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Adelbert H. Roberts
American politician (1866–1937) From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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Adelbert H. Roberts (August 20, 1866 – January 26, 1937) was an American politician and attorney[1] who in 1924 became the first African American to serve in the Illinois Senate.[2]
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Roberts was born August 20, 1866, in Decatur, Michigan.[3] He graduated from high school at 17 and became a teacher. He took Ph.D. coursework at University of Michigan before attending Northwestern University School of Law. In 1895, he married Lula Wiley with whom he would have four children.[4]
In 1918, Roberts, a skilled orator,[1] was elected to the Illinois House of Representatives as a Republican. After the Chicago race riot of 1919, Governor Frank Orren Lowden's appointed Roberts, then in his second term on the Senate,[1] to the Chicago Commission on Race Relations created in response to the incident.[5] He used the position to "urge action to address labor and housing discrimination in Chicago".[1] His civil rights activism extended to his being a close friend of civil rights pioneer Booker T. Washington.[1]
Said to be concerned with the morals of those he represented,[4] he was on the Liquor Commission.[6] He was appointed to the Illinois Senate in 1924 to fill a vacancy and elected to the Senate in 1926 and 1930 where he served as chairman of the criminal procedures committee.[5] During his tenure in the Senate, he was a resident of the Douglas community area (the 3rd district).[3][7] In 1987,[1] a statue honoring him was commissioned and displayed on the second floor of the state capitol rotunda.[5][7][2]
Roberts died January 26, 1937, in Chicago.[8]
In 1984, Senator Margaret Smith and Representative Howard B. Brookins Sr. successfully campaigned to have a statue of Roberts installed in the Capitol rotunda.[5]
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