Judge William Cousins dies; Harvard grad was prosecutor, independent alderman

Illinois Appellate Court Judge William Cousins Jr., a Harvard Law School graduate who served in the Korean War and as a prosecutor and independent Chicago alderman, has died at 90.

A native of Swiftown, Mississippi, he grew up in Tennessee. When he was 11, his family moved to Chicago, where he graduated from DuSable High School. He attended the University of Illinois before earning a law degree from Harvard University in 1951.

After prosecuting criminal cases as an assistant state's attorney and working in private practice, he was elected the first black independent alderman from the 8th Ward in the late 1960s. In 1976, he was elected a Cook County judge.

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