Chicago Makes Herstory: First African-American Woman and Gay Chicago Mayor Wins in Landslide | Democracy Now!
professor of African American studies, gender and women's studies and history at the University of Illinois, Chicago. Her latest book is Making All Black Lives Matter: Reimagining Freedom in the 21st Century.
"The Rising Black Left Movement Behind Chicago's Historic Elections"
MAYOR-ELECT LORI LIGHTFOOT: Thank you, Chicago. From the bottom of my heart, thank you. A few moments ago, I spoke with Toni Preckwinkle. In this election, Toni and I were competitors. But our differences are nothing compared to what we can achieve together. Now that it's over, I know we will work together for the city that we both love.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And, Professor Ransby, the last African-American mayor, or the first African-American mayor, of Chicago, Harold Washington, was elected amidst a huge racial divide politically, where the white political establishment made his first few years almost impossible to govern. And now we're seeing a situation where you have two African-American women, and the winner wins in all the wards, in all the aldermanic wards of Chicago, which seems to indicate that at least now, for the first time in the white community, there is no sense of trepidation about voting for an African-American candidate. But Toni Preckwinkle, while she is considered an establishment candidate, was also—wasn't she—one of the key figures in the Progressive Caucus of the City Council? So, why this huge landslide for her opponent?
But this, I will say: I think people have a desire for change. I think sometimes, you know, maybe we're not as critical as we should be about what kind of change is likely to come. I think both of the candidates, though, made some impressive commitments. And again, you know, I think we have to see whether they're going to be—whether Lori Lightfoot is in fact going to deliver on the promises made. So, I think the desire to break with tradition—and Toni Preckwinkle was certainly seen as a part of the old guard. She was one of the founders in the City Council, when she served there, of the Progressive Caucus, and certainly was supported by the progressive wing of the labor movement here in Chicago. But I think the idea of someone who hadn't held office, the idea of someone who had a strong message of being independent and so forth, was appealing to a number of people.
AMY GOODMAN: So, if you could talk more about, Professor Ransby, the politics of issues of police brutality, police killings, and how they very much played into this campaign and the—you know, ultimately, earlier, the dumping of, the defeat of Alvarez, with the killing of Laquan McDonald, of course, Rahm Emanuel holding back that videotape of the police killing of McDonald right through his re-election, and the fact that Lightfoot, yes, is the head of the Chicago Police Board, and how all these different movements, like the Black Lives Matter movement, all came together around this, and what now Mayor-elect Lightfoot says about issues of police brutality and police violence, since they were so central to this campaign?
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And, Professor Ransby, Chicago is one of these cities that's about one-third African-American, one-third Latino and one-third white. Any sense of how this election played out in the Latino community of Chicago? Given—I understand that Chuy García, who last ran against Rahm Emanuel, was backing Lightfoot. But how did this play out among the voters?
BARBARA RANSBY: Yeah, I mean, I think the Latino community was divided. I mean, certainly, high-profile Latinx leaders in the city ultimately sided with and endorsed Lori Lightfoot. Chuy was one of those. Of course, you know, Chuy—when Chuy ran, Toni Preckwinkle declined to endorse him against Rahm Emanuel, so there may have been some residual from that. But also, Susana Mendoza, who was the other high-profile Latinx candidate in the race, Gery Chico, both endorsed Lori Lightfoot.
And I think, you know, really, it's—there are political, ideological differences, and we don't see black people voting in a single bloc. We don't see Latinx people voting in a single bloc. I think there's a real move beyond a certain kind of narrow identity politics, and really embracing issues and forming new alliances. And we've really seen more black-brown unity at the grassroots level in Chicago than we have in actual more formal electoral coalitions.