State of Illinois
92nd General Assembly
Legislation

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92_HR1025

 
                                              LRB9217423BHbhB

 1                          HOUSE RESOLUTION

 2        WHEREAS,  The  members   of   the   Illinois   House   of
 3    Representatives  are  saddened  to  learn of the death of Dr.
 4    Arnita Young Boswell, formerly of Chicago,  who  passed  away
 5    July 6, 2002, in Los Angeles, California; and

 6        WHEREAS,  When  Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. led a massive
 7    civil rights demonstration in Chicago in the summer of  1966,
 8    Arnita  Young  Boswell  directed  the women's division of the
 9    march; and

10        WHEREAS, Dr. Boswell  was  a  social  worker,  university
11    professor,  and  titan  in Chicago's social justice arena who
12    helped found the National Hook-Up  of  Black  Women  and  the
13    League of Black Women; and

14        WHEREAS,  The  sister of the late Whitney M. Young Jr., a
15    civil  rights  leader  who  was  executive  director  of  the
16    National Urban  League,  Dr.  Boswell  shared  her  brother's
17    passion for social justice for prisoners, the poor, children,
18    senior citizens, women, Native Americans and many others; and

19        WHEREAS,  Dr. Boswell was born in Detroit, and her family
20    moved to the campus of the  Lincoln  Institute  of  Kentucky,
21    where  her  father,  Whitney  M.  Young Sr., taught and was a
22    principal; her mother, Laura, was the first  African-American
23    female postmistress in the United States; and

24        WHEREAS,  Dr.  Boswell  earned a degree in home economics
25    from Kentucky State University in 1943 and a graduate  degree
26    in  social  work  from  Atlanta University in Georgia; during
27    World War II she joined the American Red Cross, serving as  a
28    recreation director for soldiers stationed in Germany; and

29        WHEREAS,  On  her return, she became a social worker with
30    the Red Cross and was trained to fly by a Tuskegee Airman  at
31    Fisk  University  in  Tennessee,  where  she  met  her  first
 
                            -2-               LRB9217423BHbhB
 1    husband,  William  Yancy  Bell  Jr.;  in  the  mid-1950s, she
 2    married Dr. Paul Boswell, a dermatologist; and

 3        WHEREAS, Dr. Boswell taught social work for 19  years  at
 4    the  University  of  Chicago and later was director of social
 5    services at the University of Illinois  at  Chicago;  in  the
 6    mid-1980s  she  began  work as manager of the Family Resource
 7    Center in the city's Department of Human Services; and

 8        WHEREAS, Dr. Boswell's organization, the National Hook-Up
 9    of  Black  Women,  was  a  support  base  for  black   female
10    activists; she also founded the Chicago-based consulting firm
11    Boswell-Young  & Associates, and her memberships included the
12    Women's Board of the Chicago Urban League, the Alpha Gamma Pi
13    sorority, The Chicago Network, and Protestants for the Common
14    Good; and

15        WHEREAS, Dr. Arnita Boswell will be deeply missed by  all
16    those  who  knew  her and loved her, especially her daughter,
17    Bonnie Boswell, and her husband, Atty. Roderick Hamilton; her
18    sister, Eleanor Love; her two grandsons, Taylor  Whitney  and
19    Evan  Boswell  Hamilton;  and  numerous  family  members  and
20    friends; therefore, be it

21        RESOLVED,   BY   THE  HOUSE  OF  REPRESENTATIVES  OF  THE
22    NINETY-SECOND GENERAL ASSEMBLY OF THE STATE OF ILLINOIS, that
23    we mourn, along with her family and friends, the death of Dr.
24    Arnita Boswell; and be it further

25        RESOLVED, That a suitable  copy  of  this  resolution  be
26    presented  to  the  family  of  Dr.  Arnita  Boswell with our
27    sincere condolences.

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