Chicago\u27s Public Servants: Making History Interviews with William M. Daley and Jesse White Jr.

Bill Daley and Jesse White have devoted their lives to public service. Daley grew up in Chicago’s best-known political family, but while his father and brother were fixtures in local and state politics, he has maintained a national profile, serving in the Jimmy Carter administration, on Bill Clinton’s cabinet, as national chair of Al Gore’s presidential campaign in 2000, and as White House chief of staff for Barack Obama.1 White, a standout athlete and inductee into the Halls of Fame for the Southwestern Athletic Conference, Alabama State University, and the Chicago Public League Basketball Coaches Association, was the first African American elected secretary of state in Illinois. Previously a state representative and Cook County recorder of deeds, White is now the longest serving secretary of state in Illinois history. He may be best known, however, as the founder and director of the Jesse White Tumblers

Ordinary People Leading Extrordinary Lives: Making History Interviews with Fritzie Fritzshall and Art Johnston

Few migrants to Chicago have overcome as many discriminatory obstacles in their lives as Fritzie Fritzshall and Art Johnston. For more than thirty years, Johnston has made his mark on Chicago’s lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) communities.1 His video bar Sidetrack was one of the earliest institutions in Chicago to promote HIV/AIDS awareness and sponsor related health campaigns. Active in the passage of human rights ordinances at the city, county, and state levels, Johnston cofounded the Illinois Federation for Human Rights (now called Equality Illinois). He was among the first to advocate for a LGBTQ community center, and today, the Center on Halsted is the largest such facility in the Midwest.2 Fritzshall of Buffalo Grove, Illinois, is also a longtime community activist. Responding to the proposed neo-Nazi march in Skokie in 1977, Fritzshall, a Holocaust survivor, proved an instrumental figure in the creation of the Illinois Holocaust Museum & Education Center and, for many years, served as its president. Through her influential activism with the Illinois Holocaust and Genocide Commission, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, and Jewish United Fund/Jewish Federation of Metropolitan Chicago, she continues to promote antidiscriminatory and educational programs to combat genocid