presented to Timuel Black as a symbol of our esteem and
13respect.