When asked for a word to describe his father, Daniel Polikoff lands on “selfless.”
His father, Alexander Polikoff, was a lawyer and author who devoted his life to fighting for social justice. The pinnacle of his career was the 50-plus years of work he performed as lead attorney in the long-running court case of Gautreaux v. Chicago Housing Authority — one of the most important public housing desegregation cases in the country’s history that went to the U.S. Supreme Court.
Dorothy Gautreaux, along with other Black tenants in public housing, filed the class-action lawsuit in 1966, alleging the CHA chose public housing sites and assigned tenants by race.
It wasn’t settled until 2019, and an amendment to that settlement was approved by a judge last year, requiring the CHA to address racial segregation in public housing developments and strengthen other programs. The case allowed Black segregated residents to receive federal housing vouchers to move anywhere across the Chicago area.
“He was utterly dedicated to causes of social justice, as you can see from the record,” Daniel Polikoff said. “He was incredibly patient and preserving in his work, and very thorough.”
Mr. Polikoff, 98, died May 27 beside his family in Keene, New Hampshire, where he and his wife, Barbara, had moved in 2022.
He was born Jan. 21, 1927, in Chicago and attended the University of Chicago, where he earned his bachelor’s, master’s and law degrees.
Mr. Polikoff wrote five books and was an active reader and writer, even until recently.
His latest book, “Cry My Beloved America: A Call to Action,” was published last year and examines the country’s current state of politics. He also published, “Waiting for Gautreaux: A Story of Segregation, Housing, and the Black Ghetto,” as well as other books about public housing.
“He was a true social activist, and he just was always thinking about that,” said his daughter, Eve Kodiak. “He’d already started on another book, and the title of the new book was to be ‘The World,’ like, he kept expanding his scope. And so he was really a visionary and kind of a pragmatic idealist, and he changed a lot of people’s lives.”
In 1970, Mr. Polikoff became executive director of the Business and Professional People for the Public Interest, now called Impact for Equity. He served in that role until 1999, then worked as the organization’s housing director until 2022.
“Alex’s legacy lives on in so many ways — through the books he published, through legal victories he achieved, and through Impact for Equity’s Polikoff-Gautreaux Fellowship program, stewarding future generations of legal advocates who share his passion for a more just and equitable society,” Impact for Equity said in a statement.
The Gautreaux case came full circle for Mr. Polikoff in recent years when he met Kiah Morris, a woman who as a child was a beneficiary of the public housing reforms and moved from Chicago to a suburb with her mother and two sisters. Morris went on to become a state representative in Vermont, the second Black woman in state history to be elected to the Vermont Legislature.
Mr. and Mrs. Polikoff raised their children at a house in Highland Park, where they lived until moving three years ago. Daniel Polikoff can still hear his father’s imitation of Eeyore when he’d read Winnie-the-Pooh books to him and his siblings on camping trips out West.
“He was very, very present as a husband and father, and … a lot of fun to be with as a son,” Daniel Polikoff said, also recalling his father’s butterfly collection and catching fly balls hit by his father in Lincoln Park.
In addition to his son and daughter, Mr. Polikoff is survived by five grandchildren. He is preceded in death by his daughter, Joan Polikoff, and his wife.
A celebration of life is scheduled for July in New Hampshire.
