The Multiracial Promise: Harold Washington's Chicago and the Democratic Struggle in Reagan's America (Justice, Power, and Politics)

In April 1983, a dynamic, multiracial political coalition did the unthinkable, electing Harold Washington as the first Black mayor of Chicago. Washington's victory was unlikely not just because America's second city was one of the nation's most racially balkanized but also because it came at a time when Ronald Reagan and other political conservatives seemed resurgent. Washington's initial win and reelection in 1987 established the charismatic politician as a folk hero. It also bolstered hope among Democrats that the party could win elections by pulling together multiracial urban voters around progressive causes. Yet what could be called the Washington era revealed clear limits to electoral politics and racial coalition building when decoupled from neighborhood-based movement organizing. Drawing on a rich array of archives and oral history interviews, Gordon K. Mantler offers a bold reexamination of the Harold Washington movement and moment. Taking readers into Chicago's street-level politics and the often tense relationships among communities and their organizers, Mantler shows how white supremacy, deindustrialization, dysfunction, and voters' own contradictory expectations stubbornly impeded many of Washington's proposed reforms. Ultimately, Washington's historic victory and the thwarted ambitions of his administration provide a cautionary tale about the peril of placing too much weight on electoral politics above other forms of civic action--a lesson today's activists would do well to heed. "Harold Washington was the first African American mayor of Chicago. Elected in 1983 by a multiracial coalition of voters, his victory was seen as a rebuke of the city's longstanding machine politics. Washington's Political Education Project, formed in 1984, helped organize this emerging Democratic coalition and brought him growing influence over national politics as the party sought a viable alternative to Reagan Republicanism. This book is less a biography than a narrative and analysis of Chicago's complicated role in late twentieth century American political history. Mantler places Harold Washington at the center of a complicated, multiracial political movement. The coalition politics associated with Washington's rise has lived on and is now regarded as the foundation of the contemporary Democratic Party electorate"-- Provided by publisher Cover Half Title Series Page Title Copyright Dedication Contents List of Illustrations Introduction 1. From Politics to Protest 2. Shifting Alliances 3. Winning by Losing? 4. We Were Invisible 5. The Grassroots Challenge 6. Race and a New Democratic Coalition 7. Fighting Wars of All Kinds 8. Latinos and a Governing Majority 9. The Fragility of Coalitions Epilogue. Legacies and the New Machine Acknowledgments Notes Bibliography Index A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W Y Z