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PROPOSED RESOLUTION
HONORING THE LIFE AND LEGACY OF REVEREND DAVID BIGSBY
WHEREAS, David Bigsby was born in Marietta, Georgia, in 1945, and his father was a preacher and a "giver,"; and
WHEREAS, from 1963 to 1967, Mr. Bigsby attended Morehouse College before entering the U.S. Army, where he was a paratrooper serving in Vietnam during the Vietnam War and was awarded a Bronze Star and honorably discharged in 1969 at the rank of staff sergeant; and
WHEREAS, Pastor Bigsby earned a bachelor's degree in psychology from Northwest Missouri State University in 1975, and after college after college he worked in the insurance field, earning a CLU (Chartered Life Underwriter) designation from American College in 1979; and
WHEREAS, eventually he accepted his calling to preach, something he was born to do, and in 1985, Reverend Bigsby preached his first professional sermon during service on Thanksgiving morning at Calvary Baptist Church in Glenwood, IL and about a decade later, in 1994, he became pastor of the church; and
WHEREAS, Reverend Bigsby would go on to found and lead In the Upper Room Ministries (ITURM) missionary Baptist Church in Lansing, IL; and
WHEREAS, in Lansing, the Reverend may be best known for his involvement in helping to develop a memorandum of understanding (MOU) between the Village of Lansing, Lansing Police Department, Lansing Community Coalition, and the NAACP Chicago Far South Suburban Branch when the Village and police leadership were at odds with community members over an incident in which an off-duty white police officer physically pinned a 15-year-old Black teen to the ground for trespassing on his lawn; and
WHEREAS, Reverend Bigsby fought for social justice in many ways, travelling to the state and national capitols to lobby for legislation and funding that could engender equity in schools and the local community, and he fought against racial profiling and systemic racism; and
WHEREAS, for many years until 2009, Reverend Bigsby ser...
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