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PROPOSED RESOLUTION
HONORING TIMUEL "TIM" D. BLACK
WHEREAS, on December 7, 1918, Timuel "Tim" D. Black was born in Birmingham, Alabama; and
WHEREAS, at eight- months old, Tim became part of the first wave of the Great Migration when his family moved to the Bronzeville community of Chicago, Illinois; and
WHEREAS, he attended Burke Elementary School and graduated from DuSable High School, where some of his classmates included Johnson Publishing Co. founder John H. Johnson and jazz musician Nat King Cole; and
WHEREAS, in 1941, after the bombing of Pearl Harbor, Tim joined the army and fought in the Normandy Invasion and the Battle of the Bulge, two of the bloodiest battles of World
War II; and
WHEREAS, Tim has received four battle stars for his military service and on December 9, 2018 was awarded The French Legion of Honor Medal, France's highest honor, by the Consul General of France in Chicago; and
WHEREAS, after watching African Americans fight and die in the war, and seeing first-hand the atrocities of the Buchenwald concentration camp, Tim returned to a segregated Chicago and committed to actively fight for social justice; and
WHEREAS, Tim enrolled in college and graduated from Roosevelt University with a bachelor's degree in sociology in 1952 and went on to earn a master's degree from the University of Chicago; and
WHEREAS, Tim taught for 30 years at the City Colleges of Chicago and for many more years in Chicago Public Schools; and
WHEREAS, Tim is a pioneer in the independent black political movement and was one of the first African Americans to challenge the "Regular Democratic Organization"; and
WHEREAS, Tim's first experience as an organizer came in his early thirties when he helped organize the "Don't Spend Your Money Where You Can't Work" campaign, which led to the formation of the Negro Retail Clerks Union; and
WHEREAS, Tim has been a marcher for civil rights, an advisor to activist Martin Luther King, Jr., and an advisor to many e...
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