Name	Bobby Rush
Image name	Bobby Rush, Official Portrait, 112th Congress.jpg
Birth date	November 23, 1946
Birth place	Albany, Georgia
State	Illinois
District	1st
Term start	January 3, 1993
Preceded	Charles Hayes
Succeeded	Incumbent
Party	Democrat
Religion	Christianity (Baptist)
Spouse	Carolyn Thomas
Alma mater	Roosevelt UniversityUniversity of Illinois at ChicagoMcCormick Theological Seminary
Occupation	elected official, insurance agent, civil rights leader
Residence	Chicago, Illinois
Branch	United States Army
Serviceyears	1963-1968}}

Bobby Lee Rush (born November 23, 1946) is the U.S. Representative for , serving since 1993. He is a member of the Democratic Party.

The district is located principally on the South Side of Chicago. It is a minority-majority district and has a higher percentage of African Americans (65%) than any other congressional district in the nation. Rush has the distinction of being the only person to date to defeat President Barack Obama in an election for public office, when Obama challenged him in a primary election in 2000. Rush is a member of the Congressional Black Caucus.

Early life and political activism

After dropping out of high school, Rush joined the U.S. Army in 1963 but went AWOL and received an honorable discharge in 1968. Throughout the 1960s Rush was involved in the civil-rights movement. He worked in civil-disobedience campaigns in the South, and co-founded the Illinois chapter of the Black Panthers in 1968 and was made its "defense minister". His son, Huey, was named after Panther leader Huey Newton. "We were reacting to police brutality, to the historical relationship between African-Americans and recalcitrant racist whites," Rush later told ''People'' magazine. "We needed to arm ourselves." Rush was present when fellow Black Panther Fred Hampton was killed in a police raid and later made a official statement that the police, referred only to as "pigs" by Rush, had murdered Hampton. Rush's own apartment was raided in December 1969 where police discovered an unregistered pistol, rifle, shotgun and pistol ammunition, training manuals on explosives and booby traps, a small amount of marijuana and an assortment of communist literature. Earlier that same year Rush stated the philosophy his membership in the Black Panthers saying, "Black people have been on the defensive for all these years. The trend now is not to wait to be attacked. We advocate offensive violence against the power structure."

Imprisoned for six months in 1972 on a weapons charge after carrying a gun into a police station, Rush nonetheless worked on several non-violent projects that built support for the Black Panthers in African American communities. He coordinated a medical clinic that offered sickle-cell anemia testing on an unprecedented scale. Rush graduated with honors from Chicago's Roosevelt University in 1973. A year later he left the Panthers, who were already in decline. "We started glorifying thuggery and drugs," he told ''People''. That was distasteful to the deeply religious Rush, who is a born-again Christian. He went on to say that "I don't repudiate any of my involvement in the Panther party—it was part of my maturing." He subsequently resumed his education in the early 1990s at the McCormick Seminary and received a master's degree in theology.

After leaving the Panther Party, Rush sold insurance for a time in the early 1970s.

Early political career

Rush ran for a seat on Chicago's city council in 1974. The first of several black militants who later sought political office, he was defeated. In the early 1980s, however, Chicago's political life was transformed by the ascendancy of U.S. Representative Harold Washington, a noted orator and a charismatic figure who helped unite the city's African American community. Washington was elected mayor of Chicago in 1983, the first African-American to ever hold the office. That same year, Rush was elected alderman from the Second Ward on Chicago's South Side. He was one of the pro-Harold Washington faction on the Council during the "Council Wars" that began in 1983 following Washington's election as Mayor of Chicago in a racially-polarized contest.

Rush ran for mayor of Chicago in 1999 but was defeated by the incumbent Richard M. Daley.

U.S. House of Representatives

Committee assignments

Committee on Energy and Commerce

*Subcommittee on Commerce, Manufacturing and Trade

*Subcommittee on Communications and Technology

*Subcommittee on Energy and Power

Rush is the sponsor of the Melanie Blocker-Stokes Postpartum Depression Research and Care Act, named for Melanie Blocker-Stokes, a Chicago native who jumped to her death from a 12th story window due to postpartum depression. The bill would provide for research on postpartum depression and psychosis and services for individuals suffering from these disorders.

He sponsored legislation re-designating two United States Postal Service facilities in Illinois' 1st district as the James E. Worsham Post Office and the James E. Worsham Carrier Annex Building.

Rush sponsored the Nursing Relief for Disadvantaged Areas Act passed in 1999. The law temporarily addressed the nursing shortage by providing non-immigrant visas for qualified foreign nurses in the Englewood neighborhood of Chicago and was reauthorized in 2005.

The Children's Health Act passed in 2000 incorporated Rush's Urban Asthma Reduction Act of 1999, amending the Preventive Health and Health Services Block Grant program and includes an integrated approach to asthma management.

Rush initiated the Chicago Partnership for the Earned Income Tax Credit, an ongoing program designed to help low-income working Chicagoans receive the Earned Income Tax Credit, a federal income tax credits.

Rush has brought close to $2 billion of federal funding since his election, including a $1 million federal grant from the Office of Naval Research to the Illinois Institute of Technology to develop better ways to assess the presence of chemical and biological agents. Rush introduced the Blair Holt's Firearm Licensing and Record of Sale Act of 2009 on January 6, 2009. This bill, if signed into law would require all owners of hand guns and semiautomatic firearms to register for a federal firearms license. All sales of the subject firearms would have to go through a licensed dealer. The bill would also make it a criminal act not to register as an owner of a firearm. H.R. 45 was referred to the judiciary committee in 2009.

Controversies

In the 2000 Democratic primary for the U.S. House of Representatives (IL-01), Rush defeated a challenge from then-state senator Barack Obama. During the primary, Rush said: ''"Barack Obama went to Harvard and became an educated fool. Barack is a person who read about the civil-rights protests and thinks he knows all about it."''

On July 15, 2004, Rush became the second sitting member of Congress (following Charles Rangel and preceding Joe Hoeffel) to be arrested for trespassing while protesting the genocide in Darfur and other violations of human rights in Sudan in front of the Sudanese Embassy.

Though a very close friend to Bill Clinton and Hillary Rodham Clinton, Rush announced early on that he would support Barack Obama in the 2008 primaries, and later his presidential campaign.

Rush proposed that an African-American should be appointed to fill Obama's vacant seat in the U.S. Senate. During a press conference, Rush said, ''"With the resignation of President-elect Obama, we now have no African American in the United States Senate, and we believe it will be a national disgrace to not have this seat filled by one of the many capable African American Illinois politicians."'' Rush said he did not support any one individual in particular for Senate, and was not interested in being appointed himself. On December 30, 2008, Governor Rod Blagojevich announced his appointment of Roland Burris, a former African-American Attorney General of Illinois. Rush was present at the press conference and spoke in support of Burris. Rush has since commented further on Senate Democrats not seating Burris, telling them not to ''"hang or lynch"'' Burris.

On February 13, 2007, Rush opposed President George W. Bush's proposed 20,000 serviceman troop surge in Iraq. He said the presence of the troops in Iraq is the greatest catalyst of violence in Iraq, and advocated a political resolution of the Iraq situation. Towards the close of his speech, Rep. Rush stated that the troop surge would only serve to make the Iraqi situation more volatile.

On November 5, 2007, Rush proclaimed his support for National Bible Week, saying that he had not always been an ardent reader of the Bible, but after having been elected to the House, he received a copy in 1993 and that while in Chicago with his wife, he was drawn to read the Bible and is now a ferocious reader. He quoted Micah 6:6-8 and Luke 4:18. At the close of the speech, he called on Christians and non-Christians alike to read the Bible.

In 2011, Rush was one of only two congressmen to vote against H.R. 2715 which corrected a law passed in 2008 that unintentionally banned the sale of motorcycles and ATV's for children.

Personal life

The nation's first mass sickle cell anemia testing program was created by a clinic run by Rush.

In 2008, Bobby Rush had a rare type of malignant tumor removed from his salivary gland.

Rush is a member of Iota Phi Theta.

References

External links

U.S. Representative Bobby Rush ''official U.S. House site''

My Hopes and Dreams for the People of Cuba, Rep. Bobby Rush, ''The Huffington Post'', April 22, 2009

Category:African American members of the United States House of Representatives Category:Baptists from the United States Category:Chicago City Council members Category:Members of the United States House of Representatives from Illinois Category:People from Albany, Georgia Category:People from Chicago, Illinois Category:Roosevelt University alumni Category:United States Army soldiers Category:University of Illinois at Chicago alumni Category:Black Panther Party members Category:Community organizers Category:Illinois Democrats Category:1946 births Category:Living people

de:Bobby L. Rush fr:Bobby Rush (homme politique) pl:Bobby Rush fi:Bobby Rush sv:Bobby Rush yo:Bobby Rush

name	Johnnie Taylor
background	solo_singer
birth name	Johnnie Harrison Taylor
born	May 05, 1934Crawfordsville, Arkansas, United States
died	May 31, 2000Dallas, Texas, United States
genre	R&B;, soul, gospel, blues, pop, doo-wop, disco
occupation	Singer
years active	1953–2000
label	Chance RecordsSAR RecordsStax RecordsColumbia RecordsBeverly Glen RecordsMalaco Records
notable instruments	}}

Johnnie Harrison Taylor (May 5, 1934 – May 31, 2000) was an American vocalist in a wide variety of genres, from rhythm and blues, soul, blues and gospel to pop, doo-wop and disco.

Biography

Early years

Johnnie Taylor was born in Crawfordsville, Arkansas. As a child, he grew up in West Memphis, Arkansas and performed in gospel groups as a youngster. As an adult, he had one release, "Somewhere to Lay My Head", on Chicago's Chance Records label in the 1950s, as part of the gospel group Highway QCs, which had been founded by a young Sam Cooke. His singing was strikingly close to that of Sam Cooke, and he was hired to take Cooke's place in Cooke's gospel group, the Soul Stirrers, in 1957.

A few years later, after Cooke had established his independent SAR Records, Taylor signed on as one of the label's first acts and recorded "Rome Wasn't Built In A Day" in 1962. However, SAR Records quickly became defunct after Cooke's death in 1964.

In 1966, Taylor moved to Stax Records in Memphis, Tennessee, where he was dubbed "The Philosopher of Soul". Whilst there he recorded with the label's house band, Booker T. & the MGs. His hits included "I Had a Dream", "I've Got to Love Somebody's Baby" (both written by the team of Isaac Hayes and David Porter) and most notably "Who's Making Love", which reached No. 5 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart and No. 1 on the R&B; chart in 1968. "Who's Making Love" sold over one million copies, and was awarded a gold disc.

During his tenure at Stax, he became an R&B; star, with over a dozen chart successes, such as "Jody's Got Your Girl and Gone", which reached No. 23 on the Hot 100 chart, "Cheaper to Keep Her" (Mack Rice) and record producer Don Davis's penned "I Believe in You (You Believe in Me)", which reached No. 11 on the Hot 100 chart. "I Believe in You (You Believe in Me)" also sold in excess of one million units, and was awarded gold disc status by the R.I.A.A. in October 1973. Taylor, along with Isaac Hayes and The Staple Singers was one of the label's flagship artists. He appeared in the documentary film, ''Wattstax'', which was released in 1973.

Columbia Records

After Stax folded in the mid 1970s, Taylor switched to Columbia Records, where he made his best known hit, "Disco Lady", in 1976. It peaked at #25 in the UK Singles Chart in May 1976. "Disco Lady" was the first certified platinum single (two million copies sold) by the RIAA.

Malaco Records

After a brief stint at Beverly Glen Records, Taylor signed with Malaco Records after the label's founder Tommy Couch and producing partner Wolf Stephenson heard him sing at blues singer, Z. Z. Hill's funeral in the spring of 1984.

Backed by members of The Muscle Shoals Rhythm Section as well as in-house veterans like former Stax keyboardist Carson Whitsett and guitarist/bandleader Bernard Jenkins, Malaco gave Taylor the type of recording freedom that Stax had given him in the late 1960s and early 1970s, enabling him to record ten albums for the Malaco label in his sixteen year stint.

In 1996, Taylor's eighth album for Malaco, ''Good Love!'', made it to Number One on ''Billboard's'' Blues chart (#15 R&B;), and was the biggest record in Malaco's history. With this success, Malaco recorded a live video of Taylor at the Longhorn Ballroom in Dallas, Texas in the summer of 1997. The club portion of the "Good Love" video was recorded at 1001 Nightclub in Jackson, Mississippi.

Taylor's final song was "Soul Heaven", in which he dreamed of being at a concert featuring deceased soul music icons Otis Redding, Jackie Wilson, Marvin Gaye, Sam Cooke, and MGs drummer Al Jackson, among others. In one verse, Taylor sang, ''"I didn't want to wake up/I was havin' such a good time".''

Radio

In the 1980s Johnnie Taylor was a DJ on KKDA, a Dallas/Fort Worth radio station. The station's format is mostly R&B; and Soul oldies and their on-the-air personalities are often local R&B;, Soul, blues, and jazz musicians. Mr. Taylor was billed as "The Wailer, Johnnie Taylor."

Death

Taylor died of a heart attack at Charlton Methodist Hospital in Dallas, Texas on May 31, 2000, aged 66. Stax billed Johnnie Taylor as The Philosopher of Soul. He was also known as the Blues Wailer. He was buried beside his mother, Ida Mae Taylor, in Arkansas.

Awards

Taylor was given a Pioneer Award by the Rhythm and Blues Foundation in 1999.

Musical influence

In 2004, the UK's Shapeshifters sampled Taylor's 1982 "What About My Love?", for their #1 hit single, "Lola's Theme".

Personal life

Taylor has four children who have been recording artists. Johnnie Taylor Jr., Floyd Taylor, Latasha "Tasha" Taylor & T.J. Hooker-Taylor. The best known is Floyd Taylor, who has recorded three albums for Malaco Records. Other children include Fonda Bryant, Schiffon Taylor-Brown, Sabrina Taylor, Jonathan Taylor, and Anthony Arnold.

References

External links

Complete Discography

[ Allmusic.com bio]

Find A Grave bio

Category:1934 births Category:2000 deaths Category:American blues musicians Category:American male singers Category:American rhythm and blues singers Category:Deaths from myocardial infarction Category:American gospel singers Category:American soul musicians Category:Soul-blues musicians Category:Musicians from Arkansas Category:People from Crittenden County, Arkansas Category:People from West Memphis, Arkansas

fr:Johnnie Taylor nl:Johnnie Taylor