Skip to content
  • About
  • Events
  • Old Crime
  • N'At
  • People
  • Places
  • Sports
  • Yinz
  • About
  • Events
  • Old Crime
  • N'At
  • People
  • Places
  • Sports
  • Yinz
April 14, 2014 / People

Jake Milliones in the Hill District

Share on Facebook
Share on Twitter
Milliones with Mayor Richard S. Caliguiri in 1978. (Albert French/Post-Gazette)
Milliones with Mayor Richard S. Caliguiri in 1978. (Albert French/Post-Gazette)
Milliones relaxed by playing a bass at his home. (Jim Fetters/The Pittsburgh Press)
Milliones relaxed by playing a bass at his home. (Jim Fetters/The Pittsburgh Press)
Milliones was a Pittsburgh School Board member when he led a demonstration against South Africa and its Apartheid policies in 1984. (Bill Wade/The Pittsburgh Press)
Milliones was a Pittsburgh School Board member when he led a demonstration against South Africa and its Apartheid policies in 1984. (Bill Wade/The Pittsburgh Press)
Barbara Burns, left, took over for Milliones as school board president in 1988. (Robin Rombach/The Pittsburgh Press)
Barbara Burns, left, took over for Milliones as school board president in 1988. (Robin Rombach/The Pittsburgh Press)
Milliones toured the Ammon Recreation Center in the Hill District in 1990.(John Beale/Post-Gazette)
Milliones toured the Ammon Recreation Center in the Hill District in 1990.(John Beale/Post-Gazette)

During the 1960s, Jake Milliones was a soldier in the local civil rights movement before he became the city’s most respected black leader. He believed in helping those who were willing to help themselves.

He grew up in the predominantly white city neighborhood of Beechview and graduated from Westinghouse High School. Between 1966 and 1973, he earned  bachelor’s, master’s and doctorate degrees in psychology at the University of Pittsburgh. He was a clinical psychologist at Western Psychiatric Institute & Clinic.

A foe of South Africa’s apartheid, he was arrested while leading local picketers who urged people to stop buying kruggerands, a South Africa coin minted to promote that country’s gold.

His wife, Margaret, an activist and member of the Pittsburgh Board of Education, suffered a stroke and died in 1978. As her campaign manager, Mr. Milliones knew how hard she had fought to win that seat. He also was a grieving widower with four young children. Reluctantly, he entered public life and embraced it.

Appointed to fill his late wife’s seat on the school  board, he carried on her efforts to desegregate Pittsburgh public schools. He was elected president of the school board for five consecutive years and became a skilled conciliator. He advocated for regular evaluations of teachers and administrators, recruitment of blacks to fill those roles and elimination of the racial achievement gap.

He quit the school board in December 1988 to run for City Council. As the first black City Councilman elected from a district, he represented the Hill District plus parts of Downtown and  the North Side. He pushed for the development of Crawford Square, a $20 million housing complex in the Hill District for low and moderate-income residents.

He emerged as the city’s pre-eminent black political leader without the traditional promises of patronage or contracts in return for support. Earnest and multi-faceted, he loved the music of John Coltrane and bebop.  Later in life, his afro was streaked with white and he wore glasses, a look that gave him a professorial air. But when he glowered, people paid attention.

Mr. Milliones once led a reporter on a tour of Ammon Recreation Center on Bedford Avenue in the Hill District. There was open garbage, peeling lead paint, dank and dirty locker rooms plus cracked basketball and tennis courts. The attendant publicity spurred a blitz clean-up of city parks and pools.

Mr. Milliones suffered a heart attack on Jan. 2, 1993 and he died at age 52.

In an editorial, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette praised him as “a public servant who promoted the city’s general well being. If anyone, in the short history of City Council’s by-district system, had mastered how to balance representation for his constituents with leadership for the entire city, it was Jake Milliones.”

Top photo: Councilman Jake Milliones walks along Tannehill Street in the Hill District. (Bob Donaldson/Post-Gazette)

You might also want to see...

Topics related to this:Beechview Hill District Pittsburghers you know

Marylynne Pitz

Marylynne is a feature writer who has more fun looking at old Pittsburgh newspaper images than the law allows.

Old Pittsburgh photos and stories | The Digs

Browse by topic

  • Events (150)
  • Greatest Sports Photos (5)
  • Old crime (37)
  • People (107)
  • Pittsburgh n'at (138)
  • Places and landmarks (120)
  • Sports (102)
  • World (3)
  • Yinz (18)

Follow The Digs

RSS feed RSS - Posts

Find old photos

Most read this week

  • Isaly's in Oakland and the secret to Skyscraper Ice Cream Cone
  • Pittsburgh’s Chinatown and how it disappeared
  • Park Schenley Restaurant — Pittsburgh’s 21 Club
  • Cy Hungerford: Pittsburgh's cartooning chronicler
  • The George Westinghouse Bridge, Pittsburgh’s engineering marvel

Archives

Tags

"wow" photographs 1920s 1930s 1940s 1950s 1960s 1970s 1980s baseball bridges Civic Arena Downtown Pittsburgh football Forbes Field historic moments holidays industry music and musicians North Side Oakland oddities Photographer Darrell Sapp Photographer Harry Coughanour Photographer Morris Berman Pittsburghers you know Pittsburghers you might not know Pittsburgh Pirates Pittsburgh Post-Gazette Pittsburgh skyline Pittsburgh Steelers Pittsburgh traditions Pittsburgh women politicians pollution and smog rivers stage and film street scenes The Pittsburgh Press Things that are gone Three Rivers Stadium tragedies transportation University of Pittsburgh urban development weather and seasons

Tracks WordPress Theme by Compete Themes.

 

Loading Comments...