Dorothy Jean Tillman (née Wright; May 12, 1947) is an American politician, civil rights activist and former

Chicago, Illinois (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name ...

alderman An alderman is a member of a municipal assembly or council in many jurisdictions founded upon English law. The term may be titular, denoting a high-ranking member of a borough or county council, a council member chosen by the elected members ...

. Tillman served as the alderman of the city's 3rd Ward
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from 1985 until 2007. A member of the Democratic Party, representing part of the city's South Side in the

Chicago City Council The Chicago City Council is the legislative branch of the government of the City of Chicago in Illinois. It consists of 50 alderpersons elected from 50 wards to serve four-year terms. The council is gaveled into session regularly, usually mon ...

. As an Alderman, Tillman was a strong advocate of

reparations for slavery Reparations for slavery is the application of the concept of reparations to victims of slavery and/or their descendants. There are concepts for reparations in legal philosophy and reparations in transitional justice. Reparations can take numer ...

. In April 2007, Tillman was defeated in a runoff election by challenger

Pat Dowell Pat Dowell is a member of the Chicago City Council representing the City of Chicago's 3rd ward in Cook County, Illinois. Dowell was elected in April 2007 in a runoff election against incumbent Dorothy Tillman. Dowell had lost to Tillman in 2003 ...

. Tillman defeated Dowell in 2003. Prior to her career as an alderman, Tillman was active in the

Civil Rights Movement The civil rights movement was a nonviolent social and political movement and campaign from 1954 to 1968 in the United States to abolish legalized institutional racial segregation, discrimination, and disenfranchisement throughout the Unite ...

, working for Martin Luther King Jr.'s

Southern Christian Leadership Conference The Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) is an African-American civil rights organization based in Atlanta, Georgia. SCLC is closely associated with its first president, Martin Luther King Jr., who had a large role in the American civ ...

(SCLC) as an

activist Activism (or Advocacy) consists of efforts to promote, impede, direct or intervene in social, political, economic or environmental reform with the desire to make changes in society toward a perceived greater good. Forms of activism range fro ...

. Tillman was known for wearing large hats and has cultivated this image as her trademark.

Biography

Civil rights movement

Tillman was born as Dorothy Jean Wright in

Montgomery, Alabama Montgomery is the capital city of the U.S. state of Alabama and the county seat of Montgomery County, Alabama, Montgomery County. Named for the Irish soldier Richard Montgomery, it stands beside the Alabama River, on the Gulf Coastal Plain, coas ...

to James Wright, a local handyman and Edna Mae Struggs (formerly Wright; d. November 30, 2009). Tillman's parents divorced when she was a child which resulted in her spending her childhood between Montgomery with her father and

Pensacola, Florida Pensacola () is the westernmost city in the Florida Panhandle, and the county seat and only incorporated city of Escambia County, Florida, United States. As of the 2020 United States census, the population was 54,312. Pensacola is the principal c ...

, where her mother had remarried and relocated to. Tillman joined the

(SCLC) as a trainee and field staff organizer in 1963. Tillman marched with Martin Luther King Jr. and was among the SCLC Field Staff to cross the

Edmund Pettus Bridge The Edmund Pettus Bridge carries U.S. Route 80 Business (US 80 Bus.) across the Alabama River in Selma, Alabama. Built in 1940, it is named after Edmund Pettus, a former Confederate brigadier general, U.S. senator, and state-level ...

Selma, Alabama Selma is a city in and the county seat of Dallas County, in the Black Belt region of south central Alabama and extending to the west. Located on the banks of the Alabama River, the city has a population of 17,971 as of the 2020 census. Abo ...

in the

Selma to Montgomery marches The Selma to Montgomery marches were three protest marches, held in 1965, along the 54-mile (87 km) highway from Selma, Alabama, to the state capital of Montgomery. The marches were organized by nonviolent activists to demonstrate the ...

on 7 March 1965. Tillman had her first involvement in Chicago politics later in 1965 when King sent her there to campaign for better housing, education and employment conditions for blacks. This campaign marked the start of King's effort to improve socio-economic conditions for blacks. Tillman was involved in organizing King's move into a Chicago tenement in early 1966 and the launch of his campaign in July 1966. By 1967, Tillman and her husband, Jimmy, moved to

San Francisco San Francisco (; Spanish for " Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the fourth most populous in California and 17t ...

shortly after their marriage and became involved in a successful campaign to improve public transport services to their neighborhood. Tillman and her husband later returned to Chicago where she became involved in educational issues. Tillman founded the Parent Equalizers of Chicago, which eventually became active in 300 schools across the city, setting the groundwork for school reform in Chicago. The momentum created by several successful grassroots campaigns Tillman helped organize led to the election of Chicago’s first

African American African Americans (also referred to as Black Americans and Afro-Americans) are an ethnic group consisting of Americans with partial or total ancestry from sub-Saharan Africa. The term "African American" generally denotes descendants of ens ...

mayor, Harold Washington in 1983.

Chicago Alderman (1985–2007)

Dorothy Tillman was appointed by Mayor Harold Washington and later elected as an alderman representing the city's third ward in February 1985, being the first woman elected for that ward. Tillman pioneered the first TIF to be used in the black community, with the construction of the 55th and Dan Ryan shopping center. She helped to found the African American Home Builders Association and advocated for a 70/30 plan to make certain that African Americans received the majority of the contracts. Amid the Democratic primary of the 1989 Chicago mayoral special election, in which she was supporting Timothy C. Evans, Tillman called incumbent mayor Eugene Sawyer an "

Uncle Tom Uncle Tom is the title character of Harriet Beecher Stowe's 1852 novel, '' Uncle Tom's Cabin''. The character was seen by many readers as a ground-breaking humanistic portrayal of a slave, one who uses nonresistance and gives his life to prot ...

". In July 1988, after months of attacks on him from Tillman, Evans himself, and other allies of Evans such as Bobby Rush, Sawyer retaliated by stripping them of their committee chairmanships in a City Council restructuring. In this, Tillman was removed as chairman of the Housing Committee. In 2000, Tillman requested that two waiters at the Palmer House hotel in Chicago be replaced with African-American waiters for a banquet hosted by Alderman Tillman. Chicago mayor

Richard M. Daley Richard Michael Daley (born April 24, 1942) is an American politician who served as the 54th mayor of Chicago, Illinois, from 1989 to 2011. Daley was elected mayor in 1989 and was reelected five times until declining to run for a seventh term ...

delivered a strongly worded rebuke in the media. Tillman was an advocate of reparations for

slavery Slavery and enslavement are both the state and the condition of being a slave—someone forbidden to quit one's service for an enslaver, and who is treated by the enslaver as property. Slavery typically involves slaves being made to perf ...

and was successful in having a number of resolutions passed in support of the concept. She authored a bill, passed unanimously in 2002, forcing companies who perform contracts with the council to declare any past ties with slavery. In early 2005, Tillman led a campaign against a $500 million refinancing deal with the

Bank of America The Bank of America Corporation (often abbreviated BofA or BoA) is an American multinational investment bank and financial services holding company headquartered at the Bank of America Corporate Center in Charlotte, North Carolina. The bank ...

because of its alleged links with slavery. In the case of the Bank of America, these links are allegedly through FleetBoston Financial, a company which it acquired in 2004. Providene, a predecessor of Fleet Boston, was supposedly founded by a slave owner in 1791. During one loud session of the City Council, Tillman gained the attention of the entire floor when she produced a pistol from her handbag and brandished it about. This led some aldermen and Chicago citizens to call for a censure on Tillman's professional ethics, and possible mandatory

gun safety Gun safety is the study and practice of using, transporting, storing and disposing of firearms and ammunition, including the training of gun users, the design of weapons, and formal and informal regulation of gun production, distribution, and u ...

training. Tillman has been involved in the Harold Washington Cultural Center (HWCC) since its inception. A 2006 three-part investigative report by the Chicago local paper ''Lakefront Outlook'' reported accounting irregularities and conflicts of interest by Tillman and her family. Despite the controversy and his stand on

ethics Ethics or moral philosophy is a branch of philosophy that "involves systematizing, defending, and recommending concepts of right and wrong behavior".''Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy'' The field of ethics, along with aesthetics, concer ...

reform,

U.S. Senator The United States Senate is the upper chamber of the United States Congress, with the House of Representatives being the lower chamber. Together they compose the national bicameral legislature of the United States. The composition and power ...

Barack Obama Barack Hussein Obama II ( ; born August 4, 1961) is an American politician who served as the 44th president of the United States from 2009 to 2017. A member of the Democratic Party (United States), Democratic Party, Obama was the first Af ...

endorsed Tillman in her 2007 election noting she was an early supporter of his. Although she had the backing of Chicago's Mayor Richard Daley, Tillman was not able to achieve a majority of votes in Chicago's non-partisan aldermanic election in February 2007. As a result, Tillman stood in a runoff election against challenger

. Dowell took 54 percent of the vote to 46 percent for Tillman. During a heated debate between Tillman and Dowell on April 3, 2007, Dowell charged Tillman with failing to produce business growth beyond the street corner where her ward office was located and stated "I will be the change agent," after which Tillman's daughter (and political staffer) shouted out "A white man agent!"

Personal

Tillman has been married once and has five children. Tillman married Jimmy Lee Tillman, a musician circa 1967. Together they had five children including Jimmy Lee Tillman Jr. (b. 1968) who ran for U.S. Congress in 2014, and Ebony Tillman who challenged third ward alderman

in 2011. In October 2008 Tillman was convicted for criminal trespassing at an Alabama hospital in March 2008. A dispute over medical records escalated and the police were called. Tillman claims she was brutalized by the police. She was fined and received a suspended sentence. Her lawyer stated that an appeal is planned. The charge was eventually dropped as part of a settlement with the hospital.

References

External links