African American History Month - Otis McDonald, Civil Rights Hero and Second Amendment Champion (1933-2014)
Otis McDonald filed the case that overturned Chicago's handgun law in 2010
A humble and quietly strong man, who survived Jim Crow, Otis McDonald saw first-hand the accomplishments of the civil rights era, earned his associates degree while raising four daughters and a son, and is celebrated by not just the gun community, but his community, as a hero.
Otis McDonald’s story began in 1933 in Fort Necessity, Louisiana. Young Otis left school at the age of 14, never earning a high school diploma, as did many young men at that time period in search of employment. He went to Chicago when he was 17, as part of the “Great Migration of African Americans;” and served in the U.S Army. With $7 in his pocket from his mother, Otis landed a job as a janitor at the University of Chicago and worked his way up to a maintenance engineer.
The job allowed him and his wife to buy a house on the city’s far South Side in 1972, where they raised a family.
McDonald, as a grandfather, watched his neighborhood deteriorate; the quiet nights he once enjoyed were now replaced by the sound of gunfire, drunken fights and shattering liquor bottles. Three times, he says, his house was broken into – once the front door was wide open and the burglars were still out front when his wife and daughter came home from church. Another time, he called the police to report gunfire, only to be confronted by a man who told him he’d heard about that call and threatened to kill him.
A Democrat, and an avid hunter who lived in a neighborhood plagued by crime, McDonald would challenge the image of the gun-rights advocate.
And he did.
McDonald became the named plaintiff in a case against the city of Chicago’s handgun ban that went all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court. In McDonald v. Chicago, 561 U.S. 741 (2010) the U.S. Supreme Court held that the right of an individual to “keep and bear arms,” protected by the Second Amendment is incorporated by the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment and applies to the states. The decision was instrumental in clearing up the uncertainty left in the wake of the District of Columbia v. Heller case.
There was a wrong done a long time ago that dates back to slavery time, I could feel the spirit of those people running through me as I sat in the Supreme Court. (Otis McDonald)
McDonald v. City of Chicago, 561 U.S. 742 (2010), was a landmark decision of the U.S. Supreme Court ruled (5–4) that the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which guarantees “the right of the people to keep and bear Arms,” applies to state and local governments as well as to the federal government
Otis McDonald, lead plaintiff in the landmark gun rights case McDonald v. Chicago (2010), died this weekend at the age of 80. As Brian Doherty noted yesterday in his obituary, McDonald was a South Side Chicago grandfather who wanted a handgun to protect his family from local hoodlums and fought all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court to vindicate his rights. Thanks to his victory, the Second Amendment now joins the First Amendment and other Bill of Rights guarantees in applying to both the federal government and to the states.
McDonald v. Chicago was a civil rights triumph in every sense of the term. At its heart, the case dealt with the original meaning of the 14th Amendment, the constitutional safeguard enacted in 1868 to wipe away the last traces of slavery, particularly the noxious "Black Codes" designed by the former Confederates to prevent the freedmen from owning property, moving freely, and keeping and bearing arms for self-defense.
The city of Chicago rejected that original meaning and declared instead that state and local governments should be free to restrict gun ownership as they saw fit. Yet as Alan Gura, the lawyer who represented Otis McDonald before the Supreme Court, told the justices during the March 2010 oral arguments:
In 1868, our nation made a promise to the McDonald family that they and their descendants would henceforth be American citizens, and with American citizenship came the guarantee enshrined in our Constitution that no State could make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of American citizenship.
Otis McDonald forced the nation to keep its word, vanquishing Chicago's handgun ban in the process.
"There was a wrong done a long time ago that dates back to slavery time," he told the Chicago Tribune in 2010.
"I could feel the spirit of those people running through me as I sat in the Supreme Court." His win not only vindicated their spirit; it expanded the constitutional liberties of all Americans going forward.
He was a civil rights hero who made his country a better place.
"He was absolutely among the nicest, most genuine and warmest of people," Alan Gura recalled of Otis McDonald.
"We're fortunate to have had him in our lives and on the side of freedom."
Sources for Report
Otis McDonald, Civil Rights Hero and Second Amendment Champion, 1933-2014 filed the case that overturned Chicago's handgun law in 2010 Damon Root | 4.7.2014 11:25 AM
https://reason.com/2014/04/07/otis-mcdonald-civil-rights-hero-and-seco/
Otis McDonald, 1933-2014: Fought Chicago's gun ban by Dahleen Glanton and Tribune reporter Apr 06, 2014 at 12:00 am
McDonald v. City of Chicago, 561 U.S. 742 (2010), was a landmark decision of the Supreme Court of the United States that found that the right of an individual to "keep and bear arms", as protected under the Second Amendment, is incorporated by the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment and is thereby enforceable against the states. The decision cleared up the uncertainty left in the wake of District of Columbia v. Heller (2008) as to the scope of gun rights in regard to the states.
https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/561/742/
City of Chicago, case in which on June 28, 2010, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled (5–4) that the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which guarantees “the right of the people to keep and bear Arms,” applies to state and local governments as well as to the federal government. Dec 11, 2022
https://www.britannica.com/event/McDonald-v-City-of-Chicago
Remembering Otis McDonald
by Kenneth V. Blanchard - Tuesday, April 5, 2016 https://www.nrablog.com/articles/2016/4/remembering-otis-mcdonald/
