SR0767 104TH GENERAL ASSEMBLY

SR0767 LRB104 21701 LAW 37294 r

SENATE RESOLUTION

WHEREAS, The members of the Illinois Senate are saddened to learn of the death of longtime Chicago community organizer Amisha Patel, who passed away on April 24, 2026; and

WHEREAS, Amisha Patel, the daughter of Kusum Patel and Arvind Patel, was born in Chicago on May 30, 1975; she earned her Bachelor of Arts in Anthropology from Stanford University in 1997, where she co-founded Youth United for Community Action, an organization of young people of color who fought for environmental and social justice in East Palo Alto, California; she married Neena Hemmady at the Chicago Teachers Union Jackie Vaughn Hall in August 2019; and

WHEREAS, Amisha Patel began her lifelong work as an organizer through supporting young people in the late 1990s by creating an award-winning documentary directed by the ACVPC Video Team titled Young Azns Rising! Breaking Down Violence Against Women, which was screened at film festivals across the United States and won the Best Documentary category at aMedia's annual Ammy Awards in 2000; her subsequent work as an organizer included projects aimed at combating violence against women and transforming Chicago for working people; and

WHEREAS, Amisha Patel's professional accomplishments included serving as a community coordinator for SEIU Local 73 in Chicago for six years, where she organized hospital employees and Head Start workers into forming a union, and supporting other community organizers in their fight to stop school closures; in 2007, she became executive director for Grassroots Collaborative, a community-labor coalition that builds power with working families to ensure fully funded public education, critical services, and affordable housing; during her 15-year tenure, she brought big changes to the organization, including bringing an unwavering commitment to racial and economic justice, enabling members to build relationships across organizational lines, and creating a new dynamic in the organization that attracted more participants and made more of an impact; and

WHEREAS, Amisha Patel served as a senior advisor for Chicago Mayor-Elect Brandon Johnson's transition committee in 2023, and she also worked on the campaigns of various other progressive candidates for public office as well as community and labor campaigns; she co-founded the United Working Families independent political organization, whose goal is to elect more progressives from Chicago to local, state, and national offices, with candidates including Mayor Johnson and U.S. House Representative Delia Ramirez; she also wrote editorials for Crain's Chicago Business, Bill Moyers, In These Times, and Chicago Sun-Times; and

WHEREAS, Amisha Patel trained thousands of Illinois residents on race, class, and gender issues while fighting for empowering young workers, increasing the minimum wage, and ensuring that TIF money was used for community improvements and education; she organized until her passing, working with a broad-based national coalition to fight authoritarianism and working against the terror that United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) was inflicting in Chicago; and

WHEREAS, Amisha Patel was a fiercely brilliant leader, visionary, and friend who was generous with resources, her time, her mental capacity, her energy, and most of all, her love; she forever changed the City of Chicago, the State of Illinois, and the world through her work as an organizer; her legacy will continue through the Amisha Patel Arts & Organizing Fellowship, a new program established to help support artists who make art for social justice-focused grassroots movements; and

WHEREAS, Amisha Patel was preceded in death by her father; and

WHEREAS, Amisha Patel is survived by her wife; her mother; her children, Ayush Hemmady-Wright and Varsha Hemmady-Wright; her brothers, Nitin (Weiwen) Hemmady and Amit (Vaishali) Patel; her niblings, Vishal Patel, Meridith Embry, Sahil Patel, and Anishi Patel; and countless chosen family members and friends; therefore, be it

RESOLVED, BY THE SENATE OF THE ONE HUNDRED FOURTH GENERAL ASSEMBLY OF THE STATE OF ILLINOIS, that we mourn the passing of longtime Chicago community organizer Amisha Patel and extend our sincere condolences to her family, friends, and all who knew and loved her; and be it further

RESOLVED, That a suitable copy of this resolution be presented to the family of Amisha Patel as an expression of our deepest sympathy.