[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 162 (2016), Part 3]
[Senate]
[Pages 2922-2923]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                    REMEMBERING DOCTOR QUENTIN YOUNG

  Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, I would like to take a few minutes to talk 
about an extraordinary person who passed away on Monday, March 7, at 
the age of 92. Dr. Quentin Young was a dedicated physician and an 
advocate for civil rights in Chicago.
  Some of Dr. Quentin's patients included the Rev. Martin Luther King, 
Jr., the Beatles, Studs Terkel, the late Mayor Harold Washington, and 
even President Obama.
  Dr. Young's commitment to the common good is what makes him a legend. 
He spent 35 years at Cook County Hospital and 56 years of private 
practice in Hyde Park improving health care while fighting for social 
justice and racial equality. His autobiography is titled, ``Everybody 
In, Nobody Out: Memoirs of a Rebel Without a Pause.'' And he meant it.
  Doctor Quentin Young grew up in Hyde Park in Chicago's Southside. And 
when America entered World War II, he enlisted in the Army and served 
his country honorably.
  After returning from the war, Dr. Young graduated from medical school 
at Northwestern University and would go on to spend 35 years at Cook 
County Hospital treating patients and becoming a moral voice during the 
Civil Rights era. When people outside of Chicago hear the words Cook 
County and hospital, people think about the show ``ER'' and doctors 
resembling George Clooney. For the people in Chicago, they think of Dr. 
Quentin Young.
  Dr. Young's experience at Cook County Hospital and his efforts during 
the Civil Rights movement were intertwined. In 1951, he was a founder 
of the Committee to End Discrimination in Chicago Medical Institutions, 
which focused on ending racist practices in Chicago's hospitals and 
clinics.
  By 1960, the Cook County Hospital was serving the Black community and 
immigrant Mexican community almost exclusively. Eighty percent of 
Chicago's Black births and nearly half of all Black deaths were at Cook 
County Hospital. This place was one of the frontlines of social 
inequality and Dr. Young and his family fought to change that. His 
efforts were not limited to the Chicagoland area. Dr. Young was a 
founder and national chairman of the Medical Committee for Human Rights 
or MCHR, which formed in June 1964 to

[[Page 2923]]

offer support and medical care for civil rights workers, community 
activists, and summer volunteers working in Mississippi during the 
Freedom Summer.
  It was the MCHR that provided help and emergency medical care to 
anti-war protesters at the 1968 Democratic National Convention in 
Chicago. In October of that year, Dr. Young received a summons by the 
House Un-American Activities Committee for his involvement in MCHR. He 
valiantly defended the MCHR's work.
  After Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., was struck in the head by a rock 
while marching through a White neighborhood, Dr. Young was there to 
patch him up. He was not only Dr King's physician but a fellow marcher 
during the Marquette Park protest in 1966.
  Dr. Young and the late Dr. Jorge Prieto, former head of the Chicago 
Board of Health, became the primary force behind the movement to found 
neighborhood medical clinics in the late 1960s. These clinics gave 
medical help to countless people when they couldn't afford to go to the 
doctor.
  From 1972 to 1981, he served as chairman of Medicine at Cook County 
Hospital. His example helped bring many dedicated people back to the 
hospital, but it wasn't without challenges. The staff went on strike 
because of the lack of resources in 1975. Dr. Young sided with the 
young doctors, and the governing commission fired him for it. With 
loyalty, the striking staff took his office door off its hinges so 
management couldn't change the locks and held a 24-hour vigil outside 
his office until he regained his position after a court fight.
  In 1980, Dr. Young founded the Chicago-based and Illinois-focused 
Health & Medicine Policy Research Group, which conducts research, 
education, policy development, and advocacy for policies that impact 
health systems to improve the health status of all people. He would go 
on to serve as Mayor Harold Washington's appointment as president to 
the Chicago Board of Health.
  Dr. Quentin Young never lost his passion for providing equal access 
to health care for the people of Illinois. Since retiring from private 
practice in 2008, he fought hard for a single-payer system.
  In 2001, at the age of 78, he walked 167 miles across Illinois, from 
Mississippi River to Lake Michigan, with former Governor Pat Quinn to 
promote access to health care.
  He never wavered in his belief in humanity's ability and 
responsibility to make a more equal and just nation. My prayers and 
thoughts go out to his family, Michael, Ethan, Nancy, Polly, Barbara, 
William, Karen, and his nine grandchildren.

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