Cirilo mcsween biography of rory

Cirilo McSween came to the United States from Panama to run track at the University of Illinois and went on to become a business and civil rights leader who was one of the first African-Americans to take a seat at the insurance industry’s elite “Million Dollar Round Table.”

Mr.

McSween, 82, died of multiple myeloma on Wednesday, Nov. 5, in a hospital in Little Rock, Ark., where he had gone for treatment, said his daughter Veronica. He lived in Chicago’s Hyde Park neighborhood.

Born in Panama City, where his father was in the import-export business and his mother made dresses, Mr. McSween was a young track star on the national team before coming north to attend the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

Cirilo mcsween biography of rory Not only did he succeed in athletics, but in academics as well. Terms of service Privacy guidelines About us Contact us Sitemap. He began his professional career as a sales representative for New York Life Insurance Company, Becoming the first African-American sales representative. News U.

There he was a Big Ten champion in the yard dash in the early s and received a bachelor’s degree in business.

He settled in Chicago and broke into the insurance business with New York Life, no easy task for an African-American at the time. From an office on East 35th Street in Bronzeville, he doggedly built a clientele of policy-holders by going door to door throughout the black South Side.

By the late s, he was selling more than $1 million in new insurance a year, qualifying him for the industry’s “Million Dollar Round Table,” a measure of a salesman’s success at the time.

Branching out from insurance, he joined the board of the black-owned Independence Bank in Chicago.

In , Mr. McSween became the first black business owner on the then new State Street Mall when he opened a McDonald’s at S. State St.

The restaurant remained his base of operations as he assembled a chain of 11 stores, often in partnerships. He operated five McDonald’s franchises, including outlets at O’Hare International Airport, at the time of his death, a spokeswoman said.

As his career took off, he became involved with the civil rights movement, serving on the board and as treasurer of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference and as a founding board member of Operation Breadbasket.

A confidant of Rev. Jesse Jackson’s, he was a vice chairman of Operation Push.

He was also close to Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., and was a pallbearer at King’s funeral, his family said.

At ease in both neighborhood bars and corporate boardrooms, Mr. McSween often did business from a table at his State Street McDonald’s.

Because of his achievements, New York Life started a scholarship program, in cooperation with Operation Push, for full-time college students who show a commitment to their studies and their communities.

Mr.

McSween’s first wife, Gwendolyn, died in He is survived by his wife, Arlene; another daughter, Esperanza Powell; a son, Cirilo Jr.; a sister, Anna Phillips; and two grandsons.

Services are being arranged.

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