Full Text of HR0638 101st General Assembly
HR0638 101ST GENERAL ASSEMBLY |
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| 1 | | HOUSE RESOLUTION
| 2 | | WHEREAS, The members of the Illinois House of | 3 | | Representatives wish to recognize Richard Theodore Greener, | 4 | | the first African American graduate of Harvard College; and
| 5 | | WHEREAS, Richard Greener was born in Philadelphia, | 6 | | Pennsylvania on January 30, 1844; he quit school in his | 7 | | mid-teens to earn money for his family, but one of his | 8 | | employers helped him enroll in preparatory school at Oberlin | 9 | | College; he graduated from Phillips Academy in 1865 and spent | 10 | | three years at Oberlin College before transferring to Harvard | 11 | | College; his admission to Harvard was "an experiment" by the | 12 | | administration and paved the way for more black graduates of | 13 | | Harvard; he graduated from Harvard College in 1870; and
| 14 | | WHEREAS, In 1875, Richard Greener became the first African | 15 | | American to be elected as a member of the American Philological | 16 | | Association; he graduated from law school at South Carolina | 17 | | University and practiced law in South Carolina and then | 18 | | Washington, D.C. before joining the Howard University School of | 19 | | Law as a professor and eventually dean; and
| 20 | | WHEREAS, In 1875, Richard Greener was chosen by the General | 21 | | Assembly of South Carolina to be a member of a commission to | 22 | | revise the South Carolina school system; in 1880, he became a |
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| 1 | | law clerk of the first comptroller of the United States | 2 | | Treasury; from 1876 to 1879, he represented South Carolina in | 3 | | the Union League of America and was president of the South | 4 | | Carolina Republican Association in 1887; from 1885 to 1892, he | 5 | | served as secretary of the Grant Monument Association, where he | 6 | | is credited with having led the initial fundraising effort that | 7 | | eventually brought in donations from 90,000 people worldwide to | 8 | | construct Grant's Tomb, still the largest mausoleum in North | 9 | | America; from 1885 to 1890, he was chief examiner of the civil | 10 | | service board for New York City and County; in the 1896 | 11 | | election, he served as the head of the Colored Bureau of the | 12 | | National Republican Party in Chicago; in 1898, he was appointed | 13 | | as the United States Commercial Agent in Vladivostok, Russia; | 14 | | he left the foreign service in 1905; and
| 15 | | WHEREAS, Richard Greener received several awards and | 16 | | recognitions; while at Harvard in 1868 and 1870, he earned the | 17 | | Bowdoin Prize; he received two honorary Doctorates of Laws, one | 18 | | from Monrovia College in Liberia in 1882 and the other from | 19 | | Howard University in 1907; in 1902, the Chinese government | 20 | | decorated him with the Order of the Double Dragon; Phillips | 21 | | Academy has the Richard T. Greener 1865 Endowed Scholarship; | 22 | | the University of South Carolina's Black Alumni Council | 23 | | sponsors the Richard T. Greener Endowment Fund; the central | 24 | | quadrangle at Phillips Academy was named in his honor in 2018, | 25 | | and the University of South Carolina is honoring his legacy by |
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| 1 | | erecting a statue; and
| 2 | | WHEREAS, Richard Greener eventually settled in Chicago, | 3 | | where he worked for an insurance company and practiced law and | 4 | | occasionally lectured on his life and times; his Harvard | 5 | | diploma and other personal papers were rediscovered in an attic | 6 | | on the South Side of Chicago in 2009; therefore, be it
| 7 | | RESOLVED, BY THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES OF THE ONE | 8 | | HUNDRED FIRST GENERAL ASSEMBLY OF THE STATE OF ILLINOIS, that | 9 | | we recognize Richard Theodore Greener, the first African | 10 | | American graduate of Harvard College; and be it further
| 11 | | RESOLVED, That a suitable copy of this resolution be | 12 | | presented to the family of Richard Greener as a symbol of our | 13 | | respect and esteem.
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