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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.