Illinois It's an extraordinary life At 99, retired lawyer recalls early days of fighting discrimination with NAACP

By Tony Reid (Deactur) Herald & Review DECATUR, Ill. (AP) § John Regan never forgets a friend, or an injustice. When he was a boy in the 1920s walking along the railroad tracks in Decatur on his way to what was then Roosevelt Junior High School, he got to know and like a black student named James Parsons, who used the same shortcut. Their friendship endured through Decatur High School and playing in the high school band together. The pals would go off on band trips, and Regan remembers how they once had some free time in Springfield and went to watch a show in a theater. "We were sitting up in the balcony when an usher came right over to Parsons and got him out of there because he wasn't allowed to sit there because of his skin color," he recalled. Sitting now in his Decatur home with a rescued stray cat he simply calls "Cat," Regan is casting his mind back 80 years. Yet he never forgot the look on his friend's face when that usher came to get him. "He was subdued, although he didn't get angry or anything," he said. "But you just knew he felt humiliated." It was a time when students in the same class couldn't eat lunch at the same place if their skin was the wrong shade. The incessant slaps and slights of racism, even in the more liberal North, left mental scar tissue that, combined with two young men of exceptional intelligence, turned into a determination to make a difference. Regan delights in pointing out that the late Parsons, who went on to teach music, also became a lawyer. He was the first African-American judge named to the U.S. District Court with life tenure, the appointment made by President Kennedy in 1961, and he presided for more than 30 years. Regan, meanwhile, also trained as a lawyer and set up shop in Decatur. There was a break while he went off to serve in World War II, and when he came back, he decided that part of making a land fit for heroes was offering his services to the NAACP. "They gave me a retainer," recalls Regan. "$10 a month." With that rich reward, he wielded the law like a sword to smite injustices ranging from the refusal of service at a hamburger joint to cases of wrongful mass arrests targeting blacks. In fight after fight, he wound up making officialdom think twice before trampling the rights of others. Later, as times changed, the NAACP decided it wanted its own lawyers, and Regan bowed out gracefully and concentrated on his private practice, developing a particular expertise in the complicated world of income taxes, one of his many specialties. He retired in 1987 after a career that had spanned half a century. Then, with some free time, he was able to turn his legal mind to an all-consuming passion: genealogy. He's hunted his own ancestry back to its European heritage and, along the way, compiled dozens and dozens of books of old Central Illinois newspaper clippings and pictures, the products of hours spent staring at library microfiche records. He hands out copies of the books he crafts to public libraries and especially the Decatur Genealogical Society. They have 182 copies of tomes he has made, along with more than 100 other books of historical and genealogical interest that he has bought and donated. At 99 years old, Regan has only slowed down recently after falling and breaking his arm on one of his frequent trips through the snow to the Decatur Public Library. "I always like to do something useful with my time," he said. His desire to probe the past also extends to contemporary history, and the Genealogical Society collection includes many picture books he has compiled with shots he's taken himself. Decatur shops, businesses, the people who run them and residents in the neighborhood where he lives all are fair game for the Regan version of living history. "He even followed the mailman around on his route and took pictures of him going places," said Cheri Hunter, the genealogical society librarian. "The thing about contemporary history is that we tend to forget about it until somebody says, 'Oh, remember such and such that was over there? Why didn't we take a picture of that?' But John remembers and understands. We've given him a life membership in recognition of all the work he's done." But Regan doesn't just record and chart history; he also makes it, and earns plenty of new friends along the way, too. His ancestral roots have intertwined with little towns such as Kenney in DeWitt County, and Regan believes part of honoring the past is to extend a helping hand to the present. In the case of Kenney, it's hard to know where to begin in listing his largesse. "He's been helping us for probably the last two or three years and spent well over $40,000," said Virginia Abshire, a former member of the village board and tireless Kenney booster. Kenney improvements funded by the generous arm of the law include a village sound system that plays music broadcast from atop the local Heritage Building community center. "The system chimes three times a day, kind of like a clock, and plays all kinds of tunes," says Abshire, 83. "I don't understand how it works, but it's great." Regan has funded landscaping improvements in the village park, a chairlift for the disabled in the community center and benches for the park and downtown area. He buys flowers for the yards of everybody in town all 400 of them and also pays for birdfeeders and birdseed for anybody in Kenney who wants to set one up. "He also bought $50 birdbaths for everybody who wants one," adds Abshire, who keeps remembering new things the lawyer has done and says it's a struggle to recall them all. It's just pleasing to see so many good things happening here," said Abshire. "Kenney is a small town but with a lot of nice people in it." All ably assisted by that other nice person who lives in Decatur and has a courageous, giving heart that has carried him through almost a century of local history. "I just like to help," Regan says. "And have some fun." Published: Thu, Mar 4, 2010

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