title
PROPOSED RESOLUTION
Honoring Dr. Lyn Hughes, Founder of the National A. Philip Randolph Pullman Porter Museum
WHEREAS, Dr. Lyn Hughes, a former international entertainer - now an activist and scholar - moved to Chicago in the late 1980s; and
WHEREAS, in1990, she began speculating real estate on Chicago’s south side and discovered the Pullman historic district; and\
WHEREAS, after discovering an important slice of African American history, in 1995 Dr. Hughes founded The National A. Philip Randolph Pullman Porter Museum (NAPRPPM), a public museum located in the National Park Service-Pullman National Monument on the south side of Chicago; and
WHEREAS, not only is the museum about history, it's founding also made history by being founded by an African American female with predominantly private funds, and to this day operates on an entrepreneurial model; and
WHEREAS, NAPRPPM is the first Black Labor History Museum in the United States that exclusively tells the story of A. Philip Randolph, a New York magazine publisher, turned union organizer and civil rights leader, who after organizing the Pullman Porters in 1925, became founder of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters; and
WHEREAS, the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters was the first African American labor union in America to be chartered under the American Federation of Labor, and the first to win a collective bargaining agreement with a major U.S corporation, the Pullman Company; and
WHEREAS, the museum presents and interprets content intended to educate the public on the impact the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters union had on organized labor and on America’s modern day civil rights movement; and
WHEREAS, the registry garnered the interest of Amtrak, who partnered with the National A. Philip Randolph Pullman Porter Museum and developed a national program using the registry to locate, acknowledge and honor surviving members of the union, in ceremonies nationwide; and
WHEREAS, Dr. Hughes’s dedication and efforts to illuminate the museum's existence and its thematic content has resulted in global recognition in the tourism industry, for its unique interpretation of this significant component of American history; and
WHEREAS, the museum attracted the attention of the SHOWTIME network and inspired the creation of the 2003 docudrama, 10,000 Black Men Named George, yielding an interest in history, of an entirely new generation; and
WHEREAS, the interest in the history Hughes excavated continued, and garnered the attention of ABC’s Good Morning America, who was prompted to bring their crew to Chicago to the boutique museum and film a segment on the Pullman Porters; and
WHEREAS, in 2014, Dr. Jon Jarvis, then, director of the National Park Service also made his way to Chicago to see the museum and meet Dr. Lyn Hughes; and
WHEREAS, in February 2015, President Barack Obama designated the historic Pullman District a national monument; and
WHEREAS, the museum has now made history again by becoming a historical black history site in Chicago’s national park service; and
NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED that the President and the Cook County Board of Commissioners, on behalf of the residents of Cook County, honor Dr. Lyn Hughes, founder of the National A. Philip Randolph Pullman Porter Museum and praise her essential contribution to the health and viability of Cook County.end