| General info : | | Rose M. Jennings (born May 1, 1940 in Chicago, USA - died May 28, 2015 in Chicago USA (aged 75)) was a civil rights activist who grew up in Evanston and worked on the Rights & Permissions department of Playboy Magazine in the 1970s and worked her way up to become Marketing Director in the 1980s.
She grew up in Evanston, graduating from Evanston Township High School in 1957. She was an excellent student with far above average intellect. Her parents, who were people of means and Catholic, sent her to several elite colleges including Barat College in Lake Forest, Illinois.
While working in Evanston as the assistant manager of a billiard parlor, she was recruited by a longtime friend, Bennett Johnson, to work in the civil rights movement beginning with Protest at the Polls, a black independent political group.
In 1965 she was an editor for Muhammad Speaks newspaper. Jennings began working as a clerk-typist at Playboy Magazine in 1966. When she retired in 1987, she was marketing director.
Due to her long and close relationship with Harold Washington, she won appointments to several positions when Washington became mayor of the City of Chicago. The most prestigious slot was the chairmanship of the Sister Cities Committee in the Washington Administration from 1984 to 1988.
After leaving Playboy, she began her own marketing firm and in 1991 became the director of central management services for the State of Illinois.
In 1999 she was appointed to head the Illinois Civil Rights Commission until she retired for the second time in 2002. Her strong entrepreneurial spirit inspired her to become a partner in a high end jewelry store, Landau, that was located at O’Hare Airport.
Two years later she began to work at East Lake Management Group as a manager of several residential units and she performed several related services. She was employed by East Lake when she died.
Jennings, 75, died May 28 at her home in Chicago’s Beverly neighborhood.
She is survived by her daughter Monique. | |
| Websites | | () | |
| Contact info | | | |
| Source : | | https://evanstonnow.com/civil-rights-activist-from-evanston-dies/ (evanstonnow.com/civil-rights-activist-from-evanston-dies/) | |
| Relations : | | : | |
| Copied Wikipedia parts under license : | | | |