Timuel Black, a champion of civil\u00a0rights and a renowned historian of\u00a0Chicago\u2019s Black history, died October\u00a013. He was 102.<\/p>\n
Funeral arrangements were incomplete\u00a0by\u00a0Crusader<\/strong>\u00a0press time Wednesday,\u00a0but his send-off will likely draw\u00a0Chicago\u2019s top leaders from across the\u00a0city.<\/p>\n Nearly $117,000 had been raised for Timuel Black, the prominent\u00a0Chicago historian and civil rights\u00a0leader while he was in hospice care at\u00a0his Kenwood home. Recent donations\u00a0included $5,000 from Ariel Investments\u00a0Chairman John W. Rogers,\u00a0Jr.<\/p>\n As of Monday, October 11, approximately\u00a082 donors had given $95,834\u00a0on GoFundMe.com. The amount\u00a0exceeded the goal of $75,000 that was\u00a0raised after donations exceeded the\u00a0first goal of $50,000 on October 6.<\/p>\n That day, Lisa Yun Lee, one of several\u00a0fundraisers for Black, announced\u00a0that he was in hospice care at his Kenwood\u00a0home and that funds were\u00a0needed to cover his medical expenses as he struggled to recover.<\/p>\n Black was born in Birmingham, Alabama, on December 7, 1918. His family became part of the first Great Migration of African Americans from the Deep South, settling in Chicago in 1919. A nationally respected educator, political activist, community leader, oral historian, philanthropist, and philosopher, he has lived on the South Side since moving to Chicago over 100 years ago.<\/p>\n During his early school years at Edmund Burke Elementary School and DuSable High School, Black worked as a paperboy for the\u00a0Chicago Defender<\/strong>. During the Great Depression, Black worked as a delivery boy for a local grocery store where he learned about community organizing. He would later organize the \u201cDon\u2019t Spend Your Money Where You Can\u2019t Work\u201d campaign in the 1930s. That campaign led to the creation of the Negro Retail Clerks Union. In the 1940s, Black was an active organizer of the Congress on Racial Equality (CORE), which worked to desegregate Chicago department stores.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n During World War II, Black served in the U.S. Army and was awarded four battle stars and a Croix de Guerre, the highest military honor given to non-citizens by the French government. After the war, Black earned a bachelor\u2019s degree from Roosevelt University and later obtained a master\u2019s degree from the University of Chicago.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n In 1955, after seeing Dr. Martin Luther King on television, Black abandoned his doctoral studies at the University of Chicago to become an active participant in the Civil Rights Movement. He served as the Chicago Chair of the historic 1963 March on Washington.<\/p>\n Black was one of the first African Americans in Chicago to challenge the \u201cRegular Democratic Organization\u201d and coined the phrase \u201cPlantation Politics.\u201d<\/p>\n He has run for public office several times and was a leader in the massive voter registration campaign that led to the election of Harold Washington as Chicago\u2019s first Black mayor.<\/p>\n Black has published \u201cBridges of Memory: Chicago\u2019s First Wave of Great Migration,\u201d which chronicled the history of Black Chicago from the 1920s to the present.<\/p>\n Black\u2019s memoir, \u201cSacred Ground,\u201d\u00a0focusing heavily on his lifelong home, Chicago\u2019s South Side, was recently published by Northwestern University Press.<\/p>\n In 2000, Black was the lead plaintiff in Black v. McGuffage, a lawsuit that charged the Illinois voting system with systemic discrimination against minorities. For his work, Black was honored by the American Civil Liberties Union as Civil Libertarian of the Year.<\/p>\n In 2008, Black received an honorary doctoral degree from his alma mater, Roosevelt University. In 2010, and again in 2015, Black traveled to the Netherlands and The Hague to be honored and lecture at the annual Dr. Martin Luther King Day Dinner of the United States Embassy.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n In January of 2012, the Timuel D. Black Archive of Black\u2019s documents was officially inaugurated and opened to researchers in the Vivian Harsh Collection at the Carter G. Woodson Regional Library in Chicago. That same year, Black was awarded the 54-year-old Benton Medal for Distinguished Public Service from the University of Chicago. He was the first Black person to receive this award.<\/p>\n In 2013, the city of Chicago honored Black with the inaugural Chicago Champion of Freedom medal for his local and national efforts in the Civil Rights Movement. At his centennial celebration in 2018, he was knighted by the French government with the French Legion of Honour Medal, the highest honor given by the French.<\/p>\n