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2019 SESSION


SENATE JOINT RESOLUTION NO. 365
Celebrating the life of Lillie A. Estes.

 

Agreed to by the Senate, February 7, 2019
Agreed to by the House of Delegates, February 8, 2019

 

WHEREAS, Lillie A. Estes, passionate community strategist and advocate for her fellow residents of Gilpin Court and the members of the Richmond community as a whole, died on January 31, 2019; and

WHEREAS, a native of Newport News, Lillie Estes graduated from Menchville High School and relocated to Richmond after she earned a bachelor’s degree from Virginia Commonwealth University in 1983; and

WHEREAS, Lillie Estes was a longtime resident of Gilpin Court and led efforts to support and revitalize public housing neighborhoods throughout Richmond; she was a founding member of Residents of Public Housing in Richmond Against Mass Eviction and served on the board of the Virginia Poverty Law Center and the advisory council for Hope in the Cities; and

WHEREAS, Lillie Estes offered her leadership to the Richmond mayor’s anti-poverty commission, which became the Office of Community Wealth Building, and helped secure a $1 million federal grant for a community-based crime reduction program through the Office of the Attorney General; and

WHEREAS, a determined organizer and a skilled strategist, Lillie Estes engaged members of the community in unique ways, including through her Community Justice Film Series and by working with local residents and civic groups to create the Charles S. Gilpin Community Farm, an urban garden on a formerly vacant lot on St. Peter Street; and

WHEREAS, in November of 2018, Lillie Estes, building upon the work of the Charles Hamilton Houston Institute for Race and Justice, established the Community Justice Network, a gathering of individuals and organizations who are committed to advancing community justice through their individual and collective work; and

WHEREAS, Lillie Estes positively influenced the work of younger community organizers through her wisdom and experience, while encouraging them to seek intersectionality within their separate areas of civic engagement to achieve common goals; and

WHEREAS, Lillie Estes will be fondly remembered and greatly missed by numerous family members and friends; now, therefore, be it

RESOLVED by the Senate, the House of Delegates concurring, That the General Assembly hereby note with great sadness the loss of Lillie A. Estes, a champion for the residents of Gilpin Court who worked to build a more just, more humane community in Richmond; and, be it

RESOLVED FURTHER, That the Clerk of the Senate prepare a copy of this resolution for presentation to the family of Lillie A. Estes as an expression of the General Assembly’s respect for her memory.