PEORIA MAGAZINE February 2023

Marvin Hightower is president of the NAACP Peoria branch and senior pastor of Liberty Church in Peoria

past NAACP leaders such as Harry Sephus and Gwynn as true pioneers. “The groundwork was done when I came to office,” said Jackson. “Sephus got a call from Caterpillar in the early ‘50s. They had a long discussion about employment. After that, the company started recruiting African Americans from the historic black colleges. Previously the only job for blacks at Cat was sweeping floors,” said Jackson, who would work briefly as timekeeper at the Caterpillar foundry in East Peoria. Before opening his law practice in Peoria, Jackson worked with Gwynn at the post office. “I supported John 100 percent. He really put pressure on everybody in this city,” he said. During Jackson’s tenure, “the issues were mainly employment — public and private — to get people in meaningful jobs,” said Jackson. After Black officers got on the Peoria police force, it was important that qualified individuals received promotions like their white counterparts, he said. “We had to threaten a lawsuit to get African Americans promoted to

sergeant. Melvin Little, now retired, was one of the first African Americans to become a sergeant at the police department,” added Jackson. Jim Ralph, a professor at Middlebury College in Vermont and the author of Northern Protest: Martin Luther King, Jr., Chicago and the Civil Rights Movement (1993), hasmade an extensive study of the NAACP branch in Peoria. “Arguably, it’s the most dynamic branch in Illinois. For 20 years it was the most dynamic in the country,” he said, referring to the period when Gwynn sought change in the ‘60s and ‘70s. “It wasn’t just a one-man show with Gwynn, but he was a critical element. He involved a large number of people, black and white. His wife was a force, as well,” said Ralph. “Gwynn was not an orator in the style of Martin Luther King or AndrewYoung but he was very compelling. He was a man of the church and well acquainted with the institutions of Black Peoria,” Ralph said of Gwynn, who died at the age of 67 in 1996. In an interviewwith PeoriaMagazine in 2015, a year before his death, Jim

Polk, the f irst African American elected to the Peoria City Council in 1969, talked about his experience with the NAACP: “Before I left Peoria (to return a few years later), John Gwynn and I took over the Peoria NAACP. I was vice president — I was probably 21. There were a lot of young people back then in the movement. The NAACP was really important and really active.” ‘IF YOU’RE NOT AT THE TABLE, YOU’RE ON THE MENU. YOU NEED TO VOICE YOUR OPINION’ — Rev. Marvin Hightower Ralph, who has made numerous trips to Peoria to conduct research, looks to publish a more extensive look at Illinois civil rights organizations. “The NAACP hasn’t received the credit it deserves,” he said. “It’s helped lead to change.” Steve Tarter is a Peoria Magazine contributor who was born in England, raised in Boston, moved to Peoria to attend Bradley University and decided

to stay. He has spent a career in journalism and public relations

FEBRUARY 2023 PEORIA MAGAZINE 39