List of Famous people born in Illinois, United States of America

George Lester Jackson was an African-American author, activist, and convicted criminal. While serving a sentence for armed robbery in 1961, Jackson became involved in revolutionary activity and co-founded the Marxist–Leninist Black Guerrilla Family.

Cody Keenan is an American political advisor and speechwriter who served as the Director of Speechwriting for President Barack Obama. Keenan studied political science at Northwestern University. After graduation, he worked in the senate office of Ted Kennedy, before studying for a master's in public policy at the Harvard Kennedy School. After graduation, he took a full-time position on the Barack Obama presidential campaign in 2008. In 2009, he took on the position of Deputy Director of Speechwriting; after Jon Favreau left the White House in 2013, Keenan took over as Director of Speechwriting.

Jason Dior Maxiell is an American former professional basketball player best known for his tenure with the Detroit Pistons from 2005 to 2013. He played college basketball for the University of Cincinnati and professionally in the NBA, China, and Turkey before retiring on August 4, 2017.

Brenda Czajka Barnes was an American businesswoman who served as president, chairman and chief executive of Sara Lee, and was the first female CEO at PepsiCo.

George Skakel was an American businessman and the founder of Great Lakes Carbon Corporation, part of SGL Carbon.

Terrance Patrick Gannon is a sportscaster for NBC Sports and the Golf Channel, currently announcing golf and figure skating. Gannon has announced a wide variety of sporting events and has been called one of the "most versatile" announcers in TV sports and "the man who knows every game".

Patrick J. ("Pat") Michaels is an American former agricultural climatologist. Michaels was a senior fellow in environmental studies at the Cato Institute until Spring 2019. Until 2007, he was research professor of environmental sciences at the University of Virginia, where he had worked from 1980.

Jarred Tuf Borland is an American football linebacker for Ohio State. He played high school football at Bolingbrook High School in Bolingbrook, Illinois.

Columbia Eneutseak, also billed as Nancy Columbia and Nancy Eneutseak, was an American performer in silent films, known for writing and starring in The Way of the Eskimo (1911).

George Lawrence Mikan Jr., nicknamed "Mr. Basketball", was an American professional basketball player for the Chicago American Gears of the National Basketball League (NBL) and the Minneapolis Lakers of the NBL, the Basketball Association of America (BAA) and the National Basketball Association (NBA). Invariably playing with thick, round spectacles, the 6 ft 10 in (2.08 m), 245 lb (111 kg) Mikan is seen as one of the greatest basketball players of all time, as well as one of the pioneers of professional basketball, redefining it as a game of so-called big men with his prolific rebounding, shot blocking, and his talent to shoot over smaller defenders with his ambidextrous hook shot, the result of the eponymous Mikan Drill. He also utilized the underhanded free-throw shooting technique long before Rick Barry made it his signature shot.