- Credibility:
GREATER GRAND CROSSING — The public visitation and private funeral for Timuel Black takes place Thursday and Friday, one week after the legendary activist and educator’s death at 102.
A public viewing will be held for Black 1-7 p.m. Thursday at AA Rayner and Sons Funeral Home, 318 E. 71st St.
Black’s funeral will be closed to the public. The private viewing begins 10 a.m. Friday at his home church, the First Unitarian Church of Chicago at 5650 S. Woodlawn Ave.
Friday’s service begins at 11 a.m. and is open only to invited guests. The funeral will be livestreamed here.
Father Michael Pfleger of St. Sabina Church will give Black’s eulogy. Speakers include Mayor Lori Lightfoot; Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle; Michael Strautmanis, Obama Foundation executive vice president; and Peggy Montes, DuSable Museum of African American History chair emeritus.
A public memorial service is set for Dec. 5 at Rockefeller Chapel, 5850 S. Woodlawn Ave. Black invited the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. to the chapel in April 1956, where the young preacher spoke on non-violent resistance to racism.
Black died Oct. 13, two months before his 103rd birthday. Days earlier, he was honored by the Illinois House of Representatives with a resolution recognizing his life as an educator and independent Black political activist.
RELATED: Timuel Black, Civil Rights Champion And Historian, Dies At 102: ‘Tim Gave His All To All Of Us’
Credit: Wendell Hutson/DNAinfoBlack, who moved to Chicago as an infant in 1919, spent his final days in hospice care at his Drexel Boulevard home alongside Zenobia Johnson-Black, his wife of four decades.
He received visits from friends and family while surrounded by his books, art and recordings of Duke Ellington and Ella Fitzgerald.
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