HR0419 96TH GENERAL ASSEMBLY

HR0419 LRB096 12744 GRL 26973 r

HOUSE RESOLUTION

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

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

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

WHEREAS, From 1935 to 1937, Leon Despres served as a trial examiner for the National Labor Relations Board; always a strong voice for organized labor, in 1937, after police killed 10 demonstrators at a Memorial Day march against Republic Steel, he helped organize a protest rally that is now regarded as a seminal event in American labor history and the cause of workers' rights; during this time, he visited Leon Trotsky in Mexico, a trip that featured him escorting legendary artist Frida Kahlo to the movies while her husband, Diego Rivera, painted a portrait of Marian Despres; and

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

WHEREAS, Leon Despres often served as the sole voice of equality and freedom during his tenure on the Chicago City Council; he voted against the council's ban on the Reverend Martin Luther King Jr.'s open-occupancy marches in August of 1966, despite the ban's near-unanimous approval; only one other alderman supported Mr. Despres when he opposed the construction of new Chicago Housing Authority high-rise buildings, buildings that would become centers of crime and poverty in the city for decades; he fought against discrimination in hospital staff appointments, cemeteries, and housing and opposed de facto school segregation, fights that would gain him long and hard-earned victories for equality; he was also an early voice for women's rights and, among his successes, was persuading the Chicago Transit Authority to hire female bus drivers; and

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

WHEREAS, While Leon Despres fought many lofty and principled battles, he took great care to ensure that the more routine requests for services and assistance from his constituents did not fall by the wayside; the Chicago History Museum houses his archives, which include the records of 20,000 aldermanic requests he received from constituents, along with the evidence of his follow-through on every one of them; and

WHEREAS, Leon Despres served as parliamentarian for the Chicago City Council from 1979 to 1987; he also served on the Chicago Plan Commission during the period; in the last decade, he returned to the private practice of law; even past 100 years old, he remained vital and active in the community, listening to people's problems, speaking before groups, supporting candidates, fighting on behalf of displaced Chicago Housing Authority tenants, and writing postcards almost every day to applaud the good that others were doing; and

WHEREAS, Leon Despres published his memoirs, entitled "Challenging the Daley Machine: A Chicago Alderman's Memoir", in 2005; and

WHEREAS, Leon Despres' wife, Marian, was a remarkable and accomplished woman in her own right; she helped lead the fight to integrate the University of Chicago Laboratory Schools, initiated the Chicago Architecture Foundation's docent program, and was appointed by her former student, former Chicago Mayor Harold Washington, to the Chicago Landmarks Commission; and

WHEREAS, Leon Despres is survived by his children, Linda Despres Baskin and Robert Despres, and his grandson, Frederick Despres; and

WHEREAS, Despite regular ridicule and denunciations from fellow elected officials, Leon Despres unwaveringly maintained the courage of his convictions; many of his early principled and progressive humanitarian stands in the face of full-throated opposition on a variety of issues were, in time, fully vindicated and came to be widely accepted as correct; the words written by Robert Whittington more than 450 years ago in praise of Sir Thomas More apply equally well to Leon Despres, "...a man of an angel's wit and singular learning. I know not his fellow. For where is the man of that gentleness, lowliness and affability? And, as time requireth, a man of marvelous mirth and pastimes, and sometime of as sad gravity. A man for all seasons."; 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 and friends, the passing of Leon Despres; and be it further

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