[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 150 (2004), Part 13]
[House]
[Pages 18437-18438]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                     TRIBUTE TO MR. LUTRELLE PALMER

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Davis) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. DAVIS of Illinois. Mr. Speaker, I rise in tribute to the life and 
legacy of Mr. Lutrelle Palmer, better known as Lu, one of the greatest 
and most prolific journalists known in this country during the last 
half of the 20th century.
  Mr. Palmer was born in 1922 in Newport News, Virginia. He attended 
the local schools, went to Virginia Union where he earned a bachelor's 
degree, then to Syracuse University where he was awarded a master's 
degree in communications. He then went on to the University of Iowa 
where he completed course work for a Ph.D. but lost his dissertation 
materials on a train and consequently never received his doctoral 
degree.
  Lu worked for several newspapers and taught at a number of colleges 
and universities. He wrote for the Chicago Daily Defender, the Chicago 
Courier, the Chicago Daily News, the Tri state Defender, and he 
developed and owned the Chicago Black X Express and wrote freelance 
articles for other newspapers and magazines.
  Lu had a unique and provocative style of writing and was known as 
``the Panther with a pen.'' He spent 50 years informing, stimulating, 
motivating and activating the African American community as a reporter, 
syndicated columnist, newspaper publisher, radio commentator, activist, 
community organizer and political strategist.
  Lu and Vernon Jarrett were black journalistic pioneers in Chicago in 
that they worked for mainline publications and major electronic outlets 
but always returned to the black press. Lu Palmer was a Black 
Nationalist who wrote and spoke eloquently and passionately about black 
plight, black needs, injustice and black hopes.
  During the activist 1960s, Lu's pen and voice were read and heard all 
over America. When the police raided the Black Panther headquarters in 
Chicago and killed Fred Hampton and Mark Clark, Lu's articles were 
scathing. He was a leader in the successful effort to defeat then-Cook 
County State's attorney Edward Hahnrahan.
  As a result of editorial interference, Lu eventually resigned from 
the Daily News and organized his own paper, the Black X Express. 
However, Lu was very selective in the kind of advertising that he would 
accept. Therefore, his paper only survived for a little more than a 
year.
  Lu then got involved with radio journalism and developed Lu's 
Notebook, a hard-hitting editorial newscast which often ended with the 
phrase, ``That's enough to make a Negro turn black.''
  Lu was now, for all practical purposes, a full-time activist. He was 
holding community forums, book reviews and seminars. He organized CBUC, 
Chicago Black United Communities, and then BIPO, Black Independent 
Political Organization, which held political education classes and 
trained hundreds of citizens to better understand and be involved in 
the political process.
  After the death of Mayor Richard J. Daley, black activists and white 
political progressives in Chicago saw a crack in the dominant political 
machine, and Lu Palmer emerged as a leader in the effort to elect a 
black mayor in Chicago. While Lu was characterized as a black 
nationalist, he was also a coalition builder. He played a key role in 
the development of Pro-Can, the Progressive Chicago Area Network, which 
was made up of mostly blacks, young whites and Hispanics whose goals 
were good, clean, progressive and honest government.
  Lu became so obsessed with understanding what a good black mayor 
could mean for Chicago that he was willing to lose sponsorship of his 
radio series, and he did. He organized forums, focus groups, rallies 
and eventually a plebiscite to convince then-Congressman Harold 
Washington to run for mayor. Mayor Jane Byrne had infuriated the black 
community with some of her appointments to the school board and the 
Chicago Housing Authority, plus engineered the loss of Lu's radio 
series sponsorship from which came the slogan, ``We shall see in '83.''
  Harold Washington agreed, ran for mayor and was elected. Lu ran for 
Harold Washington's vacated seat. Harold, as mayor, supported labor 
leader Charles Hayes and Charlie was elected. Lu was always a political 
independent, and after Harold Washington's death, Lu became even more 
disillusioned with local Democrats and helped Republican Jim Edgar to 
become governor of Illinois and had enough influence with the black or 
African American Illinois voters to make it happen.
  Lu eventually became ill and retired from active public life, but 
helped his wife Jorja to operate the MENHELCO Group Home for boys which 
was founded in honor of their son Skipper who suffered from a 
disability and is now deceased.

[[Page 18438]]

  Lu represented the best of what is a husband, father, teacher, 
journalist and lover of freedom, liberation, self-determination and 
race pride could exhibit. He was fiercely black, made no bones about 
it, and often referred to himself as being an African in America.
  He leaves to mourn his wife, Jorja, and their children Trudy Palmer, 
Darien Simon, Karen English, Lu Palmer III, Jamie English, Junior, five 
grandchildren and two great-grandchildren.
  Lu Palmer, a man of principle, a man of the people, for the people 
and of the people. Lu Palmer, a man of greatness.

                          ____________________