[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 154 (2008), Part 1]
[Senate]
[Page 511]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                        TRIBUTE TO JOHN STROGER

  Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, tomorrow, the city of Chicago and Cook 
County, IL, will say goodbye to a legend.
  John Stroger was born into poverty in Arkansas at the start of the 
Great Depression. He lived to become the first African American ever 
elected president of the Board of Commissioners of Cook County, IL. He 
lived to be one of the most powerful politicians in my home State.
  He died at 8 o'clock last Friday morning from complications of a 
stroke he suffered almost 2 years ago and from which he never fully 
recovered.
  John Stroger was 78 years old.
  Mayor Daley confirmed the passing of John Stroger at a prayer 
breakfast on that day when we were honoring Dr. Martin Luther King. 
What a fitting coincidence. Dr. King had told us:

       Everybody can be great, because everyone can serve.

  John Stroger spent his life serving.
  John Stroger was a grandson of former slaves who believed in the 
promise of America and believed that government can and should be a 
force for progress.
  He was a man of compassion, integrity, great humor, and great 
political skill. He used all of those qualities to help others.
  He spent his political life breaking down racial barriers and working 
to lift up those who were less fortunate. His lifelong commitment to 
serve those who struggle every day to find affordable, quality medical 
care will certainly be his legacy.
  Many years ago, John Stroger befriended me when I was an unknown 
candidate from Springfield with a few friends in the Chicago political 
world. For me, John Stroger was more than an ally. He was a great 
friend.
  He was also a man of strong opinions. Our mutual friend, Congressman 
Danny Davis of Illinois, once joked that John Stroger ``would argue 
with a signpost.'' But he never held grudges. He was a real gentleman.
  He was also a champion for working families and the poor. As Cook 
County board president from 1994 to 2006, John Stroger opened doors of 
opportunity in government and business for women and minorities and 
improved the county's bond rating.
  He made county government more responsive by changing the way 
commissioners are elected.
  He created a special domestic violence court.
  And then there is the achievement of which he was probably most 
proud: the construction in the year 2002 of a state-of-the-art hospital 
to serve the poor, the uninsured, and the underserved of Cook County 
and the Chicagoland area.
  At a time when public hospitals across America are having to turn 
people away, John Stroger still believed that every person deserved the 
dignity and security of basic health care and lifesaving medicine.
  The Chicago Sun Times noted:

       John Stroger was so much larger than life they did not even 
     wait until he was dead to put his name on the Cook County 
     Hospital he defied the critics to build.

  The John H. Stroger Hospital of Cook County, IL, is just one way that 
the legacy of this remarkable man will continue to serve the people and 
city he loved for years to come.
  Mr. President, I remember when John Stroger decided that this 
hospital was going to be built. There were scores of critics. Why in 
the world would we want to build a hospital for poor people? John 
Stroger knew the answer to that question. It was an answer from his 
heart: Because that is what America does. America cares for the poor. 
America provides the poor in Cook County and all across our Nation with 
the same kind of quality care that we all want for our families.
  John Stroger knew that. His battle for that hospital ended up in one 
of the great success stories of public life in Illinois.
  John Stroger was born in 1929 in Helena, AR--the oldest of four kids. 
His father was a tailor, his mother worked as a maid. The family lived 
in a three-room shack with no electricity and no indoor plumbing.
  John Stroger later described it for a Sun Times reporter when he 
said: ``We didn't have any boots, and we didn't have any straps.''
  He graduated from Xavier College in New Orleans in 1952 with a degree 
in business administration. He was proud of Xavier to the last day I 
ever spoke to him. He always spoke with great pride about that college. 
He moved back to Arkansas and spent a year teaching high school math 
and coaching basketball. When he came home one day, his mom had packed 
a suitcase. She told him she had arranged for him to move to Chicago 
because there would be more opportunities for a young black man.
  John Stroger had caught the political bug years earlier. After 
hearing a speaker in Arkansas say that the election of President Harry 
Truman would lead to full rights for African Americans, he had 
organized voters and tried to persuade them to pay the poll tax so they 
could vote.
  In Chicago, there was no poll tax, but there were other obstacles to 
full political participation for African Americans in the 1950s. Over 
the next four decades, John Stroger fought them all.
  In 1968, he was named Democratic committeeman for South Side's Eighth 
ward--the first African-American committeeman for that famous ward. Two 
years later, John was elected to the Cook County Board. In 1994, he 
became board president. He was running for his fourth term in 2006 when 
he suffered a stroke a week before the primary.
  John was my friend. The last picture we had taken together was at the 
St. Patrick's Day march, a legendary march in Chicago. There was John, 
with his big smile and big green sash, standing next to me and Mayor 
Daley. I am going to treasure that photo. I think it was one of the 
last taken of John as a candidate.
  After he suffered a stroke, the Chicago Tribune ran an editorial that 
read, in part:

       If John Stroger ever anticipated a career farewell, he 
     surely saw himself shaking hands with everyone--his allies, 
     his adversaries, the bypassers captivated if only for a 
     moment by one of the more genuine personalities in Chicago 
     politics.

  The Tribune went on to write:

       But he likely didn't anticipate a farewell. He wouldn't 
     have enjoyed those elaborate exercises in staged finality. 
     Politics and governance were his life; an intimate says the 
     prospect of retirement unnerved him. Even in this awkward 
     moment, we know he leaves public office just as he occupied 
     it: Without a grudge, without a complaint, and with precious 
     few regrets.

  Those were the words of the Chicago Tribune, not always John 
Stroger's political friend.
  The mayor and Members of Congress and the city council and even a 
former President of the United States have praised John Stroger's life 
and legacy these past days--and rightly so. But I think the eulogy John 
Stroger would have liked best wasn't offered by a politician.
  Clyde Black runs a shoeshine operation in the City Hall-County 
Building complex in Chicago. Years ago, John Stroger gave him a helping 
hand to start his little business. As word of President Stroger's death 
spread last Friday, Clyde Black told a reporter:

       He changed my life--made me a better person. He's someone 
     we all dearly miss a lot.

  It is a sentiment I and many others share.
  I offer my deep condolences to President Stroger's family, especially 
his wife Yonnie. What a wonderful woman, by his side throughout his 
political life and by his bedside as his illness lingered on for years; 
their daughter Yonnie Clark; their son and my friend Cook County Board 
President Todd Stroger, his family; and their two grandchildren. 
America and the State of Illinois have lost a great leader and I have 
lost a great friend.
  I yield the floor.

                          ____________________