2pac Da Official Site · Charly Kamtchoum

Former 2pac "enemy" C.Delores Tucker dies

posted by Menace on 10-13-2005 13:11

C.DeLORES TUCKER was a tall, elegant woman who cut a wide swath of power and influence throughout the city and state in more than 60 years of political and civil rights crusades.

Her powerful voice, inherited from her pastor father, spoke out strongly for minority and women's rights and resounded in the councils of the Democratic Party and on many street-corner campaigns, including her own.

She was Pennsylvania's highest ranking black woman in any state government when she served as Secretary of the Commonwealth under Gov. Milton J. Shapp in the '70s.

She marched in Alabama with Martin Luther King Jr. She was named among 25 of the World's Most Intriguing Women by People Magazine, and for five consecutive years was on Ebony magazine's list of 100 Most Influential Black Americans.

She died yesterday in a rehabilitation hospital in Philadelphia. She had celebrated her 78th birthday on Oct. 4. She lived in West Mount Airy.

"America has lost one of the great civil rights activists of our time," said Gov. Rendell. "DeLores Tucker worked with Dr. Martin Luther King and carried on Dr. King's fight for decades.

"She did it with dedication, class, grace and dignity. The progress that she accomplished was significant and will benefit many Americans and Pennsylvanians for years to come."

"The cause of civil rights was a lifelong crusade for C. DeLores Tucker," said Mayor Street. "Whether it was marching arm-in-arm with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. or advising presidents on race relations, she never gave up the struggle for justice. Her life was dedicated to equality for all."

Street said that as state secretary of state, Tucker "was responsible for the governor's appointment of more women and African-Americans to boards, commissions and judicial positions than at any prior time in Pennsylvania history."

In recent years she crusaded against obscene and violent rap lyrics.

A woman who told-it-as-it-is, she once said "the boys in the 'hood" could take out Saddam Hussein.

She was always fashionably dressed with her ever-present turban and shoes to match her campaign colors, lavender and white.

She used a lavender pad laid over a lavender desk calendar to take notes. Her campaign literature and letters were printed in purple on white paper.

While serving as secretary of the commonwealth, the license tag on her state limousine was "3" to let everyone know she was the third-most powerful person in state government.

Tucker was born in Philadelphia, the second-youngest child of the Rev. Whitfield Nottage and his wife, Captilda. Her father immigrated to Philadelphia from the Bahamas and founded a church.

At Girls High, she cut her political teeth by organizing the school for elections. She graduated in 1946 and went on to Temple University, Penn State and the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School.

She received numerous honorary degrees and liked to be referred to as "Dr. Tucker."

At the tender age of 17, she could be found on the back of a flatbed truck calling for votes for reformer Joseph S. Clark's successful mayoral campaign in 1951.

She served as Shapp's secretary of the commonwealth from 1971 to 1977, when Shapp fired her for accepting fees for making speeches, some of which were written by state employees. The action kicked up a political firestorm among African-Americans and others, but Shapp stood fast.

During her tenure, Tucker instituted the first Commission on the Status of Women and led the effort to make Pennsylvania one of the first states to pass the Equal Rights Amendment to the Constitution.

Her own campaigns for lieutenant governor, Congress and the U.S. Senate ended in failure, but she campaigned for Democratic candidates for president and on down.

She marched with Martin Luther King Jr. from Montgomery to Selma, Ala., in 1965, and was the founding president of the Philadelphia Martin Luther King Jr. Association for Non-Violent Change.

She was convening founder and national chairperson of the National Congress of Black Women, succeeding Congresswoman Shirley Chisholm in 1992.

She was chair of the Democratic National Committee's Black Caucus and was the first African-American to serve as president of the National Federation of Democratic Women.

In 1991, she founded the Bethune-DuBois Institute in Washington, D.C., which sought to promote the cultural development of African-American youth through scholarships and educational programs.

She launched and served as publisher of Vital Issues: The Journal of African-American Speeches. As a crusader against obscene rap music, she was featured in the inaugural issue of John F. Kennedy Jr.'s George magazine.

She was married to real estate broker William L. Tucker for 50 years.

"She was a very strong woman, very committed, dedicated," he said of her last night. "She was a visionary in the true sense of the word. She was talented, and had boundless energy. I have never known her to be afraid of anything."

On her way to her father's hometown in the Bahamas as a graduation gift from Girls High, black people were required to sleep in the bottom of the boat.

She refused, of course, and wound up becoming ill after sleeping on the deck for three nights. It turned out to be tuberculosis, her husband said.

Doctors removed one of her lungs. But her husband said she did more with one lung "than somebody with four lungs."

"This woman was a tireless, fearless advocate for justice and equity for people of color, for women, for human dignity," said state Sen. Anthony H. Williams. "She was a crusader, a thoughtful and committed Pennsylvanian who broke barriers for all of us who would follow in her footsteps."

"She was a historic figure in the civil rights movement," said J. Whyatt Mondesire, president of the local NAACP chapter. As for her campaign against obscene rap lyrics, he said, "She knew the long-term damage that kind of poetry could cause to young people."

Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton, a close associate, said Tucker "was a brilliant leader and organizer of everything she touched, and she touched every important cause of her time and left her signature on them all."

Her husband is her only immediate survivor.

www.philly.com

Former 2pac "enemy" C.Delores Tucker dies

Script Tupac Wrote About Drug Kingpin To Be Made Into Movie

2pac's - The Rose, Vol. 2