HR0079 97TH GENERAL ASSEMBLY

HR0079 LRB097 10491 KXB 50904 r

HOUSE RESOLUTION

WHEREAS, The members of the Illinois House of Representatives are saddened to learn of the death of Irving Maurice King of Chicago on February 6, 2011; and

WHEREAS, Mr. King was born on July 22, 1931 in Ashland, Virginia, the youngest of six children of Charles Henry King and Martha Bradby King, Native Americans descended from the Chickahominy, Cherokee, and Pamunkey nations; and

WHEREAS, Growing up during a time of racial segregation, Mr. King attended African-American schools, married an African-American woman, and considered himself black; and

WHEREAS, Mr. King, not allowed to attend schools closer to his home, graduated from Virginia Randolph Community High School in Henrico County and received a four-year scholarship to Hampton Institute, a historically black college where he graduated with honors with a degree in English, received a John Hay Whitney Fellowship to Yale Law School, and met his future wife of 60 years, Lillian; and

WHEREAS, Mr. King was inspired to go to law school by his admiration for the NAACP's chief counsel, Thurgood Marshall, and was among three African-Americans listed in Yale Law School's graduating class of 1958; and

WHEREAS, When recruiters from law firms came to Yale, they liked Mr. King but they would not hire him because of his race; one of his Yale professors saw the barriers Mr. King was facing and put in a call to the Chicago law firm of Eugene Cotton; Cotton offered Mr. King a job and eventually he became a partner and the firm added his name to become Cotton, Watt, Jones and King; and

WHEREAS, Mr. King fought for workers' rights and civil rights for more than 50 years, often taking cases pro bono; he handled landmark cases including an Iowa packinghouse case that contributed to a National Labor Relations Board requirement that unionized firms must bargain with workers before relocating; he worked with legendary civil rights leader Fannie Lou Hamer to challenge voting rights violations against African-Americans in Mississippi; and he helped win a pioneering sex-discrimination case against a major airline when it fired a female flight attendant for getting married; and

WHEREAS, Mr. King liked fishing in Wisconsin and he loved music, especially Beethoven and Mahler; and

WHEREAS, Mr. King is survived by his wife, Lillian; his sons, Michael and Alan; his daughter, Karen; his sisters, Alma Winston and Verna Gray; his three granddaughters; and his great-granddaughter; therefore, be it

RESOLVED, BY THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES OF THE NINETY-SEVENTH GENERAL ASSEMBLY OF THE STATE OF ILLINOIS, that we mourn, along with his family and friends, the passing of Irving King; and be it further

RESOLVED, That a suitable copy of this resolution be presented to the family of Irving King as a symbol of our deepest sympathies and great esteem.