Black, Timuel Dixon,
Jr., 1918-2021, American social activist and community
organizer, b. Birmingham, Al., Roosevelt Univ. (B.A., 1952), Univ. of
Chicago (M.A., 1954). Black's family migrated north to Chicago soon after he
was born. After serving in World War II, he attended college studying
sociology and history, and then taught at local high schools. Inspired by
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., he
became involved in the civil rights movement in the mid-'50s, helping to
organize Chicago residents for King's March on Washington (1963). He became
a powerful figure in local politics on Chicago's Southside, encouraging
Harold Washingtonto run
for mayor in 1982, advising Rev. Jesse Jackson on his 2004 and 2008
presidential campaigns, and training a young Barack Obama when Obama was beginning his career
as a community organizer. Black opposed Illinois's use of punch card ballets
primarily in minority neighborhoods during the 2000 Presidential elections,
serving as plaintiff in the lawsuit Black v.
McGuffage (2002) that led to their
elimination. He spent his final years compiling a large oral history of the
Black migration to Chicago.
See his memoir Sacred Ground: The Chicago Streets of Timuel
Black (2019, with S. Klonsky); Bridges of Memory:
Chicago's First Wave of Migration (2003), Bridges of
Memory: Chicago's Second Wave of Migration (2008).
The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia, 6th ed. Copyright © 2024, Columbia University Press. All rights reserved.
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