SR1738 99TH GENERAL ASSEMBLY

SR1738 LRB099 21340 GRL 47162 r

SENATE RESOLUTION

WHEREAS, The members of the Illinois Senate are saddened to learn of the death of Dr. Quentin Young, who passed away on March 7, 2016 at the age of 92; and

WHEREAS, Dr. Quentin Young, the son of immigrants, was born on September 5, 1923; he grew up on Chicago's South Side and graduated from Hyde Park High School; and

WHEREAS, Dr. Quentin Young became a knowledgeable and sought-after physician, but also a passionate advocate for public health reform, civil rights, anti-poverty initiatives, workers' rights, and health care as a human right; and

WHEREAS, Dr. Quentin Young served in the United States Army during World War II; he received a bachelor's degree from the University of Chicago and earned his degree in medicine from Northwestern University; and

WHEREAS, Dr. Quentin Young began his medical training at Cook County Hospital and returned, after a stint at Michael Reese Hospital, to become its Chairman of Medicine; and

WHEREAS, Even as he sought to improve health care and social services in underserved areas of Chicago, Dr. Quentin Young threw himself into the fight for civil rights wherever it was waged, registering African-American voters in Mississippi during the Freedom Summer, marching from Selma to Montgomery in 1965, founding the Medical Committee for Human Rights to provide health care to civil rights activists, campaign volunteers, and anti-war protesters, and demonstrating for the desegregation of public schools; and

WHEREAS, Though an accomplished physician and community leader, Dr. Quentin Young never let professional ambitions override an opportunity to do justice, as he was twice terminated from (then re-hired to) his administrative post at the Cook County Hospital as a result of disputes with its governing body, including over working conditions for young staff doctors; and

WHEREAS, Dr. Quentin Young served as president of the Chicago Board of Health and the American Public Health Association and co-founded the Health and Medicine Policy Research Group; and

WHEREAS, Dr. Quentin Young was a lifelong advocate for single-payer health care and continued to draw attention to this cause into his later years, including by walking 167 miles across Illinois in 2001 at the age of 77; and

WHEREAS, Among Dr. Quentin Young's well-known patients were Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Chicago Mayor Harold Washington, Studs Terkel, Mike Royko, Illinois Governor Pat Quinn, and President Barack Obama; and

WHEREAS, Dr. Quentin Young's family members were partners with him in his activism, as he frequently took his five children with him to demonstrations and was accompanied by his wife Ruth on his march for universal health care; and

WHEREAS, Dr. Quentin Young is lovingly remembered as a passionate, inspirational, energetic, and generous man whose legacy is a credit to Hyde Park, Chicago, and Illinois; therefore, be it

RESOLVED, BY THE SENATE OF THE NINETY-NINTH GENERAL ASSEMBLY OF THE STATE OF ILLINOIS, that we, along with his family and friends, mourn the passing of Dr. Quentin Young; and be it further

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