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1
HOUSE RESOLUTION

 
2    WHEREAS, The members of the Illinois House of
3Representatives are saddened to learn of the death of Bishop
4Arthur M. Brazier of Chicago, who passed away on October 22,
52010; and
 
6    WHEREAS, He was born in Hyde Park, was forced out of high
7school by the Depression, and worked in a laundry until he was
8drafted into the United States Army in 1942, where he earned a
9staff sergeant's stripes serving in a trucking company in India
10and Burma; after the war, he took a high school correspondence
11course and became a minister in 1951 while working as a letter
12carrier; he graduated from the Moody Bible Institute in 1956
13after 6 years of night school; and
 
14    WHEREAS, He was the founding president of The Woodlawn
15Organization and went from picketing Mayor Richard J. Daley to
16being appointed by Mayor Daley's son to sit on the board of the
17Public Building Commission; and
 
18    WHEREAS, Pastor Emeritus of the Apostolic Church of God, he
19became a Bishop in the Pentecostal Assemblies of the World,
20helped bring the Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. to Chicago in
211966, and was a friend and onetime tennis partner of President
22Obama; and
 

 

 

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1    WHEREAS, In the 1960s, he started working with community
2organizer Saul Alinsky and helped found The Woodlawn
3Organization to battle slumlords and the University of
4Chicago's efforts to displace Blacks south of 61st Street;
5Bishop Brazier also helped organize a boycott of Chicago Public
6Schools to protest the concentration of Black students in
7mobile classrooms; Bishop Brazier joined forces with Johnson
8Publishing Company founder John H. Johnson, Chicago Urban
9League president Edwin C. "Bill" Berry, and other prominent
10leaders to unite Chicagoans around the fight for civic and
11economic equality; and
 
12    WHEREAS, In 1969, Bishop Brazier went to work for a
13national group, Citizens Crusade Against Poverty, and a year
14later, resigned from The Woodlawn Organization; working for
15Citizens Crusade while based in Chicago, he consulted with
16community groups across the country on housing and commercial
17redevelopment, remaining active in the Woodlawn community; and
 
18    WHEREAS, Bishop Brazier was founder of the Woodlawn
19Preservation and Investment Corporation, which acquired city
20property at little cost, building low and mixed-income housing;
21he was also chairman of the Fund for Community Development, and
22fought to tear down the dilapidated and unused elevated
23structure that then stretched along 63rd Street from Cottage

 

 

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1Grove to Dorchester; after it's demolition, he built a new
2church complex at 63rd and Dorchester, which many of his
3congregants call the "Miracle on 63rd"; he retired from the
4church two years ago; and
 
5    WHEREAS, Bishop Arthur M. Brazier is survived by his wife,
6Esther Isabelle Brazier; his son, Reverend Byron T. Brazier;
7his daughters, Lola Hillman, Janice Dortch, and Rosalyn
8Shepherd; his 7 grandchildren and 11 great-grandchildren, and
9his godson, Tyrone Stoudemire; therefore, be it
 
10    RESOLVED, BY THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES OF THE
11NINETY-SIXTH GENERAL ASSEMBLY OF THE STATE OF ILLINOIS, that we
12mourn, along with his family, friends, and congregation, the
13passing of Bishop Arthur M. Brazier; and be it further
 
14    RESOLVED, That a suitable copy of this resolution be
15presented to the family of Bishop Arthur M. Brazier as a symbol
16of our sincere sympathy.