Black Political Subordination in Chicago

Abstract

Abstract In no U.S. city had Blacks achieved more substantial political empowerment by the first half of the twentieth century than in Chicago. Ralph Bunche declared that Chicago was “the seventh heaven” of political activity for Blacks.1 Harold Gosnell argued that “Negroes in Chicago have achieved relatively more in politics than have the Negroes in other cities of the United States.”2 Allan Spear concluded that during this period Blacks “had more political power in Chicago than anywhere else in the country.”3 Yet from the 1950s to 1983 (when Harold Washington was unexpectedly elected as the city’s first African-American mayor), the political gains of Blacks were rolled back so thoroughly that a new generation of analysts viewed the Windy City as an extreme example of Black political subordination and powerlessness.4 Out of the midst of this subordination, labeled plantation politics by local participants and scholars, emerged a movement that swept Harold Washington into the mayor’s of fice and dramatically increased the political power of African-Americans in Chicago. But in the aftermath of his sudden death, African-Americans have again become divided and have squandered most of the political power they so quickly accrued inhis brief tenure.