
Today we send condolences to the Green Party of Illinois on the news of Sherman's death in an aviation mishap. We also extend our condolences to the First Amendment, which has lost one of its staunchest and most capable defenders.
During the Green convention, held at the University of Houston this past August, I got to give Sherman a ride from the University Center to the remote parking lot and back, in the groundskeeping cart that GPUS rented for transportation on the UH campus. (Kayleen says she also drove him around and enjoyed talking with him about Chicago, her favorite city.) I think it was a few hours after I drove Jill Stein and two of her retinue to the Houston Public Media studios and back. Sherman had to retrieve some personal effects from his campaign RV, which he had decorated Art Car–esque with the In Rob We Trust penny motif.
Sherman ran for Congress in Illinois's 5th District this year, a district that covers parts of Cook and DuPage Counties (including Wrigley Field). He received more than 14,000 votes, good for 4.67%. Just after Thanksgiving, he announced that in 2018 he would run to represent the 12th District, in southwestern Illinois (Alton, Carbondale, Cairo), where Paula Bradshaw received about 6% of the vote in last month's election.
During our conversation, I learned that Sherman was not only a civil rights attorney in Chicagoland, but also a pilot. Last Friday, as the Illinois Greens' memorial page notes, his single-engine plane went down en route to an event in suburban Schaumburg last Friday.