Tribute from Classic Chicago Magazine

 From Classic Chicago Magazine, December 31, 2023

Newton Minow was a national treasure.  He loved his family, community, country, and his firm. He was a visionary, a life-long learner who never stopped teaching, communicating, creating, encouraging, advising, advocating. He was a champion of the public interest. His decades of accomplishments include: Presidential Medal of Freedom, 2016, (President Obama); US Army, WWII, China-Burma India Theater, New Delhi; Clerk, US Supreme Court Chief Justice, Fred M. Vinson; Chair, FCC, appointed by President John F. Kennedy, 1961; major role in creating PBS, WTTW, Sesame Street; powerful advocate for Congressional authority to launch first communications satellites; Chair, bipartisan Commission on Presidential Debates; Chair, RAND Corporation; Trustee, Notre Dame University and Northwestern University; Peabody Award and Woodrow Wilson Award for Public Service. The following recollections are drawn from “A Celebration of the Life of Newton N. Minow- September 20, 2023.” The complete program is included here as a link, with kind thanks to Nell, Martha, and Mary Minow, his three adored daughters (and frequent co-authors). Additional contributions are from John Levi, Newt’s distinguished law partner of 50 years. Here are selected personal reflections:

Nell Minow:

Nell recounts her parents’ first meeting: Mom was studying in her sorority house at Northwestern University when one of the other girls came in from the library. Mom asked, “Anything happening there?” “No,” the girl said, “no one is there except Newton Minow.” Mom gathered her things and decided she needed to study in the library, too. And the rest is history… The day my Dad gave his “Vast Wasteland” speech to the National Association of Broadcasters (May 9, 1961), he went back to the FCC, signed the original license for WETA, Washington DC’s public television station (called “Educational Television” until my Dad initiated the legislation to create PBS), and then flew home to Chicago so he could attend my Brownie Father-Daughter dinner. Then, he went back to the airport and flew back to Washington. A few years ago, we found a note to my Mother from my Dad on a FCC notepad asking her to confirm the date of the Brownie dinner and noting he was giving a speech that morning… Dad never rode in a cab without learning the entire life story of the driver. He was a great, great listener, asked thoughtful questions, and had the most buoyant, joyful, generous curiosity… Dad was a master storyteller. He had a deep understanding of the essential elements that make a story. He recognized the importance of stories to create empathy, to inspire, to teach problem-solving and the consequences of judgement, good and bad, and most of all as the best way to create connections, a sense of intimacy, a shared world. I’ll be telling his stories forever, and I know you will, too. 

Martha Minow:

The values of the Great Generation: courage, commitment to others, and better the world- that’s Dad. He came back from WWII and forever remembered how the world is one and how to cherish home. Dad and Mom had a true love affair, a loving marriage of equals through 72 years…They adored and thoroughly helped one another. Mom taught Dad how to pace a joke, how to take a career risk. Dad taught Mom how to drive, urged her to write children’s books. Dad and Mom celebrated their children and grandchildren: a united force in our lives and in the world… Dad loved, loved, loved his family. Family always came first. And his friends became family, and their families became friends. He made friends with people he met in an elevator, a taxi… Beautiful notes about him have come from a cafeteria worker, a security officer, journalists, people who tell us he changed their lives with advice, help getting into a good school, securing immigration, mentoring their children… Earlier this year he and I wrote a plan for self-regulation by social media companies. Our essay was published after Dad passed away. He had already given me a list of people to share it with. 

Mary Minow:

Eight years ago, I gave Dad a WWII Veteran’s cap, and he wore it A LOT. It was a joy to behold him in the cap.  I could see the young man in his eyes every time someone stopped him on the street to thank him for his service. He wore it one day to Wrigley Field. The Cubs briefly picked him up on their camera. A man sidled up to Dad and said, “I know you, you’re famous!” He pointed to Dad’s WWII hat. “I SAW YOU ON THE JUMBOTRON!”  I wondered whether the man recognized Dad’s contributions to PBS, to the Presidential Debates, to countless other possibilities… Dad enlisted in the Army in 1943 at age 17. He was there for three birthdays. Two months after he returned at age 20, he wrote a long reflection that is preserved at the Library of Congress Veterans History Project. I share some of that with you now: “I learned in the war that the world is not different but the same, and that peace is the greatest gift of all…we must pay all our lives for peace- in understanding, in work, in hope, and in prayer. And we shall. Newton.” 

John Levi:

Newt Minow was mentor, law partner, dear friend, and “second dad” to John Levi. John speaks in glowing terms of Newt’s determination in the early 1980s to establish and maintain a partnership in Chicago between Sidley Austin and CPS Kanoon Elementary Magnet School in Little Village. “Newt had been asked by Chicago Magazine, as the City approached its 150th birthday, to identify what was important for the City’s future. Newt responded: ‘Invest in the publics schools.’ Reading this, the enterprising principal of Kanoon called Newt and asked him if our firm would adopt her school. He immediately involved me in that effort. Under the firm’s guidance, many opportunities were offered to students, faculty, and staff including mock trials for middle schoolers, government, the Constitution, and lawyers in the classroom discussing their role in our legal system. Investing in school technology continues to this day. Suzuki violin, Folkloric dance, Cinco de Mayo and Dia de los Muertos observances, book chats, school supply and Thanksgiving food drives, and field trips to special places were included.” John Levi is currently the co-chairmen of this 40-year initiative Newt forged. It is the longest running continued adaption of a Chicago school by a Chicago area firm. Martha Minow notes, “After my sister Mary reconnected them, the school principal at that time wrote to Dad not long ago: ‘The best thing that ever happened to me and to our Kanoon Community was your personal involvement with us; know that I treasure your mentorship and assistance and find it to be the highlight of my professional and personal life.’”