Bobby L. Rush

Bobby L. Rush, born in 1946, Democratic member of the United States House of Representatives from Illinois (1993- ). Rush was born in Albany, Georgia, and grew up in Chicago. He joined the army in 1963, and in 1966 he became active in the civil rights movement in the South. Rush was honorably discharged from the army in 1968; the same year he cofounded the Illinois Black Panther Party.

During his time with the Black Panthers, Rush also managed a medical clinic that developed the nation’s first mass testing program for sickle-cell anemia, a disease that, in the United States, occurs primarily among blacks. Rush received a bachelor’s degree from Roosevelt University in 1973 and earned a master’s degree from the University of Illinois in 1994. Rush was elected a city alderman in 1983 and served in that position for nearly ten years.

By a slim margin, Rush defeated the incumbent representative, Charles A. Hayes, in the 1992 Democratic primary for the First Congressional District seat in Illinois. He then won the general election with 83 percent of the vote and was returned to office in subsequent elections. The First District is predominantly black and Democratic, covering parts of inner-city Chicago and nearby suburbs.