Lynda DeLaforgue was a longtime political activist and for many years the co-director of Citizen Action/Illinois, leading fights for progressive causes including health care access, marriage equality, food safety and an end to predatory payday lending.
She was also active in politics, working last year to help elect Rep. Sean Casten in Illinois’ 6th Congressional District.
“I’ve known Lynda now for decades and watched her grow into what I think is one of the most important progressive leaders in our state,” said U.S. Rep. Jan Schakowsky, who first met DeLaforgue when both worked for the Illinois Public Action Council.
DeLaforgue, 60, died Jan. 12 in her Chicago home of complications from metastatic colon cancer she had fought for more than four years, according to her daughter, Katy DeLaforgue Hintzen.
DeLaforgue was born in Chicago and grew up in Franklin Park. She focused on theater at what was then Rockford College in Rockford, graduating in 1980.
She was working as an actress and costume designer in Rockford after graduation and looking for part-time work when she took a job fundraising for the relatively new Illinois Public Action Council. Effective as a door-to-door canvasser and recruiter, she soon became the group’s Rockford office manager and helped organize a voter registration drive leading up to the 1984 election.
“That was how she first got involved” her daughter said. “She came from a home of public service — her father was a firefighter — and she certainly had a passion for progressive issues early on.”
DeLaforgue became the Illinois group’s statewide canvass manager and helped set up similar canvass operations in other states. She took an increasing role in the organization’s work on issues, particularly health policy and consumer protection. She also got involved in progressive political campaigns, helping elect Paul Simon to the U.S. Senate in 1984, re-elect Mayor Harold Washington in 1987, and send Schakowsky to the Illinois House of Representatives in 1990.
“Lynda and I have been partners in all things political,” Schakowsky said, “and policy-wise and organizing-wise for many many years.” That included working to elect a Democrat to replace Peter Roskam in the 6th District.
“She was one of the leaders who helped put together the coalition that helped us elect Sean Casten,” Schakowsky said.
After Illinois Public Action shut down in 1997, DeLaforgue became the associate director of the newly constituted Citizen Action/Illinois. Three years later she became its co-director and continued in that role until her death.
John Cameron, who preceded her as the group’s director, said she often worked behind the scenes, “yet she was kind of the critical energy that drove it.”
“Lynda was the person who made it happen, whatever success we had,” Cameron said.
Those successes included improved access to quality health care, reform of predatory payday loan practices and national efforts on food safety, Cameron said. “She was an amazing person with a wide variety of interests.”
“She would always be positive,” Schakowsky said. “Never giving up, always at the meetings, always organizing, even when getting chemotherapy, she’d be on her cellphone.”
Maintaining a connection to her early work in theater, she was an enthusiastic collector and online reseller of vintage clothing and vintage and antique jewelry.
Her coalition-building, helping groups work together to accomplish goals multiplied her own efforts, according to her life partner, Brian Reizfeld. He said the couple heard from a number of people about the lasting and spreading effects of DeLaforgue’s work.
“How many lives she touched with her work,” he said. “That’s where her legacy will really live on.”
A marriage ended in divorce.
In addition to her daughter and Reizfeld, DeLaforgue is survived by her son, Jordan; her mother, June Kaczur-Tate; and her sister, Laura .
Plans for a spring memorial service are pending.
Megan is a freelance reporter.
