Entries associated with the tag "Harold Washington":

As a child of the 60s, Mayor Daley had plenty of opportunities to join the civil rights movement.

Born in 1942, he could have been a Freedom Rider, fighting to desegregate interstate bus service in the south. Or he could have been an activist, fighting to register black residents in Mississippi during the Freedom Summer of 1964.

Closer to home, he could have locked arms with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., as he marched for open housing through mobs of rock-throwing thugs in 1966.

But, no, Daley stayed out of all the great civil rights struggles of his youth. His one great contribution to black empowerment came in 1983, when he challenged Mayor Jane Byrne, siphoning off just enough white votes to enable Harold Washington to win the Democratic primary. Of course, Washington would have had an easier time of things in the subsequent general election against Republican Bernard Epton had Daley come out strong for his Democratic colleague. But after quietly attending a postprimary "unity breakfast" with Washington, Daley essentially hid under the table for the election, not wanting to offend white or black voting blocs. And he pretty much remained under the table until he ran for mayor in 1989, two years after Washington had died and his movement had splintered.

So I find it sort of curious that at this relatively late stage in his life Daley has become something of a civil rights crusader. The first sign came last September, when he gathered his favorite preachers and aldermen for a rally in Roseland against the big-box living-wage ordinance. According to Daley, if Target and Wal-Mart had to pay their workers a livable wage, they wouldn't come to black neighborhoods -- and that would be unfair to black residents.

His rally worked. Three aldermen -- including one black and two Hispanics -- flip-flopped and voted to sustain his veto, thus killing the big-box wage hike. Lost in the hype was the fact that on the same day as the Roseland rally, the Community Development Commission, a mayorally appointed board, unanimously approved the LaSalle Central Tax Increment Financing District, which will divert over $1 billion from the schools, parks, and county for the next 23 years. So downtown developers get access to hundreds of millions of tax dollars, and south-siders get a cap on already low-paying big box jobs. Power to the people, Mr. Mayor, right on.

Now the mayor's playing the race card against downtown high-rise residents -- most of them white and well-to-do -- who don't want the Children's Museum coming to Grant Park. According to Daley, those opposed to the move really want to keep black and Hispanic children out of their community.

Now, I'm not saying those in opposition are angels when it comes to integration. But for the last several months they've been badgering me to write stories about their opposition to the museum. And after hours of conversation with them,  I can tell you that racial concerns are the last things on their mind. They're up in arms about all the usual NIMBY issues of congestion, traffic, and loss of public space.

In any case, Daley's eagerness to stick the museum in the park is not about providing opportunity for disadvantaged minorities to begin with. It's about pleasing the museum's well-connected board members and finding a way to bring more cars to the underused Millennium Park parking garage.

Though it is sort of funny to think of Daley as a champion of civil rights with the second installment tax bills about to make it difficult for many south- and west-siders to hold on to their homes.  

Will Daley's tactic work this time? I doubt it. I can't see the council voting against local alderman Brendan Reilly (42nd) on a zoning issue. But at least the aldermanic debate will be an entertaining diversion from those tax bills. 

"I don't expect Daley to stay on the ballot," boasted mayoral candidate William "Dock" Walls to the Sun-Times in December, after filing the first challenge to the mayor's nominating petitions since 1989. Walls claimed that his supporters had found problems with up to 19,000 of Daley's signatures, leaving him with fewer than the 12,500 required to stay on the ballot. Last week election officials decided to examine a sampling of about 1,200 signatures. The hearing is tomorrow.

If you're familiar with Walls at all, you've probably seen his name accompanied by the phrase "former aide to Harold Washington." That's not exactly magic dust. According to Fire on the Prairie, the account of the Washington years by former Reader staff writer Gary Rivlin, Walls was a gofer: "the man who took care of the tab, for instance, when Washington and a few aides stopped off for lunch -- and then handled his schedule for his first couple years in office. Washington grew frustrated with Walls's propensity for passing himself off as more important than he was, and fired him in 1985."

Here's what Walls told Reader contributor Mick Dumke recently when asked about being fired by parting ways with Washington: "At 25, I was considered one of the most influential people in the city. At 29, I was considered too influential. Everything flowed through me, and everyone was jealous. . . . I did my job too well." 

In 1987, when Walls ran for city clerk, he was trounced in the primary by Gloria Chevere (a deputy commissioner under Washington, now a subcircuit court judge deemed unqualified by all Illinois' bar associations). In 2003 he tried to run again, but incumbent James Laski (currently in prison on corruption charges) successfully challenged his nominating petitions and he was stricken from the ballot. Now Walls is taking a trick from the pros.

Does he stand a chance? I doubt it. But lotsa luck, Dock.

It was about 21 years ago--man, where does the time go?--when Mayor Harold Washington called me into his office for an interview. The mayor had a little time on his hands, and we were in the midst of a long discussion about Chicago politics when he said something I've remembered ever since: "Black politicians are like crabs in a crab barrel. If they see one of their own climbing up, they reach back to pull him back in the barrel."

I was thinking about Washington's observation when I read in the paper that state senator James Meeks had all but endorsed Mayor Daley over his two black challengers, William "Dock" Walls and Cook County circuit court clerk Dorothy Brown. When asked if he was going to support Brown, Meeks replied, "I probably won't be endorsing anybody who's going to lose."

This comes on the heels of Seventh Ward aldermanic candidate Sandi Jackson, wife of Congressman Jesse Jackson Jr., suggesting that she and her husband might back Daley. It also comes after Congressman Bobby Rush announced he felt Daley "deserves another term" because he's been "a great mayor."

Of course, it's a free country--we're all free to endorse anybody we want. And I surely don't think that black politicians should only endorse other black politicians. But neither Meeks, Jackson, nor Rush backed Daley in 2003. So I'm wondering: what's changed in the last four years to make them support him now?

The Sorich trial convictions? The hired truck scandal? The demolition of Meigs Field? Soaring property taxes? The Duff affirmative-action scam? The fact that only 9 percent of the city's contractors are black? The continued breakdown of the Red Line? New revelations about Daley's apparent indifference, as state's attorney, to allegations regarding the torture of black crime suspects by Jon Burge?

Or are they like those crabs?