Business and Community Partners: Blacks Debate What Is Next in the Wide-Open Mayoral Race / Chicago News Cooperative

The old Brach's Candy factory sits empty on Cicero Avenue in the West Side.
Jose More/Chicago News Cooperative

The last time anyone not named Daley had a legitimate shot at being elected mayor of Chicago, the city was an emotional tinderbox. Residents and politicians were still reeling from the sudden death two years earlier of Harold Washington, Chicago’s first black mayor, and the racially charged “council wars” that raged during his administration.

It was 1989, and blacks in Chicago were locked in a bitter civil war, sharply divided between two black mayoral hopefuls. But when the fighting was over and the votes were counted, the last man standing was Richard M. Daley, who benefited from the division to win the first of his six terms as mayor.

Much has changed in Chicago since then. But Mr. Daley’s Sept. 7 announcement that he will not run for re-election caught the city by surprise and set off discussions throughout Chicago’s Balkanized neighborhoods about who and what should come next. Among many black elected officials, ministers, political organizers and callers to talk radio shows, the debate is also framed by memories of how Mr. Daley came to power and the question of whether black Chicagoans should try to come together 21 years later to support a single candidate.

“Today, the black community is totally disunified,” said Conrad W. Worrill, a veteran of black independent politics and director of the Jacob Carruthers Center for Inner City Studies at Northeastern Illinois University. “We are still suffering from what happened in 1989. But this could and should serve as an opportunity to unify the community again.”

Some wonder if that is possible — or if it would be advantageous.

“The black community in Chicago is a diverse one,” said State Representative William D. Burns, Democrat of Chicago. “The black community hasn’t gone through this exercise successfully in 30 years, and the community has changed a lot since those days.

“I think there will be a debate about whether we’re looking for a candidate who articulates the issues within the community or one who can appeal to the community and beyond.”

Black elected officials and grass-roots organizers tried repeatedly in the 1990s to rally behind a single mayoral candidate in municipal elections, but Mr. Daley triumphed each time, in part by capturing an increasing share of the vote in black wards. In 2007, he beat two long-shot black challengers by winning a majority in 49 of the city’s 50 wards.

Mr. Daley was helped over the years by a declining voter turnout. About 934,000 people voted in the first round of mayoral balloting in 1989, compared with 457,000 in 2007.

By then, even some of Mr. Daley’s longtime critics had become supporters. Among them was Representative Bobby L. Rush, Democrat of Illinois, who in 1999 was the last consensus black candidate to challenge Mr. Daley. He lost 69 percent to 27 percent.

Mr. Rush said it was now time for blacks to come together to ensure that their issues were addressed. “We want to learn from our mistakes of the past,” he said.

Black business leaders have been circulating names, and on Friday 111 ministers voted for their preferred candidates. Finishing first was State Senator James T. Meeks, followed by Representatives Danny K Davis and Jesse Jackson Jr. and the former United States Senator Carol Moseley Braun. And the City Council’s black caucus is putting together a questionnaire to circulate among potential contenders, said Alderman Howard Brookins Jr. (22nd Ward).

“We would like to see an African-American as mayor,” Mr. Brookins said. “We certainly want someone who is going to pay attention to issues in the African-American community.”

Others expressed doubt that blacks would arrive at a consensus candidate.

“We are divided,” said Bamani Obadele, who directs a youth violence-prevention program in the Roseland area. “The black clergy is divided. The black activists are divided. Absolutely no one has been groomed for such a time like this.”

A common complaint that many blacks had about Mr. Daley is that while he lavished his love and attention on downtown and surrounding gentrified areas, he treated the largely black South and West Sides like unwanted stepchildren.

They point out that predominately black neighborhoods suffer from poor-performing schools, shuttered buildings and empty lots, high crime, and a lack x1of economic development, including grocery stores, restaurants and places to work.

But the city is strapped for cash and has a looming budget deficit of more than $650 million. Hermene Hartman, publisher of N’Digo, a weekly newspaper that caters to the black middle and upper class, said: “The city is in serious trouble. We’re on the brink.”

What the city needs most, Ms. Hartman said, is “a business person, a Mayor Bloomberg type” — referring to the mayor of New York City.

State Senator Kwame Raoul, who represents the same district that Barack Obama once did, said that what appeared to be a division among blacks was actually a sign of a robust democratic process.

“I think this whole notion of even asking the question, ‘Who is the black leader?’ is off the mark,” Mr. Raoul said. “You don’t ever hear the question, ‘Who is the white leader?’

“The notion that there’s no standout — I don’t necessarily think that’s a negative thing.”

Two black mayoral hopefuls, State Senator Rickey R. Hendon of the West Side, and William Walls, a former aide to Mr. Washington, have announced their candidacies. State Senator James T. Meeks, a South Side pastor of one of the largest churches in Illinois, is gathering the signatures needed to get on the ballot

The list of aspirants is “as long as the Dan Ryan Expressway,” observed Mr. Obadele, the youth violence program director.

Mr. Walls said he would not withdraw from the mayoral race, regardless of whether the black political establishment came up with a preferred candidate other than him. Mr. Walls ran for mayor in 2007, finishing third with about 9 percent of the vote. He said he had been circulating nominating petitions since Aug. 24.

“For a small group of select people to believe they have the authority to anoint someone to be the candidate is ridiculous,” Mr. Walls said.

Mr. Davis’s name frequently comes up as a mayoral candidate, but he has not said what his intentions are. “It may take a long time before the stage is actually set,” he said.

Mr. Davis added that the only way for a candidate to win and then to govern was by following in the footsteps of Mayor Washington, Alderman Toni Preckwinkle (4th Ward), President Obama and other black politicians who built winning coalitions across racial and ethnic lines.

“The race card will not work the same way that it did before,” he said.

Black voters have long shown a willingness to support white candidates far more often than whites have voted for blacks. And a number of black elected officials and neighborhood advocates said they were not limiting themselves to supporting black mayoral candidates.

Richard Barnett, who was one of Mr. Washington’s key organizers and a critic of Mr. Daley, said he had yet to see a black mayoral contender who could raise enough money fast enough to be viable.

“But I don’t need a black candidate,” Mr. Barnett said. “I just want a good mayor, someone who can deliver us from what we’ve been dealt all these years.”

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