HR0782 93RD GENERAL ASSEMBLY

HR0782 LRB093 21701 HSS 49448 r

HOUSE RESOLUTION

WHEREAS, The Illinois Chapters of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority are sponsoring their first annual legislative visit to the State Capitol; and

WHEREAS, Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc., was founded in 1913 at Howard University by 22 African-American women who wanted to use their collective strength to promote academic excellence and to provide assistance to persons in need; and

WHEREAS, Delta Sigma Theta is an international organization with over 250,000 undergraduate and alumnae members, making it one of the largest women's organizations in the world, with 900 chapters located in the United States, England, Japan, Germany, the Virgin Islands, Bermuda, the Bahamas, and the Republic of Korea; and

WHEREAS, Delta Sigma Theta is an organization with a commitment to promoting economic development, educational development, physical and mental health, international awareness and involvement, and political awareness and involvement; and

WHEREAS, Delta Sigma Theta members who have distinguished themselves individually include: Broadway actress Osceola Macarthy Adams; National Bar Association founder Sadie T. M. Alexander, Ph.D.; sculptor and painter Tina Allen; Brigadier General Hazel Johnson Brown, Ph.D., the first African-American woman general in the United States Army; Selma Burke, Ph.D., whose likeness of President Franklin D. Roosevelt appears on the U.S. dime; Alexa Canady, M.D., at age 26 became the first Black woman neurosurgeon in the U.S.; internationally acclaimed sculptor and lithographer Elizabeth Catlett; Cong. Shirley Chisholm, the first Black woman member of the U.S. Congress and the first African American and first woman to run as a major party candidate for President; actress and poet Ruby Dee Davis; Myrlie Evers-Williams, Chairman Emerita of the Board for the NAACP; attorney Frankie M. Freeman, former chair of the Civil Rights Commission; Ambassador Patricia Roberts Harris, first Black woman to serve in a presidential cabinet post; Dorothy I. Height, Ph.D., served as president of the National Council of Negro Women for over 40 years; Alexis Herman, Secretary of Labor for President Bill Clinton; author Darlene Clark Hine, Ph.D.; Shirley Jackson, Ph.D., President of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, first African-American woman to earn a Ph.D. from Massachusetts Institute of Technology (in 1973), and first African-American woman to serve on the United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission; Elaine R. Jones, first African-American woman elected to the American Bar Association Board of Governors; Barbara Jordan, first African American to serve in the U.S. congress from the South since reconstruction and the first Black woman to preside over a state senate; Jewel S. Lafontant, the first American woman to be admitted into the International Academy of Trial Lawyers and the first female Deputy Solicitor General of the U.S. during the Nixon Administration; Cong. Carrie P. Meek, Florida; Emmy award winning AIDS activist Rae Lewis-Thornton; Cong. Stephanie Tubbs-Jones, Ohio; and Ambassador Carol Mosely Braun, former U.S. Senator from Illinois; therefore, be it

RESOLVED, BY THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES OF THE NINETY-THIRD GENERAL ASSEMBLY OF THE STATE OF ILLINOIS, that the members of this Body, in recognition of the achievements of the members of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc., and the values for which they strive, do proclaim Wednesday, March 31, 2004, as the First Annual Delta Sigma Theta Day throughout the State of Illinois; and be it further

RESOLVED, That a suitable copy of this resolution be presented to Gwendolyn E. Boyd, international president of Delta Sigma Theta, Inc.