HR1453 96TH GENERAL ASSEMBLY

HR1453 LRB096 24182 KXB 43621 r

HOUSE RESOLUTION

WHEREAS, The members of the Illinois House of Representatives are saddened to learn of the death of Bishop Arthur M. Brazier of Chicago, who passed away on October 22, 2010; and

WHEREAS, He was born in Hyde Park, was forced out of high school by the Depression, and worked in a laundry until he was drafted into the United States Army in 1942, where he earned a staff sergeant's stripes serving in a trucking company in India and Burma; after the war, he took a high school correspondence course and became a minister in 1951 while working as a letter carrier; he graduated from the Moody Bible Institute in 1956 after 6 years of night school; and

WHEREAS, He was the founding president of The Woodlawn Organization and went from picketing Mayor Richard J. Daley to being appointed by Mayor Daley's son to sit on the board of the Public Building Commission; and

WHEREAS, Pastor Emeritus of the Apostolic Church of God, he became a Bishop in the Pentecostal Assemblies of the World, helped bring the Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. to Chicago in 1966, and was a friend and onetime tennis partner of President Obama; and

WHEREAS, In the 1960s, he started working with community organizer Saul Alinsky and helped found The Woodlawn Organization to battle slumlords and the University of Chicago's efforts to displace Blacks south of 61st Street; Bishop Brazier also helped organize a boycott of Chicago Public Schools to protest the concentration of Black students in mobile classrooms; Bishop Brazier joined forces with Johnson Publishing Company founder John H. Johnson, Chicago Urban League president Edwin C. "Bill" Berry, and other prominent leaders to unite Chicagoans around the fight for civic and economic equality; and

WHEREAS, In 1969, Bishop Brazier went to work for a national group, Citizens Crusade Against Poverty, and a year later, resigned from The Woodlawn Organization; working for Citizens Crusade while based in Chicago, he consulted with community groups across the country on housing and commercial redevelopment, remaining active in the Woodlawn community; and

WHEREAS, Bishop Brazier was founder of the Woodlawn Preservation and Investment Corporation, which acquired city property at little cost, building low and mixed-income housing; he was also chairman of the Fund for Community Development, and fought to tear down the dilapidated and unused elevated structure that then stretched along 63rd Street from Cottage Grove to Dorchester; after it's demolition, he built a new church complex at 63rd and Dorchester, which many of his congregants call the "Miracle on 63rd"; he retired from the church two years ago; and

WHEREAS, Bishop Arthur M. Brazier is survived by his wife, Esther Isabelle Brazier; his son, Reverend Byron T. Brazier; his daughters, Lola Hillman, Janice Dortch, and Rosalyn Shepherd; his 7 grandchildren and 11 great-grandchildren, and his godson, Tyrone Stoudemire; therefore, be it

RESOLVED, BY THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES OF THE NINETY-SIXTH GENERAL ASSEMBLY OF THE STATE OF ILLINOIS, that we mourn, along with his family, friends, and congregation, the passing of Bishop Arthur M. Brazier; and be it further

RESOLVED, That a suitable copy of this resolution be presented to the family of Bishop Arthur M. Brazier as a symbol of our sincere sympathy.