In celebration of Black History Month, the Illinois State Society, in partnership with the Julius Rosenwald & Rosenwald Schools National Historical Park Campaign presents a discussion of the life of Julius Rosenwald.
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Julius Rosenwald, who was born in 1862 while Abraham Lincoln was president, in a house just one block from the liberator’s own home in Springfield. A child of German immigrants, he bought into Sears, Roebuck and Company—the Amazon of its day. He partnered with Booker T. Washington to build almost 5,400 Southern Schools in communities of color. Fully 35 percent of all Black children in the South (and 27 percent of all Black children in the US) were educated in a Rosenwald school in 1932.

He was a generous backer of Black colleges. He funded the construction of 22 YMCA/YWCA community centers and urban dormitories during the segregated era. And he funded a third of the litigation costs of the Brown v. Board of Education case which ended school segregation.

Panelists include: Dorothy Canter, Ph.D. – President Julius Rosenwald & Rosenwald Schools National Historical Park Campaign; Robert G. Stanton – Vice President Julius Rosenwald & Rosenwald Schools National Historical Park Campaign; Stephanie Deutsch, author of “You Need a Schoolhouse: Booker T. Washington, Julius Rosenwald, and the Building of Schools for the Segregated South”; Aviva Kempner, documentary film maker; and Moderator Alan Spears of the National Parks Conservation Association.

The Illinois State Society hosted a post-election analysis on November 17th led by these distinguished scholars on the American electoral process:
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- Dr. William (Bill) Schneider, Professor at the Schar School of Policy and Government at George Mason University. He was CNN's senior political analyst from 1990 to 2009. He has been a visiting professor at the University of California at Los Angeles, Boston College and Brandeis University. Dr. Schneider is the author of Standoff: How America Became Ungovernable, published by Simon & Schuster in May 2018. Campaigns and Elections Magazine called him "the most consistently intelligent analyst on television."

- Dr. John Mark Hansen, is the University of Chicago Charles L. Hutchinson Distinguished Service Professor in the Department of Political Science. He is also one of the nation's leading scholars of American politics. Dr. Hansen, whose research has focused on interest groups, citizen activism and public opinion, is the author of two books, Mobilization, Participation and Democracy in America (1993) with Steven Rosenstone and Gaining Access: Congress and the Farm Lobby, 1919-1981 (1991). Dr. Hansen's current research focuses on public opinion, public budgeting and politicians' inferences from the outcomes of elections.

On June 23, 2020, ILSS hosted an ​exclusive ILSS interview with Rep. Dan Lipinski (D-IL-3) moderated by ILSS Vice President of Programs, Howard Marks.