Chicago Daily Observer

Leon Despres is 100 and ½ years old.

Throughout his long political career as an independent in Chicago, he has served as a special role model for those who believed in positive change and in achieving it against all odds.

Now, he is deeply encouraged to see Senator Barack Obama on that same path of independence and idealism seeking to climb new and higher mountains.

In the Chicago City Council from 1955 to 1975 and speaking out whenever he could during the third of a century since then, Despres has shown that courage, perseverance, social concern and most especially integrity can ultimately conquer the sheerest and most challenging political faces.

It was a deep personal commitment to integrity that 53 years ago kept the new alderman from accepting the patronage and payoffs that gave so many of his fellow alderman control over hundreds of jobs and almost unlimited opportunity for ... Read More...