Among Blacks, Mayoral Election Forces a Push for New Ideas and Leaders

CHICAGO NEWS COOPERATIVE Among Blacks, Mayoral Election Forces a Push for New Ideas and Leaders Jose More/Chicago News Cooperative The new generation of black leaders in Chicago may include Will Burns, who was recently elected to the City Council. By DON TERRY Published: March 5, 2011 RECOMMEND TWITTER E-MAIL PRINT REPRINTS SHARE Nostalgia does not bother Maze Jackson. Like most people he knows, he cherishes the memory of Mayor Harold Washington. Chicago News Cooperative A nonprofit, nonpartisan news organization providing local coverage of Chicago and the surrounding area for The New York Times. More From the Chicago News Cooperative » Enlarge This Image José Moré/Chicago News Cooperative Maze Jackson, shown Tuesday outside Chicago City Hall, is a political strategist helping various aldermanic candidates in the coming runoff elections. He says black leaders are stuck in the past. Enlarge This Image Bonnie Trafelet for Chicago News Cooperative LeAlan Jones, left, ran for the United States Senate in 2010 on the Green ticket. But what does upset the 40-year-old political consultant and makes him fear for the future of black politics in Chicago is what he witnessed during the mayoral campaign: black leaders “stuck in the past.” “I call them the ‘remember-when crew.’ ” Mr. Jackson said. “Remember when Harold said this? Remember when Harold did that? We need to honor and respect the accomplishments of our elders. But it’s time for them to step back and allow us to serve.” Mr. Jackson, and his group, the Next Generation Leadership Council, are among many in the black community who are seeking new ways to find and train the political candidates, pollsters and campaign mangers of tomorrow. The search for new blood and fresh ideas only became more intense after a contentious coalition of black elected officials, business leaders and ministers repeatedly evoked Mr. Washington’s name as they struggled to find a consensus black candidate for the Feb. 22 mayoral election. And the stark disappointment of Carol Moseley Braun, who failed to win more than 9 percent of the citywide vote, accentuated the need for new thinking. “There’s been a lot of soul-searching going on since the election,” said Cathy Cohen, a professor of political science at the University of Chicago. The search for new talent is not confined to blacks. Miguel del Valle, the city clerk, who came in third in the mayoral election, is also trying to recruit and train the next generation of political leaders. He hopes to create a citywide, multiracial coalition to improve life in the neighborhoods beyond the gentrified areas of downtown and the North Side. “Everybody is talking about this,” Mr. del Valle said. “But if we don’t do it right, we’ll end up with more of the same. It really has to be done at a community level. It’s not retired politicians who are going to make this happen.” Rahm Emanuel, armed with a $12 million campaign fund, won 55 percent of the mayoral vote, almost five times the combined total of the three blacks in the six-candidate race. Yet, voter turnout across the city was just 42 percent. Mr. del Valle said the low turnout was evidence that there was “a tremendous amount of work to be done to engage young people in the process.” “They’ve got to hear more voices out there, rather than the same old people,” said Mr. del Valle, 59. “But the young have to step to the plate and assume leadership roles. They must be prepared to run for office. It’s one thing to declare a candidacy. It’s another to do all the work before that it takes to win. It’s not just putting up posters.” LeAlan Jones, 31, who ran for the United States Senate on the Green Party ticket in 2010 and won about 3 percent of the vote, said generational and class conflicts kept voters home. “There’s a battle in the black community between the elites and the grass roots,” Mr. Jones said. “And the old guard politicians don’t care. All they want is for you to kiss their ring. There are too many gatekeepers, but there’s nothing behind the gate.” Last Tuesday night, a week after Mr. Emanuel’s victory, about 25 members of the Task Force for Black Political Empowerment gathered for their regular weekly meeting. The group’s longtime chairman, Robert T. Starks, a professor of political science at Northeastern Illinois University, took the podium and said the blame for the defeat of the consensus black candidate, Ms. Braun, rested with her under-financed, gaffe-plagued campaign and “the combined black political leadership that did a poor job of preparing for this election just as we have for the last four elections.” “We must face up to the fact that we have been ill prepared for political battle since the election of Harold Washington,” Mr. Starks said. “We somehow believed that there was no longer a need for intense community organizing, strong community organizations and independent churches.” In an interview, Mr. Starks said a new generation of political leaders had to emerge because “the young people don’t trust any of us over 50.” Mr. Jackson, the political consultant, said the generation gap within the black community was evident during the recent mayoral election process. “For people over 50, their model was Harold Washington,” he said. “For people under 50, it was Barack Obama and coalition building.” The two models, however, are not that different. Mr. Washington was Chicago’s original coalition builder. He was swept into office in 1983 on a multiracial wave of support, which the city had not seen up to that point. “Nobody is disputing the power of a multiracial coalition,” said Mr. Starks, who supported the search for a consensus candidate. “It’s absolutely necessary. But how can you coalesce with someone else unless you have coalesced within your own group first?” So, who might make up this next generation that so many people are searching for? The names most frequently mentioned are a combination of the familiar and the less well-known. Some are elected officials; others are banging on the door trying to get into the City Council or other positions. They include State Representative Will Burns, who was just elected to the City Council; Genita Robinson, a lawyer, who lost her bid for the 2nd Ward aldermanic seat; Larry Rogers Jr., a commissioner on the Cook County Board of Review; Rudy Lozano Jr., who lost a close race for state representative, and Ameya Pawar, who became the first Asian-American elected to the City Council. On Thursday night, the year-and-a-half-old Next Generation Leadership Council is scheduled to hold its first public event, at a South Loop nightspot called Tantrum. Mr. Jackson said he expected a multiracial group of young professionals to show up and leave their e-mail addresses so the council could begin building a database for the future. He said the organization wanted to support not only black elected officials and candidates, but also white, Latino and Asian ones. “We want to bring Chicago into the 21st century,” he said. People like T. J. Crawford, 34, are the type of people that the next-generation council and other groups have in mind. A co-founder of the Hip Hop Political Convention, Mr. Crawford participated in the effort to find a consensus candidate and said he intended to run for office someday. “Established political leadership doesn’t want increased participation,” he said. “We have a tendency to get people engaged when there’s an election and then forget about it for four years. “We need to make it part of their lifestyle rather than something they do once in a while. We have to make not being involved socially unacceptable.” dterry@chicagonewscoop.org

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