Academic Students Meet Retired Judge R. Eugene Pincham
Fall Semester students had the opportunity to meet and discuss life, current events and insights with R. Eugene Pincham. Judge Pincham is a human rights activist, lawyer, former judge of the Circuit Court of Cook County, Illinois, and justice of the Appellate Court of Illinois and is a strident critic of the criminal justice system.
Seminar Instructor Leesa Albert writes, “The reason I sought to secure Pincham is to give students a chance to meet someone whose name is writ large on the history of the City of Chicago. He’s truly living, breathing, walking history and he’s fought the good fight for justice in many ways for many years. Despite his incredible professional success, his demeanor remains humble.
“I was struck by the advice he shared with Chicago Seminar students: “use your life to help somebody else,” he implores. A champion for the city’s marginalized, Judge R. Eugene Pincham clearly teaches by example. Brilliant, elegant and eloquent, we all should be proud to call Judge Pincham fellow Chicagoan.”
More about Judge Pincham
He was born on June 28, 1925, in Chicago but grew up impoverished in Alabama. In 1948, he married his college sweetheart, Alzata C. Henry, and that same year enrolled in Northwestern University School of Law. Despite the fact that he had to wait tables at the Palmer House Hotel and shine shoes as a full-time student, Pincham earned a J.D. in 1951.
Throughout his distinguished career, Pincham gained a reputation as one who sought justice for the poor as well as the rich. Pincham resigned from the bench in 1989 and unsuccessfully sought the Democratic Party’s nomination for president of the Cook County Board of Commissioners. In 1991, he became the Harold Washington Party’s nominee for mayor of Chicago. Although he lost, Pincham carried nineteen of the city’s fifty wards – a powerful endorsement from the African American community.