Lawmakers vote to name Loop high-rise after former Secretary of State Jesse White

SPRINGFIELD — Lawmakers voted to name a state-owned Loop office building after Illinois’ longest-serving secretary of state, Jesse White.

Set to turn 90 next month, White stood in the House chamber earlier this month before lawmakers voted to name the high-rise at 115 S. LaSalle St. the Jesse White State of Illinois Building. The resolution’s main sponsor, state Rep. Harry Benton, noted the rarity of a state building being named after someone who is still alive.

“This is a fitting tribute for a person so unique in history in our state,” Benton, a Democrat from Plainfield, said on the House floor. “He has done so much for the state of Illinois and had so much approval from Chicago all the way to downstate. Everybody loves Jesse White.”

The House vote in favor of the resolution was 112-0, and the Senate followed suit on Friday with a vote of 59-0. The resolution does not need any further approval.

White already has an honorary street sign named after him along Division Street, near where he grew up on Chicago’s Near North Side, and an elementary school in south suburban Hazel Crest, The Jesse White Learning Academy.

“But this tops it all,” White said. “A state building named after yours truly. As they would say in my neighborhood, ‘you the man.'”

One of the state’s most popular politicians, White was secretary of state from 1999 to 2023 and regularly won reelection with more than 60% of the vote. A Democrat, in one election he captured every one of Illinois’ 102 counties, including those that were solidly Republican.

As secretary of state, he is credited with turning around an office tainted by scandal over the years under previous occupants.

“His trailblazing approach restored integrity in the office of Secretary of State, brought efficiency to the office and saved hundreds of thousands of lives through his advocacy on issues such as teen driver safety, DUI reform, increased regulations for truck drivers and so many other incredible initiatives,” said state Sen. Willie Preston, a Chicago Democrat who introduced the resolution in the Senate.

White served in the Illinois House for 16 years before becoming the Cook County recorder of deeds (an office that has since been absorbed into the Cook County clerk’s office). In the 1998 election for secretary of state, White defeated a candidate in the Democratic primary who was backed by Michael Madigan, then-Illinois’ powerful House speaker and head of the state Democratic Party.

The 115 S. LaSalle St. building was acquired by the state through a deal that led to its sale of the James R. Thompson Center, formerly the main Chicago headquarters for Illinois government operations. It houses the Chicago headquarters for the secretary of state’s office and White’s successor, Alexi Giannoulias, and Attorney General Kwame Raoul, in addition to offices for the Environmental Protection Agency, the Commission on Equity and Inclusion and the Illinois Arts Council.

State officials said the building will eventually house offices for the Illinois Department of Employment Security and the departments of Health and Family Services, Insurance, Public Health, Innovation and Technology, and Human Services. The building will also house the state’s Property Tax Appeal Board, the Illinois Lottery and also includes a BMO bank branch as a retail tenant.

In an interview after the House vote, White said he’s been spending his time out of public office with the famed gymnastics team he founded, the Jesse White Tumblers, a program aimed at providing direction and discipline to inner-city youth that’s been around for more than 60 years.

“Well, every day, I’m at Jesse White Tumbling Team headquarters,” White said, adding that 350 young people make up the team itself and it performs about 1,500 shows a year.

“I’m enjoying life. But I want to put as many young people out into the world as possible so they can become a positive force in society.”

White was born in downstate Alton, near St. Louis, in 1934 and moved with his family to Chicago when he was still a child. One of seven children, he grew up on West Division Street across the street from the Cabrini-Green public housing complex, where he later became a noted community activist.

White went on to be an all-conference player in basketball and baseball at Alabama State College (now University) in Montgomery, Alabama. White also got a tryout with the Chicago Cubs at Wrigley Field, but a few days before his first spring training, he was drafted into the Army, serving as a paratrooper with the 101st Airborne Division at Fort Campbell, Kentucky.

By the late 1950s, he was back on the baseball diamond, starting out in D ball, the lowest minor league classification at that time. Primarily an outfielder, White eventually made it to Triple-A, playing for a team in Salt Lake City. He batted .291 in seven minor league seasons for the Cubs organization.