Singleton students and staff, church celebrate late Joliet leader

JOLIET – Who was Isaac Singleton?

Saundra Russell-Smith, assistant principal at Isaac Singleton Elementary School, asked dozens of elementary students who gathered in a gym how many knew who he was. Several students raised their hands.

“I don’t see enough hands, so that’s why you guys are here,” she said.

The students learned Wednesday morning that the name of their school that opened in 2011 belonged to a man who marched in the civil rights movement and served as a key religious leader in Joliet for close to 50 years.

The Rev. Isaac Singleton was a man who was a proponent of education and motivated youths to be whoever they wanted to be.

“For all of your beautiful faces and being in this beautiful building, Pastor Singleton is putting his hand on every one of you, saying, ‘You can do great things,’ ” said Gwendolyn Ulmer, District 86 board president. “So you are our next doctors and lawyers and nurses and carpenters. Whatever it is you want to be, you can do it.”

A presentation on Singleton was given by members of Mount Zion Baptist Church, which he once led, in honor of his upcoming birthday March 31. He would have been 88.

Singleton’s wife, Pearl Singleton, also was honored. She died Monday in California.

“We celebrate her now as much as we celebrate Pastor Singleton,” said Rufus Stephens, Mount Zion Baptist Church assistant pastor.

Several members of the church shared with the students how Isaac Singleton shaped their lives.

For Ulmer, who became a member of the church in 1967, Isaac Singleton and his wife made her feel like she was the most important person in the world.

Isaac Singleton was there for all the challenges in her personal life, and she gained skills and opportunities at Mount Zion Baptist Church that led to her later success.

“Had I not had that skill set, I would not be able to do what I do to make sure that District 86 is all that it can be,” Ulmer said.

Naurice Moffett, Mount Zion Baptist Church youth pastor, said Isaac Singleton loved children and he would be called “Poppy” around the church.

He said Isaac Singleton was there for the high and low moments of his life.

“He has made a definite impact on my life,” Moffett said.

Stephens, who Isaac Singleton coached when he decided to become a minister, said when he came to Singleton Elementary School on Wednesday morning, he had a “sense of nothing but greatness.”

The school opened in October 2011 next to Gompers Junior High School and was named after Isaac Singleton, who died in February that same year.

Isaac Singleton retired as a pastor of Mount Zion Baptist Church in 2009 but remained active. He advocated for civil rights in the 1960s and brought Martin Luther King Jr. to Joliet for an event in 1965 at Memorial Stadium.

Despite his ambitious accomplishments in life, Isaac Singleton was known for being humorous.

“His name, Isaac, meant ‘laughter’ and he lived up to his name,” Stephens said. “It was hard to spend 10 to 15 minutes with him when you’re not laughing so hard that water is coming out of your eyes.”

Stephens said to the students Wednesday something he believed Isaac Singleton would have told them: “There is greatness within me.”

He had the crowd of students chant the phrase and told them they can be whoever they want to be.

“Oh, you got the rhythm now, everybody: There is greatness within me!” Stephens said.

“There is greatness within me,” the students yelled.