Rep. Bobby Rush, D-Ill., said he is retiring from Congress after having served 15 terms since he was first elected in 1992, according to a Monday report from the Chicago Sun-Times.
Rush, a 75-year-old former Black Panther who also served as a Chicago alderman, told the Sun-Times that he decided to retire in recent weeks after a conversation with his 19-year-old grandson, Jonathan.
“I don’t want my grandchildren . . . to know me from a television news clip or something they read in a newspaper,” Rush told the Sun-Times.
“I want them to know me on an intimate level, know something about me and I want to know something about them. I don’t want to be a historical figure to my grandchildren,” he added.
Rush, who is also a minister, said he plans to stay active in the ministry and reach out to younger generations with his life story.
Rush co-founded the Illinois chapter of the Black Panthers and became acting chairman after Fred Hampton and Mark Clark were killed in December 1969 during a police raid.
In a 2000 Democratic primary, Rush defeated former President Barack Obama, who was then a state senator running to represent Illinois’ 1st Congressional District.
“Barack Obama went to Harvard and became an educated fool,” Rush said at the time. “Barack is a person who read about the civil rights protests and thinks he knows all about it.”
This is an excerpt from Fox News.
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