Black Business Leaders Ponder Mayoral Election / Chicago News Cooperative

Frank Clark Chairman and Chief Executive officer of Commonwealth Edison.
Jose More/Chicago News Cooperative

Generations of the city’s black business leaders have played a vital yet largely unsung role in the struggle for civil rights and black political and economic empowerment in Chicago — from the Great Migration in the early 20th century to the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s battle for open housing in the 1960s to the victory of Harold Washington in the 1980s to the making of a black president on a warm November night in Grant Park two years ago.

The tradition continues. With the Feb. 22 mayoral election looming, the current generation of prominent Chicago black business men and women has formed a candidate search and support committee. Informally known as the Business Leadership Council, the group, which has about 25 members, hopes to help replicate the energy and minority voter interest that led to the election of Mr. Washington as the city’s first black mayor nearly 30 years ago.

But agreeing on a candidate has been difficult for the business leaders and for a much larger coalition of black elected officials, clergy members and grass-roots groups. The political passion that turned Washington’s campaign into a crusade is absent, said Hermene Hartman, a member of the leadership council and publisher of N’Digo, a weekly newspaper.

“Maybe people are feeling too comfortable and satisfied with Obama in the White House,” Hartman said. “Whatever it is, it’s worlds apart from Harold.”

The group’s goal is to find a candidate who will focus on the issues that one of its co-chairmen, Frank Clark, chief executive of ComEd, said were “uniquely prevalent to the African-American community” — poor education, high crime and joblessness.

“Now, I’m not saying that non-black candidates cannot do that; indeed they can,” Clark said. “What I am saying is that these problems are prevalent in our community, and we ought to be able to make sure that we develop leaders who are trying to address and solve those issues.”

Short of a black candidate reaching Chicago’s political mountaintop, the group wants to ensure that “the black business community has a voice, a seat at the table” and that the next mayor, regardless of race, sex or ethnicity, is “responsive to the needs of all Chicagoans,” said Ralph G. Moore, a council member and president of Ralph G. Moore and Associates, a management firm.

“But the issues are much more complex than they were 40, even 20, years ago,” Moore added. “You don’t have all the black business people on board just because a candidate is black. There are members of the black business community who are very comfortable in supporting candidates who are not black.”

Mellody Hobson, president of Ariel Investments, who is black, is the co-chairman of the mayoral campaign of Rahm Emanuel, President Obama’s former chief of staff. Her boss, John W. Rogers Jr., the founder of Ariel and a longtime supporter of Mayor Richard M. Daley, is also black. Mr. Rogers, along with James Reynolds of Loop Capital Markets and Clark, is a co-chairman of the leadership council.

“In some ways, we are trying to relive the experiences of Harold’s election,” Rogers said. “It’s been very interesting, very healthy. There’s a real sense of coming together.”

The leadership council was formed seven weeks ago, shortly after Daley announced he would not seek a seventh term. There is a sense of urgency among the members — that they are already behind.

“People don’t understand that this is a 60-days campaign,” said Melody Spann-Cooper, president of WVON Radio and a member of the council. “The window is closing fast. We need to be on the same page, so we can pool our collective resources to support the best candidate.”

The council has commissioned a citywide poll of a long list of potential candidates — black, white and Hispanic.

“I want to be very thoughtful and careful in choosing my words,” Clark said. “Yes, I think it’s important for the black community to identify candidates, but these candidates must have the ability to cross over. If a candidate can’t reach across ethnic lines, then he or she will not be successful.”

The council members have also held meetings to analyze each of the 11 black mayoral hopefuls. Who can get on the ballot? Who can register voters? Who can energize the base? Who can raise money?

“Money is going to be key to this race,” said Jacky Grimshaw, a former adviser to Mayor Washington who is not a council member “The black business community is going to be very important.”

The council estimates it will take a minimum of $3 million for a candidate to be competitive. According to news media accounts, Emanuel is expected to have more than twice that amount by the end of the year.

“Matching dollar for dollar, considering the national prominence of at least one of the candidates, will be hard to do,” Clark said. “Which is why it’s also important to have an organization, to have a base, to have people who you can put in the field.”

In a sign of just how difficult the process will be, the council essentially admitted it was divided when it announced that it had identified two candidates with the best chance of winning — though it will not necessarily back them. The two, State Senator James T. Meeks and former Senator Carol Moseley Braun, have high name recognition. Meeks is pastor of one of the largest churches in the state, with a congregation of about 20,000.

In assembling the group, Rogers said, the council made sure to include business leaders from earlier generations, like George Johnson, 83, a former banker whose mother took him to Chicago from Mississippi when he was 2.

Johnson helped found Independence Bank on the South Side and financially supported both Dr. King’s Chicago Freedom Movement in the 1960s and a generation later the winning mayoral campaigns of Mr. Washington.

“It was so exciting to see George Johnson come to the first meeting,” Rogers said. “To hear some of the stories was inspiring. It makes me feel good to see us reaching back and understanding that there is much to be learned from that prior leadership.”

One of those stories begins in Chicago, where Dr. King spent 1966 campaigning for open housing. The movement had almost no money, and Dr. King had no idea where he was going to get the $30,000 he needed to cover payroll and other expenses like travel and bail.

A bank in Atlanta had turned him down for a loan, and Dr. King was about to catch a plane and scour the country for donations when his lieutenant, the Rev. Jesse L. Jackson, told him a group of black Chicago businessmen could raise the money. Rev. Jackson had been working with several of the men, trying to help them get their products on the shelves of white-owned stores that refused to stock their goods.

Dr. King was skeptical, but agreed to sit down with the businessmen, who included Johnson.

“Our bank loaned Dr. King $140,000 to get him out of the hole in 1966,” Johnson said. “All the members of the executive committee signed personally. We were all on the hook. We were ready to pay, but he paid it all back.”

As Dr. King left the meeting that night, Johnson said, “he was so emotional he had tears in his eyes. That was a great, great period. Years later, we did the same thing for Harold.”

The question is, Can they do it again? Can lightning be captured in a voting booth one more time?

This entry was posted on Saturday, November 6th, 2010 at 4:09 pm and is filed under News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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