HR0782 LRB093 21701 HSS 49448 r

1
HOUSE RESOLUTION

 
2     WHEREAS, The Illinois Chapters of Delta Sigma Theta
3 Sorority are sponsoring their first annual legislative visit to
4 the State Capitol; and
 
5     WHEREAS, Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc., was founded in
6 1913 at Howard University by 22 African-American women who
7 wanted to use their collective strength to promote academic
8 excellence and to provide assistance to persons in need; and
 
9     WHEREAS, Delta Sigma Theta is an international
10 organization with over 250,000 undergraduate and alumnae
11 members, making it one of the largest women's organizations in
12 the world, with 900 chapters located in the United States,
13 England, Japan, Germany, the Virgin Islands, Bermuda, the
14 Bahamas, and the Republic of Korea; and
 
15     WHEREAS, Delta Sigma Theta is an organization with a
16 commitment to promoting economic development, educational
17 development, physical and mental health, international
18 awareness and involvement, and political awareness and
19 involvement; and
 
20     WHEREAS, Delta Sigma Theta members who have distinguished
21 themselves individually include: Broadway actress Osceola
22 Macarthy Adams; National Bar Association founder Sadie T. M.
23 Alexander, Ph.D.; sculptor and painter Tina Allen; Brigadier
24 General Hazel Johnson Brown, Ph.D., the first African-American
25 woman general in the United States Army; Selma Burke, Ph.D.,
26 whose likeness of President Franklin D. Roosevelt appears on
27 the U.S. dime; Alexa Canady, M.D., at age 26 became the first
28 Black woman neurosurgeon in the U.S.; internationally
29 acclaimed sculptor and lithographer Elizabeth Catlett; Cong.
30 Shirley Chisholm, the first Black woman member of the U.S.
31 Congress and the first African American and first woman to run

 

 

HR0782 - 2 - LRB093 21701 HSS 49448 r

1 as a major party candidate for President; actress and poet Ruby
2 Dee Davis; Myrlie Evers-Williams, Chairman Emerita of the Board
3 for the NAACP; attorney Frankie M. Freeman, former chair of the
4 Civil Rights Commission; Ambassador Patricia Roberts Harris,
5 first Black woman to serve in a presidential cabinet post;
6 Dorothy I. Height, Ph.D., served as president of the National
7 Council of Negro Women for over 40 years; Alexis Herman,
8 Secretary of Labor for President Bill Clinton; author Darlene
9 Clark Hine, Ph.D.; Shirley Jackson, Ph.D., President of
10 Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, first African-American woman
11 to earn a Ph.D. from Massachusetts Institute of Technology (in
12 1973), and first African-American woman to serve on the United
13 States Nuclear Regulatory Commission; Elaine R. Jones, first
14 African-American woman elected to the American Bar Association
15 Board of Governors; Barbara Jordan, first African American to
16 serve in the U.S. congress from the South since reconstruction
17 and the first Black woman to preside over a state senate; Jewel
18 S. Lafontant, the first American woman to be admitted into the
19 International Academy of Trial Lawyers and the first female
20 Deputy Solicitor General of the U.S. during the Nixon
21 Administration; Cong. Carrie P. Meek, Florida; Emmy award
22 winning AIDS activist Rae Lewis-Thornton; Cong. Stephanie
23 Tubbs-Jones, Ohio; and Ambassador Carol Mosely Braun, former
24 U.S. Senator from Illinois; therefore, be it
 
25     RESOLVED, BY THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES OF THE
26 NINETY-THIRD GENERAL ASSEMBLY OF THE STATE OF ILLINOIS, that
27 the members of this Body, in recognition of the achievements of
28 the members of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc., and the values
29 for which they strive, do proclaim Wednesday, March 31, 2004,
30 as the First Annual Delta Sigma Theta Day throughout the State
31 of Illinois; and be it further
 
32     RESOLVED, That a suitable copy of this resolution be
33 presented to Gwendolyn E. Boyd, international president of
34 Delta Sigma Theta, Inc.