Funeral Services Set For Former Evanston Mayor Lorraine Morton

EVANSTON, IL — Funeral services have been set for former Mayor Lorraine Morton, who died Saturday at the age of 99. Morton was Evanston's longest-serving and only black mayor in its 130-year history. A visitation will be held from 3 to 8 p.m. on Friday, Sept. 21 at First Church of God Christian Life Center, 1524 Simpson St. in Evanston. A funeral service will begin at 11 a.m. on Sept. 22 at Alice Miller Chapel, 1870 Sheridan Road in Evanston. Interment will follow at Sunset Memorial Lawns, 3100 Shermer Road in Northbrook.

Born on Dec. 8, 1918, in Winston-Salem, North Carolina as the youngest of 10 children, Morton graduated Northwestern University in 1942 at a time when black students were still banned from living on its campus. While in Evanston, she met her future husband James Morton, who passed away in 1974. They lived for a time in Tuskegee, Alabama, and returned to Evanston in 1953.

After a career as a teacher and principal in Evanston/Skokie District 65, where Morton broke the district's color barrier in 1957 when she moved from the segregated Foster School to become the only black educator at the all-white Nichols Middle School, she was appointed 5th Ward alderman in 1982. She was re-elected and served on the City Council until 1991. In 1993, Morton was elected mayor, the first Democrat and second woman to hold the office. She was re-elected three times before retiring in 2009. Evanston's Civic Center was renamed in her honor upon her retirement.

Morton was remembered as a valuable mentor and maternal figure to members of the black community in Evanston, former District 65 school board member and Hecky's Barbecue owner Hecky Powell told the Chicago Sun-Times. He said Morton would call up young people who got into trouble and invite them over to her house.

"She'd have you over there for a two-hour lecture," Powell recalled.

Morton donated a collection of letters, clippings, speeches and more to Northwestern. Among them was an undated essay including Morton's reflections on growing up in North Carolina as the daughter of a schoolteacher and a businessman, according to a obituary from the university:

“It was Mama who … saw to it that the laws of segregation did not make her children grow up innocent of cultural surroundings...Mama demanded that her children attend cultural activities, despite the fact that those events were then segregated. When we returned home, Papa would complain and sarcastically scold us saying ‘Paying people to segregate you.’"

Together, the two drove home important lessons to their children — one about taking advantage of the world at large, the other about the evil of segregation.

“Mama was the hammer that drove Papa to fulfill his ambition. Papa was the nail that held the resources together. They were a good team,” Morton wrote.

A documentary film produced by Dino Robinson and the Shorefront Legacy Center, an organization focused on black history on the North Shore, called "Lorraine H. Morton: A Life Worthwhile" premiered in June. Its next screening is 9:05 a.m. on Sept. 15 at the Oak Park Public Library.

The city has placed a book of remembrance outside City Council chambers on the second floor of the Lorraine H. Morton Civic Center and invited members of the public to visit and share memories of Morton through 5 p.m. Friday. In lieu of flowers, Morton's daughter suggested an act of kindness for someone and a charitable donation.

MORE: Lorraine Morton, Longest Serving Mayor Of Evanston, Dies At 99