Before Rick Garcia passed away Monday night, the indefatigable gay rights activist’s brother recalled a childhood photo.

The young Garcia sat between his parents in the black-and-white shot. His legs dangled off a chair as he waited to listen to the mayor of his hometown, St. Louis. He was a little boy “waiting to be an adult, waiting to fight his fight,” Garcia’s brother, David, said.

“And he did fight.”

After a four-decade career pushing for gay rights in Chicago, the hard-hitting political heavyweight who kept a laser focus on civil rights leaves behind the belts to prove it.

Garcia successfully pushed to have anti-gay attacks in Chicago classified as hate crimes. He spearheaded campaigns that banned discrimination against LGBTQ people in the city, county and state. And he helped lead the push to legalize gay marriage in Illinois.

“Every single law that passed in the city, state and county passed because of Rick,” close friend Tobi Williams said.

He was 69.

Friends, fellow activists and family credit Garcia’s incessant spirit and willingness to work with anyone for the many hard-won legislative wins he helped secure. Garcia played a critical role in organizing LGBTQ Chicagoans into a political force, they said.

Equality Illinois, the state’s leading LGBTQ advocacy group that he co-founded, praised him as a “towering figure” Tuesday.

“He was a fierce advocate in a pivotal era of our movement, unafraid to throw punches when our community was under attack and equally committed to coalition-building and lasting change,” said Art Johnston, a fellow co-founder and part of the so-called “Gang of Four” that led Chicago LGBT rights activism.

For Garcia, those carefully crafted coalitions often took surprising form.

He sometimes got Republicans to sign on to gay rights legislation before liberal Democrats, Williams recalled. He even had a close friendship with former Gov. George Ryan, a Republican, she added.

“He was honest. He always counted votes. He always knew who was voting how. He worked both sides of the aisle,” she said.

In 2001, Ryan made the surprise move of vetoing legislation that aimed to guarantee motorcyclists the right to use hotels, restaurants and stores. The governor sent it back to the Illinois General Assembly with one key addition: the same rights for gay and lesbian people.

It was Garcia’s idea, an example of his often eye-catching and creative political style.

“The beauty of this motorcycle bill is that it holds up a mirror to the opponents of the gay rights bill,” he said at the time. “It exposes their argument for what it is. How can you vote to protect motorcyclists if you can’t vote to protect everybody else?”

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The state finally banned discrimination by sexual orientation and gender identity in 2005.

“For folks who live in Cook County and the 15 cities that already have this legislation, I don’t think this law has that great an effect,” said Garcia, a media-savvy expert to whom reporters often turned. “But it is going to have an impact on people like those that came to Peoria’s human rights office and were turned away. Now they’re protected.”

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Garcia’s run-ins with top state leaders were constant.

Williams said Garcia met frequently with Mayor Richard M. Daley to push gay rights, and recalled the mayor effusively greeting Garcia when the two would appear together at events around the city.

Garcia, made a member of the Chicago LGBT Hall of Fame in 1999, similarly won over former Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan, who once told him he would never get any legislation passed in the state, Williams added.

“Rick said, ‘Yeah, we’ll see about that.’ And Rick fought back,” she said.

Former Gov. Pat Quinn, who signed into law both the state’s legalization of same-sex civil union in 2011 and same-sex marriage in 2013, called Garcia a “zealous advocate.” He “wasn’t shy in any way” as he helped steer a movement from the front, Quinn recalled.

“He always understood you aren’t going to win by just rhetoric,” Quinn said. “He would get to the streets and talk to people. He was relentless.”

That force was evident in childhood, David Garcia said. Growing up, Garcia, who had four brothers and two sisters, was always the favorite. He spent weekends with his beloved grandmother and delighted lines of women who waited to dance with him at family weddings, David Garcia said.

In a 1996 Chicago Reader profile, Garcia recalled raising his finger at a theology professor speaking about the “sin” of homosexuality during a lecture he attended as a young man.

“You need a refresher course in theology. Gay people are entitled to friendship, love, and justice, according to the American Catholic bishops. What you said was neither friendly, loving, or just,” he recalled saying.

The retort landed him on local television. Around the same time, he worked fighting for farm workers’ rights alongside Cesar Chavez, a gig that got him “arrested all the time,” he told The Reader.

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“There was always a fiery quality to him about justice and injustice,” David Garcia said. “I think it was because of the nuns.”

The devout Catholic’s initial activism was in part funded by small donations from nuns, both Williams and David Garcia said. David Garcia recalled once feeling like “Paul McCartney’s brother” when several St. Louis nuns realized who his brother was.

Williams said Garcia was “one breath away from being a priest.”

To her, he was “everything, better than a husband” as she raised her daughters as a single mother. Garcia’s partner, Ernie Hunsperger, died in 2020.

“We had front row seats to the changing of human rights,” Williams said. “He was honest. He was smart. And he knew his stuff… He had the best reputation I have ever seen in Illinois.”

She credited him with raising millions of dollars for a Northalsted LGBTQ community center. He did the same to support unhoused LGBTQ people in Humboldt Park, she said.

Garcia’s hard-hitting style clashed at times with others in his movement. He was fired in December 2010 from his role leading the political efforts of Equality Illinois, a move that shook Chicago’s gay community.

At the time, he criticized the “well-mannered, nice and corporate” approach that he said the organization wanted. “That doesn’t work in Chicago,” he said.

“The style I have has been hard and rough like Chicago politics. You tell the truth, fight hard and keep your eyes on the prize,” Garcia said.

And as condolences and praise poured in from state leaders Tuesday – Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson, Gov. JB Pritzker, US Rep. Robin Kelly and more — David Garcia acknowledged his brother’s approach.

“His heart was in the right place. His methods might not have made a lot of people happy at the time. But in the long run, what he accomplished is something for them to be happy about,” he said.

“His impact, people are living it right now.”

Garcia is survived by his six siblings and his mother, David Garcia said. Garcia’s family plans to host a memorial gathering Saturday, Jan. 24 at St. Mary of the Lake Catholic Church, with a viewing at 1 p.m. and a funeral at 2 p.m.