HR0419

LRB096 12744 GRL 26973 r






1

HOUSE RESOLUTION


 
2
    WHEREAS, The members of the Illinois House of 
3
Representatives are saddened to learn of the death of former 
4
Chicago Alderman Leon Despres, who passed away on May 6, 2009; 
5
and

 
6
    WHEREAS, Leon Despres was born Leon Mathis Despres on 
7
February 2, 1908; he was the son of Samuel and Henrietta 
8
Rubovitz Despres; he married Marian Alschuler on September 10, 
9
1931; and

 
10
    WHEREAS, Leon Despres and his family moved to Hyde Park 
11
when he was three; after beginning his high school education at 
12
Hyde Park High School, his mother decided he wasn't working 
13
hard enough, so she sent him to boarding school in Rome and 
14
then Paris; he then returned to Hyde Park to attend the 
15
University of Chicago; he received his undergraduate degree in 
16
1927 and his law degree in 1929; and

 
17
    WHEREAS, From 1935 to 1937, Leon Despres served as a trial 
18
examiner for the National Labor Relations Board; always a 
19
strong voice for organized labor, in 1937, after police killed 
20
10 demonstrators at a Memorial Day march against Republic 
21
Steel, he helped organize a protest rally that is now regarded 
22
as a seminal event in American labor history and the cause of 
 


 






HR0419
- 2 -
LRB096 12744 GRL 26973 r




1
workers' rights; during this time, he visited Leon Trotsky in 
2
Mexico, a trip that featured him escorting legendary artist 
3
Frida Kahlo to the movies while her husband, Diego Rivera, 
4
painted a portrait of Marian Despres; and

 
5
    WHEREAS, Leon Despres served as general counsel for the 
6
American Civil Liberties Union's Illinois division from 1948 
7
until 1955, when he was elected to serve as alderman of 
8
Chicago's 5th Ward; determined to serve his constituents in the 
9
face of the Chicago machine, he fought bitter election battles 
10
in 1955 and 1959; in 1967, the Chicago machine gave way and he 
11
became the only aldermanic candidate endorsed by both Democrats 
12
and Republicans; after his retirement in 1975, he continued his 
13
active presence in his community and became involved in the 
14
fight against a high-rise condo in his neighborhood; and

 
15
    WHEREAS, Leon Despres often served as the sole voice of 
16
equality and freedom during his tenure on the Chicago City 
17
Council; he voted against the council's ban on the Reverend 
18
Martin Luther King Jr.'s open-occupancy marches in August of 
19
1966, despite the ban's near-unanimous approval; only one other 
20
alderman supported Mr. Despres when he opposed the construction 
21
of new Chicago Housing Authority high-rise buildings, 
22
buildings that would become centers of crime and poverty in the 
23
city for decades; he fought against discrimination in hospital 
24
staff appointments, cemeteries, and housing and opposed de 
 


 






HR0419
- 3 -
LRB096 12744 GRL 26973 r




1
facto school segregation, fights that would gain him long and 
2
hard-earned victories for equality; he was also an early voice 
3
for women's rights and, among his successes, was persuading the 
4
Chicago Transit Authority to hire female bus drivers; and

 
5
    WHEREAS, Leon Despres was well ahead of his time in 
6
advocating important causes regarding the health, heritage, 
7
and rights of all citizens; he was the first to speak openly 
8
about lead paint and the dangers it posed; he drafted Chicago's 
9
first ordinance establishing a landmarks preservation 
10
commission and initiated the fight to save Robie House, a 
11
structure built by Frank Lloyd Wright, from destruction by the 
12
Chicago Theological Seminary; Mr. Despres, along with fellow 
13
Alderman Charles Chew, chartered two airplanes to take 184 
14
people to Alabama to participate in Dr. Martin Luther King's 
15
famous voting rights march from Selma to Montgomery in March of 
16
1965; he fought against official artistic censorship, having 
17
opposed a City Council vote to condemn Wright Junior College 
18
for putting James Baldwin's "Another Country" on the required 
19
reading list of a contemporary literature class; he tried to 
20
end funding to the city panel in charge of determining which 
21
movies could be shown in Chicago; he also fought to abolish the 
22
police department's secret spying unit and urged the Chicago 
23
Housing Authority to consider the use of low-rise, 
24
scattered-site housing for needy Chicago residents; and

 
 


 






HR0419
- 4 -
LRB096 12744 GRL 26973 r




1
    WHEREAS, While Leon Despres fought many lofty and 
2
principled battles, he took great care to ensure that the more 
3
routine requests for services and assistance from his 
4
constituents did not fall by the wayside; the Chicago History 
5
Museum houses his archives, which include the records of 20,000 
6
aldermanic requests he received from constituents, along with 
7
the evidence of his follow-through on every one of them; and
 
8
    WHEREAS, Leon Despres served as parliamentarian for the 
9
Chicago City Council from 1979 to 1987; he also served on the 
10
Chicago Plan Commission during the period; in the last decade, 
11
he returned to the private practice of law; even past 100 years 
12
old, he remained vital and active in the community, listening 
13
to people's problems, speaking before groups, supporting 
14
candidates, fighting on behalf of displaced Chicago Housing 
15
Authority tenants, and writing postcards almost every day to 
16
applaud the good that others were doing; and

 
17
    WHEREAS, Leon Despres published his memoirs, entitled 
18
"Challenging the Daley Machine: A Chicago Alderman's Memoir", 
19
in 2005; and
 
20
    WHEREAS, Leon Despres' wife, Marian, was a remarkable and 
21
accomplished woman in her own right; she helped lead the fight 
22
to integrate the University of Chicago Laboratory Schools, 
23
initiated the Chicago Architecture Foundation's docent 
 


 






HR0419
- 5 -
LRB096 12744 GRL 26973 r




1
program, and was appointed by her former student, former 
2
Chicago Mayor Harold Washington, to the Chicago Landmarks 
3
Commission; and
 
4
    WHEREAS, Leon Despres is survived by his children, Linda 
5
Despres Baskin and Robert Despres, and his grandson, Frederick 
6
Despres; and
 
7
    WHEREAS, Despite regular ridicule and denunciations from 
8
fellow elected officials, Leon Despres unwaveringly maintained 
9
the courage of his convictions; many of his early principled 
10
and progressive humanitarian stands in the face of 
11
full-throated opposition on a variety of issues were, in time, 
12
fully vindicated and came to be widely accepted as correct; the 
13
words written by Robert Whittington more than 450 years ago in 
14
praise of Sir Thomas More apply equally well to Leon Despres, 
15
"...a man of an angel's wit and singular learning. I know not 
16
his fellow. For where is the man of that gentleness, lowliness 
17
and affability? And, as time requireth, a man of marvelous 
18
mirth and pastimes, and sometime of as sad gravity. A man for 
19
all seasons."; therefore, be it

 
20
    RESOLVED, BY THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES OF THE 
21
NINETY-SIXTH GENERAL ASSEMBLY OF THE STATE OF ILLINOIS, that we 
22
mourn, along with his family and friends, the passing of Leon 
23
Despres; and be it further

 
 


 






HR0419
- 6 -
LRB096 12744 GRL 26973 r




1
    RESOLVED, That a suitable copy of this resolution be 
2
presented to the family of Leon Despres as an expression of our 
3
sympathy.