Committee on Transportation and Public Way
DIRECT INTRODUCTION
ORDINANCE
WHEREAS, Rosie Lee Atchison (Big Ma) was born, August 15, 1911 in Bolivar, Mississippi. At the grave site of her birth mother, Rosanna Ford, and only 6 weeks old, she was taken into the care of her father, Henry Liner. Her father later relocated her to Clarksdale Coahoma, Mississippi where he married and fathered a total of 27 children. Rosie being the second eldest daughter of her siblings; and
WHEREAS, As a young woman, Rosie met and married her first husband Willie Alexander. To this union three children were born. After five years of a failing marriage, struggling to survive on plantation work, and experiencing the loss of a child, Rosie made a sound decision to leave Willie and migrated to the North. She and her two young children came to Chicago in 1935 in search of a better life. Rosie joined Greater Salem Baptist Church, church home of World-Renowned Mahalia Jackson, and was a faithful member of the Dr. Watt's Choir; and
WHEREAS, In 1937, she met and married Andrew Atchison who worked for the Diamond Glue Factory and two more children were born. They resided in what was known as Chicago's Black Metropolis, The Mecca Building, where they lived for approximately 14 years. During that time Rosie pursued her dream for better opportunities in the North, with only a second reader education, and was hired as a coach cleaner for the Pennsylvania Railroad in 1940. While living in the Mecca Building, she unselfishly thought of others and helped those in need. She would take it upon herself to get on the streetcar and travel to Hillman's basement grocery store to purchase food not only for her family but for others in her building. She not only shared her food, but she gave of herself and her finances; and
WHEREAS, By 1951, residents of the Mecca Building were being forced from their comfort zone by the City of Chicago for the purpose of building what is now I IT" (Illinois Institute of Techn...
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