By Sydney Armstrong
Timuel Black, ST-70000678, Chicago Sun-Times collection, Chicago History Museum
Of all the people that bent “the moral arc of the universe” in Chicago politics, perhaps Timuel Black was most deserving of the phrase. Born Timuel Dixon Black Jr., he rose from the streets of Chicago to become an educator, author, historian, war hero and civil rights advocate. A native of Alabama, Black grew up in Chicago after his parents moved there during the Great Migration and studied the annals of African American history in that city. After serving in World War II, where he was decorated with the Croix de Guerre, four Battle Stars and the Legion of Honour, he became a teacher at Roosevelt High School in Indiana and DuSable High School in Chicago, his alma mater.
“I’ve had students who were successful, white and black and they remember when I inserted black history into American history,” said Black with a chuckle.
Black became active in the Civil Rights movement in the 1960s. He was elected President of the Negro American Labor Council, Chicago chapter and organized Chicago participation in the March on Washington in 1963.
“(It was the) younger people who were affected. We brought them together and they did the work of organizing (for the March and the civil rights movement in general). They did the work. We got the credit.” (laughs) said Black, in an interview done by UIC Great Cities Institute for the 50th anniversary of the Kerner Report in 2009. “The famous people who were with us on the March, Mahalia Jackson and others, were well known supporters of Dr. King. Dr. King stimulated us—he made people like me feel obligated to bring about change..when he articulated what we already felt, he became our leader.”
Later, he ran against Claude Holman in the 1963 municipal elections but was unsuccessful, for Holman was aligned with Mayor Richard Daley. Throughout his career, he also did oral histories “in the style of Studs Terkel”, mostly of the experiences of the African American people during the Great Migration. “My family came to Chicago only a month after the race riots of 1919,” he said. Such experiences played a large part in his becoming a civil rights activist and advocate for change.
In 1983, Black approached Harold Washington, then a U.S. Congressman, about running for Mayor of Chicago. Black was working on Washington’s Congressional campaign at the time. Washington demurred, saying if Black and his friends could organize at least 100,000 voters and raise a million dollars, he might consider it. Thoroughly motivated, Black set out to do just that. He and John Johnson, publisher of Ebony magazine, and other friends and contacts, promptly
registered 100,000 Chicago voters and raised $1,000,000. After doing so, Black, in a triumphant phone call to Washington, crowed, “Well, man, what you gonna do?” Washington laughed and said, “I guess I gotta run.” He did and with the aid of Timuel Black and other supporters was elected the first African American mayor in Chicago history, serving faithfully until his untimely death in 1987.
In one of his last interviews, Timuel Black left one final statement, a statement on the future he would most likely never see. When asked if he had hope, he replies,
“Absolutely!… I have hope. And what I want to do when I have the opportunity…(is) to transfer that history that I lived and that older people lived to younger people so they will realize that hopes and dreams, positive hopes and dreams prepare this world for the future…”
After a long life of activism and advocacy for positive change, Timuel Black died in October, 2021, at the age of 102.
Thanks to WGN TV interview, UIC Great Cities Institute (interview recorded March 1, 2018), Oral History with Timuel Black; Chicago History Museum.
