Activist, politican and jurist lost his battle with cancer Thursday morning.
R. Eugene Pincham, a political and legal icon in the city died Thursday morning of cancer.. Pincham, a retired justice of the Illinois Appellate Court, was 82. Prior to being appointed as a justice to the state appellate court, Pincham served eight years as a judge in the Cook County Circuit Court.
Services are scheduled for Saturday April 12, at Trinity United Church of Christ on West 95th Street.
The wake will be at 10 a.m., followed by the funeral at 11 a.m. In lieu of flowers, the family requests donations be made to the Can-cer Survive Scholarship Fund at Trinity. The fund was established by Pincham’s late wife, Alzata,
Pincham’s political career was highlighted by his run for mayor of Chicago on the Harold Washington Party ticket in 1991. He won all 19 wards that were predominantly Black. Two years earlier he was unsuccessful for his bid as the Democratic Party nomination for president of the Cook County Board of Commissioners.
A native of Limestone County in Northern Alabama, Pincham moved to Chicago in 1947 to attend Northwestern University’s Law School. In August of the following year, he married his college sweetheart Alzata Henry. They were married until her death in April 2005.
Pincham kept a portrait of his late wife near the front door of their Michigan Avenue home. He told visitors that in all the years they were married, the couple never argued. Robert Pincham, the judge’s son related that the parents had their only argument when they met as students at Tennessee State University when Pincham worked in the student cafeteria.
“When she took her tray back she hadn’t cleaned it off and my dad cussed her out, the younger Pincham related. She told him to meet her outside and he did. When they got outside she told him that nobody talked to her like that and she cussed him out. And that was their only argument ever.
“Of course they didn’t always agree on things, but as children we thought the way couples got along was to talk things through and reach an understanding.”
Pincham began practice in 1951 when he joined the firm Evins, Pincham, Fowlkes and Cooper. Pincham was admitted to the Bar of the U.S. Supreme Court in 1965.
He also was a lifetime NAACP member as well as a member of the American Civil Liberties Union.
Pincham is survived by two sons, Robert and James Frederick Pincham, and a daughter Dr. Andrea Michelle Pincham-Benton. Two grandchildren, Evan Eugene Pincham and Christiana Alexandria Pincham as well as several nephews and cousins.
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