Black, Timuel D.

Born on Dec. 7, 1918 in Birmingham, Ala. The family moved the next year to the south side of Chicago, just months after the Chicago Race Riots in 1919. He grew up in the 'Black Belt' of Chicago, with his parents stressing the importance of an education, even in an era of discrimination and hard economic times. Black graduated from Du Sable High School in 1937, and then worked in a variety of jobs in the neighborhood. In Dec. 1941 he was working for a fur dealer in Milwaukee, but returned to Chicago and began selling insurance before being drafted in 1943. Black was inducted into the Army at Camp Custer, Mich., then was shipped to Ft. Lee, Va. for basic training. He received training in logistics and was soon assigned to 308th Quartermaster Railhead Company. While in Va., Black was exposed to more overt forms of racism, and observed differences between northern urban blacks, and the mostly rural blacks of the south. His unit shipped to Wales in early 1944, and was eventually moved to an encampment near Southampton, England for further training and preparations for the D-Day landings. The 308th landed on Utah Beach just days after the initial landings, and the troops were soon performing their duties, first with the First Army, then with the Third Army under Gen. George Patton, as the Allies drove across northern France. The unit's manual tasks were performed by captured German POWs. Black's unit participated in the Battle of the Bulge, as well as fighting in the Rhineland. He saw the Buchenwald Concentration Camp several days following its liberation by U.S. forces, an event that deeply affected him. Thereafter, he committed his life to the cause of civil rights.

From the description of An interview with Timuel Black / Timuel Black ; Mark DePue, interviewer. 2009. (Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library). WorldCat record id: 454287388

Timuel D. Black Jr. is a prominent civil rights activist and also a professor emeritus of social sciences at the City Colleges of Chicago. Born in Birmingham Alabama, Timuel D. Black, Jr. came to Chicago before he was a year old. The neighborhoods of Chicago are the map of his life. He is a well-known and highly respected educator, community leader, oral historian, and political activist. He was educated at Chicago's Burke Elementary School and DuSable High School and later earned a bachelor's degree from Roosevelt University and a master's degree from the University of Chicago. He taught at DuSable, Farragut, and Hyde Park high schools in Chicago, and became a renowned teacher and administrator at the City Colleges of Chicago. He is professor Emeritus of Social Science at the City Colleges of Chicago. His most recent publication is Bridges of Memory: Chicago's First Wave of Black Migration (2005), an oral history based on interviews that chronicle the impact of the southern migration of Chicago's Black history. A second volume of Bridges of Memory was published in 2008. (http://www.prairie.org/bios/eat-think-be-merry/timuel-d-black)

From the description of Papers, 1918-2010 (Chicago Public Library). WorldCat record id: 773740819

Timuel D. Black was a high school teacher in Chicago's public schools, a civil and labor rights activist, an oral historian, and a professor and administrator at the City Colleges of Chicago. Black was born in Birmingham (Ala.) and came to Chicago in 1919 at eight months of age. He attended Roosevelt University and the University of Chicago.

From the description of Timuel Black papers, 1956-1973 (bulk 1964-1972). (Chicago History Museum). WorldCat record id: 718738158