JOHN ROY LYNCH

John R. Lynch was elected to the Mississippi House of Representatives, 1869-1873. In 1871, he became Speaker of the Mississippi House in at age 25. Elected as a Republican to the Forty-third and Forty-fourth Congresses (1873-1877), Lynch served one additional term from 1882 to1883. Lynch also served as temporary chairman of the Republican National Convention at Chicago in 1884 and as Fourth Auditor of the Treasury for the Navy Department under President Harrison 1889-1893. He was appointed by President McKinley as a paymaster in the Regular Army with the rank of captain in 1901. He was then promoted to major in 1906. Following his retirement from the Army Lynch opened a private law practice in Chicago in 1912 and continued in active practice for 27 years. He died in 1939.

EDITH SPURLOCK SAMPSON

Edith Spurlock Sampson's career is notable for its many "firsts": she was the first woman to graduate from Chicago's Loyola University Law School, she was the first African American woman appointed a judge in Illinois, she the first African American to be appointed a delegate to the United Nations, she was the first African American to be appointed a member-at-large of NATO, and she was the first African American woman to be elected a judge to the municipal court of Chicago. Before her service with the U.N., Sampson achieved national recognition when the National Council of Negro Women selected her as its representative to America's Town Meeting of the Air Program in Washington, D.C., 1949. As one of a group of twenty-six labor, political and cultural leaders, Sampson traveled to twelve countries, debating international political issues. When Sampson returned to Chicago, she lectured and worked for equal rights. She died in 1979.