Mary D. Powers, dead at 93, called for police accountability

Through many Chicago mayors, police superintendents and commanders, Mary Powers called for improved police accountability.

Mrs. Powers, who worked for decades for the watchdog group she helped found, Citizens Alert, died Saturday at 93 at Evanston Hospital, according to her family.

In 1965, she worked to bring Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. to Winnetka, where he made a fair-housing speech on the village green.

In 1969, while touring the building where Black Panthers leaders Fred Hampton and Mark Clark were killed during a police raid, Mrs. Powers confirmed that all the bullet holes — except one — appeared to have been fired from outside, a revelation first reported by the Chicago Sun-Times. She joined the chorus rejecting the official story that it was a shootout.

In 1991, she called for action against Chicago police Cmdr. Jon Burge, who had been linked to extracting confessions via torture by John Conroy in the Chicago Reader. Nearly 20 years later, she attended Burge’s trial, where he was convicted of perjury and obstruction of justice.

In 2006, in a letter co-written to the Sun-Times, she called for an independent civilian review board to replace the police Office of Professional Standards.

“Taxpayers’ money has been thrown down the drain for years to disguise the stench of brutality and degrading behavior on the part of abusive cops,” she said, “while uninvolved professional officers are subjected to undeserved hostility and resistance and the reputation of our city is tarnished.”

A longtime resident of Winnetka, Mrs. Powers rejected reporters’ descriptions of her as a gray-haired suburban matron. “It’s a distraction,” she said, “from the issues.”

“She was just a wonderful soldier in the struggle for justice,” said Peoples Law Office attorney Flint Taylor. “She was not only there in court and on the streets but meeting with superintendents.”

In 1992, Mrs. Powers was inducted into the Chicago Gay and Lesbian Hall of Fame, recognized for her “tireless” advocacy for civil rights.

Her work with the gay community traced to 1946, when she worked at Western Electric.

“As a counselor, she often encountered gay and lesbian employees who lived in constant fear of losing their jobs if their sexuality became known,” according to her Hall of Fame biography. They “developed a trust in Mary Powers that allowed them to discuss candidly their fears and concerns.”

In 1969, she helped organize what became the Illinois Gay and Lesbian Task Force.

“She’d come to all of the rallies,” longtime gay rights activist Rick Garcia said. “She advocated for training — long before it was fashionable — of law enforcement in how to deal with gay people. I would see her at City Hall meetings, and she’d sit there, quietly, with an eagle’s eye, and document everything. She always had this notebook and her pen.

“She was a witness,” he said. “She sat there and witnessed everything.”

Born Mary Downey, she grew up in East Lansing and Flint, Mich., said her son, William. Her mother was a teacher and her father a manager for Oldsmobile. During World War II, his Michigan plant switched to manufacturing weaponry, so he was transferred to an Oldsmobile facility in Wisconsin. She attended the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where she earned a degree in sociology, her son said.

After the war, she married William Powers, a sales manager in the publishing industry. They raised their children in Winnetka, where King gave his 1965 speech.

“She was instrumental in bringing Dr. King” to the North Shore, her son said. “They had to fight for the permit to have him come up here to [the] village green.”

Her positions weren’t always popular.

“Not many people are going to advocate for convicted criminals,” her son said. Even in cases where “they might have murdered someone,” he said, she believed “they don’t deserve to be tortured.

“We were proud of her,” he said. “She was a great mom. She was an activist volunteer. . . She wasn’t on the cocktail circuit.”

Even while visiting a favorite destination — Tucson — she promoted humanitarian assistance at border crossings, according to her daughter, Lisa Marcum.

She also pushed for improved Taser training to safeguard citizens. “She was way out front about the use of Tasers, years ago. Then, it was police cameras,” her son said.

She had few vices, but she was a “chocoholic,” her daughter said.

Mrs. Powers, who most recently lived in Wilmette, is also survived by another daughter, Joanne Powers; another son, Stephen; seven grandchildren and one great-grandchild. Services are being handled by Donnellan Family Funeral Services in Skokie.