Street renamed in honor of Bronzeville legend Silas Purnell
On Tuesday, November 20, the City if Chicago will rename the block of State Street between 29th and 30th streets as Honorary Silas Purnell Dr. The ceremony will take place at the corner of 29th and State streets at 12:00 noon. After the ceremony, the Chicago Area Health and Medical Careers Program, Introspect Youth Services and Illinois Institute of Technology (IIT) will co-host a reception for Mr. Purnell and his friends, family and colleagues at the Hermann Union Building, 3241 South Federal Street on IIT’s Main Campus.
Silas Purnell, 78, is a legend in the Bronzeville community, where he served as director of the Educational Services Division at Ada S. McKinley Community Services. Over the course of his 34-year career, Purnell helped place more than 60,000 young men and women from disadvantaged families in colleges throughout the country. Purnell combed colleges for hard-to-find scholarship money, which he matched with deserving high school students handpicked based on grades, promise and need.
“Mr. Purnell’s dedication and commitment to our youth is legendary. We should all be inspired by his leadership,” says Madeline Haithcock, alderman of the 2nd Ward where Purnell worked.
IIT has a full-tuition scholarship named after Silas Purnell. The Silas Purnell Scholarships are geared towards students from underrepresented populations with high academic merit and financial need.
During the Korean War, Silas Purnell, an original Tuskegee Airman, recruited military personnel to help economically disadvantaged youth further their educations. He began his work with Ada S. McKinley in 1967 after leaving the Coca-Cola Company where he worked as a marketing manager for 12 years. Motivated by a determination to get minority youth off the streets and support their efforts to attend college, Purnell volunteered with Ada S. McKinley for a year before his program received federal funds enabling him to draw a salary of $300 per month.
Purnell has helped more than 60,000 young people map out a plan for their academic and professional success. With a constant focus on the needs of students, his program always maintained a bare-bones administrative budget. For more than three decades, his office operated out of a basement unit in the Dearborn Homes housing development on Chicago’s South Side. His staff has included many former students assisted by the program.
The Mid-America Association of Equal Opportunity Program Personnel (MAEOPP) Board of Directors established the Silas Purnell Fund as part of the MAEOPP Education Foundation to assist young men and women in their educational pursuits. Several foundations and the Illinois chapter of MAEOPP provided initial support for the fund. Mr. Purnell has been awarded honorary doctorates by several institutions of higher learning, including Chicago State and Illinois Wesleyan Universities. The list of honors that Mr. Purnell has received from locally and nationally based community organizations, social and educational service groups and churches would fill many pages.
Silas Purnell is a graduate of Wendell Phillips High School in Chicago. He received B.A. degrees from Roosevelt University in Chicago and from the Sheil Institute. Purnell lives on Chicago’s South Side with his wife Marilyn. They have five children.
Founded in 1890, IIT is a Ph.D.-granting technological university awarding degrees in the sciences, mathematics and engineering, as well as architecture, psychology, design, business and law. IIT’s interprofessional, technology-focused curriculum prepares the university’s 6,200 students for leadership roles in an increasingly complex and culturally diverse global workplace.
