Showing Us What Is Possible

IF YOU WANT success in Chicago politics, join the democratic party. Then, join the democratic party machine, Richard Daley's political descendants. be a good team player. always be available to work for the big boys, doing them favors. By all means, be white. Polish, Irish, or Italian white is fine, but never African-American white. Pigmentation matters. There is no benefit to being female, attractive or otherwise. Black folk can be good soldiers, followers, but seldom more. as long as they stay in their place, they get by. But in 1983, things changed. Several candidates split the white vote, and Harold Washington became the first black mayor in the city's history. His election triggered a four year slow motion political race war. For the first time in Chicago's colorful and volatile political history, a democratic mayor failed to achieve control of the fifty member city council. Washington's supporters were outnumbered by racists, many in his own party, and the council thwarted his entire agenda. Potholes that any white mayor could have filled became grand canyons. it was a struggle to pass bills providing for basic city services, only because the black mayor put the bills forward. A venerable tradition in Chicago politics is patronage for the mayor's in group homies. Not for Washington. Any African-American appointment, any nod to the black community, and the mayor, who actually went out of his way to avoid racial bias or the appearance of it, was accused of racism. The "N" word became the graffiti motif of choice all across the windy city. Racism, which usually assumes subtle, disguised guises in modern America, emerged in full visible bloom in Chicago of the nineteen eighties, only because of Mayor Washington. But Washington remained undeterred. he shook hands with every cracker in town. He dutifully attended all white functions, accepting all invitations to all events where he might win a few new friends. He spoke at every civic function within shouting distance. he was a funny, charming man, whose demeanor oozed personality, and, he was fair. "fairer than fair", as he put it. Not a trace of bitterness emanated from him. he became, in a sense, the Jackie Robinson of American politics, taking all that was given without dishing it out in return, while still standing tall with grace. And bit by bit, vote by vote, he won the respect and then the admiration of former enemies. Harold Washington won reelection in 1987, then died suddenly just a few days later, the day before Thanksgiving, thirty years ago. Dead people make great heroes. Harold Washington, like Martin Luther King before him, has been venerated in death after being vilified in life. Once again Chicago was returned to white control. the city had been changed forever, in subtle but important ways. Racists were less racist, more willing to give everyone an equal chance. It remained, and remains, a segregated racist city, with poverty concentrated disproportionately in black neighborhoods, but communication between the races was put on a higher level, and a feeling of possibilities and cooperation began to be evident. The African-American community had finally seen what might be possible. Twenty years later, America elected its first black president, a man who moved to Chicago partly due to the inspiring example of Harold Washington, and whose ascent to the top of the political pyramid he attributed to the example he had been shown in his adopted home town.