CHAMPAIGN – Nestled between North Street and Columbia Avenue, the 600 block of Walnut Street is known as Honorary Patricia Avery-Neal Way. The street recognizes a woman who left a legacy of possibility by breaking barriers and advocating for social justice in the Champaign-Urbana area.
Avery-Neal’s story began on Walnut Street, where she grew up with her paternal grandfather, having lost her mother at a young age to gun violence, according to Aaron Neal, Avery-Neal’s youngest son.
“It’s where she learned those core values, as far as community and family and planting seeds and sacrifice,” he said.
The community stood at the core of Avery-Neal’s career in public service. She served as president of the Champaign County NAACP branch from 2011 to 2017, and was executive director of the Champaign-Urbana Area Project for 16 years.
Neal said his mother helped the C-U Area project establish initiatives like TRUCE, a gun violence deterrence program, and the CUperStar Performing Arts and Enrichment Program.
Avery-Neal was also an active voice on boards and committees with organizations including the YWCA, a local rape crisis center and the Unit 4 Community Engagement Committee.
She also took on a maternal role in the community, said Neal. And at the core of all her work was love.
“She was always this force of nature,” he said. “Love was the resounding spirit that she embodied, and I think it shows through her work.”
Through the C-U Area Project, she also launched the Mentoring Young Sisters Program, an initiative aimed at empowering young women and providing them with guidance to set them up for success later in life, according to Avery-Neal’s daughter, Angela Avery.
Avery said the girls her mother mentored are still part of their family today.
“We just had [her] 70th birthday, and many of the girls came to her birthday. Now they’re bringing their families — we’re meeting their husbands, their children,” Avery said. “She was a great mom to me, but she had that skillset and that heart to be able to mentor others.”
Avery-Neal instilled a message of tenacity and perseverance in all of her children, Avery noted.
“ ‘Can’t’ wasn’t in our vocabulary. If we ever said that, she would immediately take that out and literally taught us that that wasn’t even a real word, in a sense,” she said.
Avery-Neal didn’t just teach determination; Avery said she led by example with a career in public service defined by firsts.
In 1996, Avery-Neal became the first African American woman elected to office as Recorder of Deeds in Champaign County, according to city documents. Later in 2000, she became the first Democratic African American woman to hold the position of Chair of the Champaign County Board.
“It was tough for her getting in those rooms, knocking down those doors. But once she’s knocked down those doors, now people can go in,” Avery said.
Avery recalled a phrase that her mother would use to encourage her to do anything she thought was difficult.
“One of the quotes that always cracks me up is… ‘Sometimes you have to go into the lion’s den with your meat suit on,’” she said.
While Avery-Neal is now retired and dividing her time between Illinois and Georgia, her children still take pride in the impact she had on the community.
“I know my mom is very proud of that. But if you ask her, it’s not about the titles, it was all about the community and being present and just being a representation,” Neal said.
Avery said that for the Champaign community, her mother is a symbol of “endless possibilities. I think she’s the epitome of what a legacy-builder looks like.”
Neal said that the honorary street sign serves as a symbol of his mother’s message to the community.
“Whenever my mom goes home, anybody — any young girl [or] boy that passes that street — can see my mom’s name and remember that through it all, you can achieve great things,” he said.