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.