869: Harold

Summary

This American Life, Episode 869: "Harold"

Original Air Date: October 5, 2025
Host: Ira Glass

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Overview:

This episode revisits the groundbreaking story of Harold Washington, Chicago’s first Black mayor, drawing fresh parallels to current political dynamics—specifically, the controversy surrounding Zoran Mamdani's bid for New York City mayor. Through archival material and new context, the episode explores how Washington’s election challenged entrenched race and power structures, transformed city politics, and left an indelible mark on Chicago and the nation.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Parallels Between Harold Washington and Zoran Mamdani

• Opening Context (00:23): Ira Glass frames the episode by comparing Zoran Mamdani’s experience with the Democratic establishment in New York to Harold Washington’s relationship with the Democratic machine in Chicago.

  • Glass observes:

    "Harold's story is a parable about a Democrat whose very existence made the party have to question what it was all about, which seemed very much like Mamdani." (01:53)

• Caution in Comparison: While drawing similarities, Glass notes the different roots of controversy—race for Washington, ideology and religion for Mamdani (02:47).

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2. Pre-Harold Chicago: Entrenched Segregation and Machine Politics

• Living Conditions and Machine Rewards:

  • Jackie Grimshaw speaks on systemic neglect:

    "My daughter started to believe that when buildings got old and died, like people got old and died, that you knew a building was old and was dying because it would burn up." (03:10)

  • Glass explains how machine politics benefited white wards, leaving Black neighborhoods behind. (03:38)

• Chicago’s “Colonies”

  • Harold Washington recounts Black aldermen reduced to little more than “garbage aldermen” due to basic service neglect.

    "You'd almost have to just be the garbage alderman ... I was tired of just being the garbage alderman." (03:57)

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3. The Path to Power: Organizing and Opportunity

• Daily’s Death & Democratic Machine Weakness (08:23):

  • Judge Eugene Pincham recounts how even loyal Black aldermen were blocked from power in times of transition, articulating the systemic racism at play.

    "The only misqualification he had was he's black." (09:04)

• The Anti-Machine Momentum: Organizers register 130,000 new Black voters, outstripping Washington’s own skepticism (12:32).

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4. The Debates: Washington’s Voice Resonates

• Primary Debates (13:12):

  • Washington’s authentic, direct debate style contrasts with boilerplate responses of his white opponents.

    "The precise question is, what would I do to improve the office of professional standards? ... I'll be the only one who answered the question." (14:17)

  • His intellectual vigor wins public support:

    "It was like watching Michael Jordan with a basketball." (15:13, Vernon Jarrett)

• Refusal to Mythologize Past Mayors:
  > "[Daley] was a racist from the core, head to toe and hip to hip." (17:01) > "I give no hoosanus to a racist, nor do I appreciate or respect his son." (18:04)

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5. Race as the Central Conflict

• Community Reactions:

  • The divide in Chicago is palpable post-primary: jubilation in Black communities, somberness in white spaces.

    "There was such a somber feeling ... like somebody's family member, beloved family member, had died." (24:15, Monroe Anderson)

• Racial Hostility and Fear:

  • White flight, racially coded campaign slogans, and explicit slurs pervade the general election context.

    "Somebody spray painted on the church graffiti. It said, die, nigger, die." (25:54, Monroe Anderson)

  • Judge Pincham analyzes the double standard:

    "When the blacks try to get a black mayor, it's racism." (26:45)

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6. Governing and “Fairness Over Patronage”

• High Community Expectations:

  • Lou Palmer expresses disappointment that Washington was “too fair,” refusing to use machine-style favoritism to uplift Black neighborhoods beyond others.

    "Harold was too fair. In fact, he would say in his speeches ... I'm going to be more than fair." (32:09)

  • Washington asserts:

    "No one ... is free from the fairness of our administration. [We] will find you and be fair to you wherever you are." (32:45)

• Systemic Resistance:

  • The “Council Wars”—white majority of aldermen block legislation, reducing mayoral clout.
  • Council Wars satirized as “Star Wars,” vividly illustrating obstruction and resistance to reform (38:56–40:51).

• Pragmatic Politics:

  • Jackie Grimshaw recounts Washington’s use of media and public demand to pressure recalcitrant city council members for city service funding (41:14).

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7. Race Colors Every Move—Even Reform

• “Everything Was Seen Through Race”

  • Gary Rivlin:

    "But no one could ever see beyond his race." (42:28)

  • Washington’s own frustration:

    "All little silly business, you know. How many white folks did you convert today, Harold?" (43:22) "I do my job irregardless of race, color, creed, or sex." (44:01)

• Opposition Weaponizes Statistics:

  • Crime statistics are manipulated by opponents to play racial fears—Rivlin contends this was “playing the race card in a dirty way.” (44:52)

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8. Legacy and Change after Washington’s Death

• Tentative Progress:

  • As he built cross-racial coalitions, even some former opponents in white wards came to respect Washington.

  • Patrick O’Connor recounts:

    "He got a great reception. People that really didn't vote for him ... respected the fact that he came out there..." (46:13)

  • Vernon Jarrett remarks:

    "He was chubby, warm, friendly ... going into some lower class white neighborhoods, having their streets paved for the first time, and they were slowly beginning to lose their fear." (48:32)

• Permanent Shifts in City Governance:

  • Fairer distribution of services, new political standards, and enduring anxiety among white voters are traced (49:11–51:31).

• Incremental White Attitudinal Change (2007 Follow-up):

  • Twenty years on, many voters who once opposed Washington express changed attitudes—though racist sentiments linger, willingness to support Black candidates grows (53:23).

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9. The Broader Political Legacy: From Harold to Obama

• Barack Obama’s Chicago:

  • Obama (audio from Dreams from My Father):

    "It's hard to forget the sense of possibility that he sparked in people." (56:02)

  • David Axelrod measures electoral changes:

    "Obama carried all but one ward on the northwest side of Chicago ... the precinct in which St. Pascal's Church sits." (56:53)
    "I said to Barack that night, I think Harold's smiling down on us tonight."

• Cautionary Lessons:

  • Both Lou Palmer and Obama highlight the peril of pinning change on one leader, noting that the movement waned after Harold’s death.

  • Obama’s reading:

    "[T]here was no political organization in place, no clearly defined principles to follow. The entire of black politics had centered on one man who radiated like the sun. Now that he was gone, no one could agree on what that presence had meant." (59:20–60:08)

  • Ira Glass draws a parallel to criticisms of the Obama-to-Trump transition—without a strong movement or organization, lasting change is at risk.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• "I recall telling people time and time again that I was tired of just being the garbage alderman." —Harold Washington (03:57)
• "There are no good qualities of past mayors to be had. None, none, none, none. ... [Daley] was a racist from the core, head to toe and hip to hip." —Harold Washington (17:01)
• "When the blacks try to get a black mayor, it's racism." —Judge Eugene Pincham (26:45)
• "Harold was too fair. In fact, he would say in his speeches ... I'm going to be more than fair." —Lou Palmer (32:09)
• “Everything was seen through the prism of race, even though often it had nothing to do with race, often it had more to do with reform.” —Ira Glass (42:13)
• “If we have to beat them across the head and knock them down and make them take it, we're going to give it to them.” —Harold Washington (19:03)
• "All little silly business, you know. How many white folks did you convert today, Harold?... I do my job irregardless of race, color, creed, or sex." —Harold Washington (43:22, 44:01)
• "I blame Harold for this. ... Harold was put on a pedestal, and I think that was a major mistake. We lifted him to almost God status." —Lou Palmer (58:41)
• "[Obama] carried the precinct in which St. Pascal's Church sits. ... I said to Barack that night, I think Harold's smiling down on us tonight." —David Axelrod (56:53)

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Important Timestamps

• 00:23–02:47: Setting up the episode’s parallel between Mamdani and Washington
• 03:10–06:22: Life in Black Chicago under the machine; Harold’s voice, wit, and frustration
• 08:23–10:46: The political machine’s treatment of Black politicians
• 13:12–14:50: Washington’s debate performance—turning point
• 17:01–19:03: Washington on Daley, racism, and redemption
• 24:15: White and Black Chicago’s divergent reactions to Washington’s win
• 25:54: Racist backlash at St. Pascal’s Church
• 32:09–37:07: Washington’s fairness as governing principle and the tension it created
• 38:56–41:14: "Council Wars" and efforts to pass evenhanded city improvements
• 42:13–45:53: Race overshadowing reform, weaponization of statistics
• 46:13–48:32: White attitudes shift as Washington reaches out
• 51:24–54:34: Evolving white voter attitudes decades after Washington’s tenure
• 56:02–57:49: Barack Obama connects his path to Washington’s legacy
• 59:11–60:10: Movement’s collapse after Harold, organizational lessons
• 62:55: Closing, Harold’s second victory celebration

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Tone & Style

The episode blends direct, unflinching accounts of racial strife with sharp political analysis, historical storytelling, humor, and moving personal anecdotes. Archival voices, satire (“Council Wars”), and reflective narration from Ira Glass and others keep the tone engaging, clear-eyed, and—at times—deeply emotional.

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Conclusion

The episode serves as a riveting history lesson, a cautionary tale about expecting individual leaders to create systemic change, and a meditation on cycles of racial progress and backlash in American politics. The legacy of Harold Washington looms over subsequent decades of politics, his impact profound but also a warning: true change demands more than just one leader—it requires a movement, an organization, and commitment beyond the allure of any singular, charismatic figure.

Transcript

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[Ira Glass]

Watching the rise of the New York mayoral candidate Zoran Muhammadani, who's a Democrat, is watching precisely how much of the Democratic machine has come out to support him after he won the Democratic primary. Of course, normally the party would fall in behind him and in fact, some prominent Democrats have come forward and endorsed him. But not all of them. Not some of the most important New York Democrats. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg. And I'm bringing all this up today because watching this, it reminded me of the story of another charismatic politician ages ago, Harold Washington, the first black mayor of Chicago. Harold became mayor back in 1983, and that was so revolutionary at the time that a black man would become mayor of the city of Chicago that after the primary, the Democratic Party turned on him. And an old school Democrat, a white guy, ran as an independent against Harold in the general election, much like Andrew Cuomo has done with Mamdani. Back then, most in the Democratic machine endorsed the white guy in the general election. Then once Harold took office, Democrats continued to fight him and the changes that he wanted to make. I want to be clear, like I don't want to oversimplify in comparing these two stories. So much of Harold's story is very different than Zoran Mamdani's. The opposition to Harold was over race. The opposition to Mamdani is more about his views on Israel and his socialism or progressivism or whatever you want to call it, the race and religion. The fact that he's Muslim is definitely in there too. But Harold's story is a parable about a Democrat whose very existence made the party have to question what it was all about, which seemed very much like Mondani. So we're going to replay his story today. Back in 1997, 10 years after Harold died, we did a full episode about him. And can I say, if you don't know anything about Harold Washington, you're in for a treat. He is this charismatic, idealistic man, very funny, very smart, great talker, a Democrat framing issues with a skill that it is really hard to think of any Democrat in office right now who does it as well but also a pragmatist. Somebody got elected, Somebody who got things done. So I hope you like this. It's one of my favorite episodes we've ever done. Here we go. Here's that show from 1997. Before our story begins, let's remember how it used to be. Jackie lived on the south side in a black neighborhood. City didn't enforce the housing code properly, didn't investigate arsons.

[Jackie Grimshaw]

There would be fires going on in wootlawn daily, several times a day, and it was just fire engines all the time. And so my daughter started to believe that when buildings got old and died, like people got old and died, that you knew a building was old and was dying because it would burn up.

[Ira Glass]

Before our story begins, Chicago was run by the democratic machine. And black alderman like Danny Davis would turn out to vote for the machine election after election. But the machine didn't reward the black wards for those votes the way it paid back the white wards on the north side with street cleanings and sewers, with newly paved roads and sidewalks, Economic development money.

[Harold Washington]

Well, actually, you know, we had called the area's colonies. I mean, and just basically picking up the garbage in these wards, just trying to keep them clean, was a real problem. Person who was elected, you know, there would be so much focus on garbage pickup that, you know, you'd almost have to just be the garbage alderman. I mean, I recall telling people time and time again that I was tired of just being the garbage alderman.

[Ira Glass]

Before our story begins, the Chicago political machine squeezed black kids into mobile trailers behind public schools rather than let them attend white schools just blocks away. Before our story begins, the Chicago machine built high rise public housing to hold blacks on the south side and keep them from moving into white neighborhoods. Before our story begins, the Chicago political machine built a system of highways that coincidentally divided black neighborhoods from white and particularly insulated the mayor's all white neighborhood, Bridgeport. Typical inequities. Unemployment in the white 11th ward was 0%. Unemployment in the 4th ward where blacks lived was 25%. This is a story about one ethnic group doing what so many other ethnic groups have done in this country. Put its own candidate in city hall, won the mayor's office. But because this ethnic group happened to be black, what happened was unlike anything that happens when an Italian politician or an Irish politician or Jewish politician takes city hall. White voters deserted their own political party. White politicians tried to stage a public slow motion coup, and the mayor faced pressures that were different from those faced by any white mayor of any city in America. And nobody Tried to pretend that the fight was not about race. Good evening. You're on with Harold Washington.

[Lou Palmer]

Good evening.

[Harold Washington]

Mr. Washington, could you clear up a point for me? I understand that once you move into.

[Lou Palmer]

City hall, you're going to remove all the elevator boxes and replace them with vines. Is that true?

[Harold Washington]

What?

[Ira Glass]

Replace them with what?

[Lou Palmer]

With vines.

[Harold Washington]

Vines. Vianneus.

[Ira Glass]

You know what? I'm not even gonna ask you why.

[Harold Washington]

No, I don't think we have 3 million Tarzans in this city. Randall is gone.

[Ira Glass]

Welcome to WBEZ Chicago. It's this American Life. I'm Ira Glass. Today we bring you the story of Harold Washington, Chicago's first black mayor. He died early in his second term of office back in 1987. Like one of our program today is about what happened during Harold's life. Then we have a short Act 2 about what came afterwards. A word about the voices you're going to be hearing over the course of this hour. It's mostly people who were close to Harold Washington, many of them activists and politicians. Lou Palmer, Judge Eugene Pincham, Congressman Danny Davis, then Alderman Eugene Sawyer. There are people from his administration. Jackie Grimshaw, Grayson Mitchell, Tim Yule, Black and some reporters who followed his story. Vernon Jarrett, Monroe Anderson, Gary Riflin, Laura Washington, who later became his press secretary. There will also be an occasional opponent or voter. Stay with us. Support for this American Life comes from Squarespace, their AI enhanced website builder. Blueprint. AI can create a fully custom website in just a few steps using basic information about your industry goals and personality to generate content and personalize design recommendations. And get paid on time with branded invoices and online payments. Plus streamline your workflow with built in appointment scheduling and email marketing tools. Head to squarespace.comamerican for 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain.

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[Ira Glass]

Life Pack 1 yesterday. For decades, Chicago politics had been run with an iron hand by the legendary political boss Richard J. Daly. Our story begins just after his death in 1976 when the machine was sputtering a bit with no strong leader and the possibility, a small possibility of change. To give you a sense of what it meant to be a loyal black alderman in the Chicago machine at that time, consider what happened in City hall the day Richard Daley died.

[Judge Eugene Pincham]

By tradition, the President pro tem or the city council should at least occupied the mayor's office until such time as a process was determined for the election of a new mayor.

[Ira Glass]

And who was the president?

[Judge Eugene Pincham]

Frost. A loyal black alderman from the 34th Ward, a daily Democrat, a lawyer. Impeccable reputation, impeccable credentials. The only misqualification he had was he's black. God ordained that he be born black. And the power structure sent police officers to the fifth floor armed to sit at the door to prevent Frost from even entering the mayor's office. That was a tremendous insult.

[Ira Glass]

It was an insult, but it was not unusual. The white machine picked who the black leaders would be. And mostly those leaders did what they were told. Blacks in Chicago had nowhere to go but the Democratic machine. They were stuck. But then there were a series of famous and especially infuriating insults from the white political establishment. Biggest among them, black voters finally elected an anti machine candidate named Jane Byrne, who, once in office, betrayed them, sucked up to the white machine, made appointments and decisions specifically to prove she was not in the pocket of black Chicago. Then circumstances came together, some by planning, some by luck that made it possible to elect a black mayor. The planning organizers registered over 100,000 minority voters, held rallies and meetings, declaring it was time to elect a black mayor. The luck. Two white candidates split the white vote. One more piece of luck the Chicago Democratic party had created in spite of itself. Harold Washington. Vernon Jarrett was an old friend and a local newspaper columnist.

[Vernon Jarrett]

Harold was in that party now, don't forget. Harold had been a precinct captain. His father had groomed him as a precinct captain since he was, what, 11 years old. But his father was done wrong. So Hale is an unusual person in that he nursed this resentment of how the Democratic party had deserted his father at one time and his father ran for alderman of the third ward. He's a confused guy. Got a little sense of mission in him and wanted to do the right thing, but yet he was balanced off by this pragmatism that you got to play ball to a degree with the organization. And he was correct. He wouldn't have made it without the Democratic machine.

[Ira Glass]

Usually in Chicago, political activists had a choice. They could go with politicians who were good on the issues but then had no political experience dealing with the machine. Or they could get hacks who knew the machine but were terrible on the issues. Washington was the rarest kind of politician, delivered on the issues, knew the machine, which is why, in fact, he did not want the job. Lou Palmer was at the center of the effort to draft A black mayor.

[Lou Palmer]

Well, we talked to Harold. He was reluctant, very reluctant at the time. He was in congress and was enjoying.

[Ira Glass]

Being a congressman, Enjoying it partly because he was far from the machine.

[Lou Palmer]

He set some requirements. How much money we'd have to raise. We'd have to get 50,000 new voters.

[Ira Glass]

He asked that, thinking, well, you'll never get that.

[Lou Palmer]

He used 50,000, knowing that no way in the world are they going to come up with 50,000 new registers. It was hard in those days to come up with 50,000 registered voters.

[Ira Glass]

They registered 130,000 new voters.

[Vernon Jarrett]

May I jump ahead a moment? You know what put Harold Washington over with the broad masses of black people was when they had the primary debates.

[Jackie Grimshaw]

Oh, the triumph was a televised debate.

[Monroe Anderson]

You know, because you had Dale waite, you had Byrne, and then you had somebody who could talk heroin.

[Ira Glass]

Let's review that lineup. Daley was Richard m. Daley, son of the late mayor Richard j. Daley. Byrne was Jane Byrne, the then incumbent mayor. And Harold. You already know Harold. Those were the three democratic contenders in the mayoral race. It is the fall of 1983. Here's a typical exchange between them. Three of them were asked at one point what they would do, if anything, about the police department's office of professional standards, the place in the police department which handles complaints about police misconduct and brutality. Jane byrne and Richard daly sound basically like normal politicians. They offer dull truisms like, I believe.

[Jackie Grimshaw]

That the members of the police board chaired by reverend Wilbur Daniels really do.

[Ira Glass]

Take that job very seriously. Here's the most specific that Richard daley, then state's attorney, got that day. I think like anything else, there must be improvement, and there is nothing wrong with improvement in the office of professional standards. When Harold Washington comes on, what is most noticeable is that he sounds like a human being.

[Harold Washington]

The precise question is, what would I do to improve the office of professional standards? When I answer it, I'll be the only one who answered the question. The office of professional standards was arrived at after a long and torturous situation in this city in which members, not all, but members of the Chicago police department consistently refused to be adequate and professional in their handling of hispanic black people. It's just that simple.

[Monroe Anderson]

What happened was he became plausible to the black community. Suddenly, they heard somebody who was articulate, knew what he was talking about, and.

[Harold Washington]

Was forceful in the first place. The appointees, all but nine, are political appointees. Many of the investigators are wedded to or related to police members of the Chicago police department.

[Vernon Jarrett]

A lot of people, black people, had Felt all along that we've been bossed by dunderheads. They are not that bright. They don't know that much. And Harold Washington standing there between Jane Bryan and Richard M. Daly, the son, so cool, so well. Read that, people. Black people just thrilled. It was like watching Michael Jordan with a basketball.

[Harold Washington]

Mr. Brezak, unfortunately, at the behest of this mayor, as a minion of this mayor, as a subaltern of this mayor, as a subordinate of this mayor, has restored his credibility.

[Lou Palmer]

How you should use words that even some of these journalists, these white journalists, had to scratch their head and go to the dictionary. But black people love that.

[Judge Eugene Pincham]

And he jumped on Jane Byrne and took her by surprise, shocked her. And she was still reeling from the shock. And I shall never forget it that night. This man's got it made. He's in.

[Ira Glass]

Here's one way that being a black candidate for office is different from being a white candidate. If you're black, you get thrown into the chasm of misunderstanding that divides white America from black America in a way that white politicians almost never are. Two Americans simply see certain things differently. For instance, what should Harold Washington say about the late Mayor Richard J. Daly? Many white Chicagoans still held him in awe, while black and Latino Chicago, for good reasons, had a different take. Daly openly stood against integration of the city's neighborhoods. The night after Martin Luther King Jr. S death, he ordered police to shoot to kill rioters. Well, here's what Harold decided to when.

[Harold Washington]

He says that he would hope that I would have all the good qualities of past mares. There are no good qualities of past mares to be had. None, none, none, none. I did not mourn at the bar of the late mayor. I regret anyone dying. I have no regrets about him leaving. He was a racist from the core, head to toe and hip to hip. There's no danger, doubt about it. And he spewed and fawned and oppressed black people to the point that some of them thought that was the way they were supposed to live. Just like some slaves on the plantation thought that was the way they were supposed to live.

[Ira Glass]

It was just like everything else he did in 17. It was historic. No one would challenge the late mayor on anything, much less call him that kind of name. And I think that was what made him so provocative. It's what made him so loved by the people who supported him and so hated by the people who wanted to deny him the office. He didn't miss any words.

[Harold Washington]

I give no hoosanus to a racist, nor do I appreciate or respect his son. If his name were anything other than daily, his campaign would be be a joke. He has nothing to offer anybody but a bent up tin can smile, no background, and he runs on the legacy of his name. An insult to common sense and decency. Everything I've ever got in the world, I worked for it. Nobody gave me anything.

[Ira Glass]

The primary taught him that he could transcend being the third candidate of being the black candidate. And he could take that Adam Powell positioning, he could take that Marcus Garvey positioning where you're the hybrid between the politician and the public man and you become somewhere between Muhammad Ali, Michael Jackson, somewhere in Superstar.

[Harold Washington]

And although I may sound abrasive, I have no malice toward anybody. I have a job to do. I've got places to go and things to do. And I approach this job just like any masterful surgeon. When you have to cut out a cancer, I cut it out with no emotion. Get it out, get it out. This dominant culture may have messed up my pocket, but they haven't messed up my head one day. I believe in the powers of redemption. And I simply cannot believe and the God I worship that he would permit us to sit on this earth for 400 years, or rather in this country for 400 years and suffer the indignities which we have suffered piled time after time, high after high, and so heavy it has almost broken the backs of one of the most powerful people in this world. I can't believe there is no redemption. But that redemption is not going to come out in hatred. It's going to come out in positive attitudes toward our fellow man. We've come into the 1980s with an understanding that we have not just a right, but a responsibility to give the best that we have to a society. We want to give it and we're going to give it. If we have to beat them across the head and knock them down and make them take it, we're going to give it to them.

[Ira Glass]

During this election and during Harold Washington's terms as mayor in Chicago, every day was the day after the OJ Verdict. Every day was a day when black and white Chicago took a look at the same set of facts and drew two different conclusions. For instance, when the media raised questions about Washington's past, it made white Chicagoans question his qualifications for office, but it made minority voters more loyal.

[Judge Eugene Pincham]

In 1983, when Harold announced his candidacy, 95% of black people never heard of him. And what happened was the white power structured media first criticized Harold for having been convicted of a tax violation. He failed to file his returns.

[Ira Glass]

We should be precise about this. It wasn't that he hadn't paid. It's that he hadn't filed the returns.

[Judge Eugene Pincham]

Henry filed a return. That's right. He'd paid. Withholding.

[Ira Glass]

Right.

[Judge Eugene Pincham]

There was nothing to it. So what difference is made? But the point is, when this occurred, it gave him publicity that he otherwise would not have gotten. Many people in the black community resented the criticism being leveled against him. They then said, well, you're not married. You can't be mayor if you're not married. We made Jan Byrne marry Mullen. We made Jim Thompson marry Jane Thompson. We made Kennedy in the Senate go back to his wife. You cannot be a viable politician if you're not married. Here again, he did something that blacks aren't accustomed to seeing blacks do. He stood up and said, I'm not gonna get married. Everybody thought, man, go marry Mary if this is gonna make. He said, I'm not.

[Harold Washington]

Somebody can tell me to marry.

[Judge Eugene Pincham]

I don't wanna marry. My marital status has nothing to do with my qualifications as mayor. And here again, the black community looked at him with a great deal more respect now. Because many of the people, black folks who married don't wanna be married. No way. So they said, go on, Harold. But he got some more publicity. And quite frankly, you will have to concede. I certainly will. Say it. That had a white candidate with the same baggage been running, there's no way in the world he'd have been elected mayor.

[Ira Glass]

How do you figure that?

[Judge Eugene Pincham]

Well, that's true. Your white candidate, who'd been in jail for failing to file a tax return who wasn't married, rumored being homosexual. Everybody know Harry wasn't a homosexual, but that was the rumor they tried to create. And a disbarred lawyer. Nowhere in the world he'd be elected.

[Ira Glass]

What should we think of that?

[Judge Eugene Pincham]

What I think of it, I think it's here again. Well, if South Africa can elect a man who's a felon.

[Ira Glass]

Nelson Mandela, another Mandela, 27 years. You know, what's interesting about it is none of those criticisms also go to what the white fear was. I wonder, as far as you could tell, what was at the heart of the white fear because he's black. And so the two Chicagos headed to primary day. White Chicago mostly, ignoring the Washington candidacy. Black Chicago, abuzz about it. And when he won, the two Chicagos had wildly different reactions, as you might expect. Monroe Anderson was a reporter at the Chicago Tribune at the time. He was one of the few blacks who worked in the newsroom the day after Harold Washington's primary victory.

[Monroe Anderson]

I mean, there was such a somber feeling around that place. I mean, it was like somebody's family member, beloved family member, had died or something. I mean, it was just really somber. And we were in this jubilant mood, except you did not feel comfortable expressing it, looking it. So we walked around and then we would go into somebody's office or someplace inside and go, yes, and jump up and down and then come out and walk around. Yes.

[Harold Washington]

We're reporters, too.

[Monroe Anderson]

As we understand.

[Ira Glass]

After primary day, things got ugly. Usually, winning the Democratic primary for mayor in Chicago means you've won the office. The Republican Party doesn't count in city elections. But in this case, as Chicago moved toward the general election in April 1983, 90% of white Chicago deserted the Democratic party to vote for a Republican named Bernie Epton. One of his campaign slogans, epton, before it's too late. Black Chicago saw the Democratic defections as racism, pure and simple. Meanwhile, white policemen circulated hate literature illustrated with chicken bones and watermelons. And in perhaps the most famous incident in the campaign, while stumping with Walter Mondale, Harold Washington stopped at St. Pascal's Church on the city's white northwest side.

[Monroe Anderson]

It was almost a riot.

[Ira Glass]

Monroe Anderson covered it for the Tribune. There's a racial slur in this next quote that we're leaving in, so you get the full picture here.

[Monroe Anderson]

When Harold showed up and the press entourage showed up, I mean, there was this. I mean, there was this angry. I mean, people were, like, approaching the car. I mean, it was just. People were out of control. I mean, they were. I thought that we were in physical danger. And then we get to the church, and somebody spray painted on the church graffiti. It said, die, nigger, die.

[Ira Glass]

On a Catholic church?

[Monroe Anderson]

Yes.

[Ira Glass]

Meanwhile, something curious happened. Occasionally, Harold Washington or one of his supporters would say in passing something like, it's our turn now. And when they did, it made headlines. White Chicago and the mainstream press saw it as more than just ethnic pride. It was seen as threatening. This is one of the ways that being a black politician in America is different than being a Polish politician or an Irish politician. Judge Pincham.

[Judge Eugene Pincham]

The difference is very, very simple. And that is when the Polish attempt to get a Polish mayor, it's good ethnic politics. When the Irish try to get an Irish mayor, it's good ethnic politics. But when the blacks try to get a black mayor, it's racism.

[Ira Glass]

Glenn Leonard grew up in the white southwest side of Chicago, didn't vote for Howard Washington. I think a lot of people thought that he was going to bring in a lot of people that were going to be black and were going to change the city. Now we have our chance. Now let's go ahead and do it. Let's right all these so called wrongs. Whether they were right or wrong, it's another story. Let's right these wrongs, let's move in, let's take over, let's have more of a say in the local government. And people just saw that as a. They thought well these people are going to come in, move into the corner house or whatever and another white flight starts again. I think that was a big fear. Chicago will become another Detroit people said another Cleveland. Property values would fall, businesses leave. Many whites had already fled one set of neighborhoods during white flight. Glenn says that white Chicago was used to having the late Mayor Daley protect their neighborhoods. For instance by blocking federal schemes to bring in low income public housing office over the city. Howard Washington wouldn't do that. He was going to obviously no longer block these. And these low income housing units would come into every neighborhood in the city or whatever and that would start the ball rolling. Your, what do they call it in the Far east when the communists. The domino effect.

[Monroe Anderson]

Thank you.

[Ira Glass]

This is one thing that black politicians have to deal with that white politicians don't. And this is true. From Chicago to Washington D.C. from North Carolina to South Africa, they have to deal with white fear.

[Harold Washington]

Harold Washington, we have 670,000 black registered voters in this city. When you get right down to it, the votes are here, they're here, they're here at every group. And I've said it before and I'll say it again and the press takes it and runs out of the left field with it. Every group that gets our percentage of population, they don't go around begging, they don't go around explaining. They don't have any excuses to make. They just move on in and take one of their own and put them in office. That's what we should do. That's what democracy is all about.

[Ira Glass]

Problem is when your opponents don't see your election as just the normal workings of democracy. How Harold Washington tried to rise above their fear after he squeaked out a narrow victory in the general election and took office. That's in a minute when our program continues. Support for this American life comes from Squarespace, their AI enhanced website builder. Blueprint AI can create a fully custom website in just a few steps using basic information about your industry goals and personality to generate premium quality content and personalized design recommendations. And get paid on time with branded invoices and online payments. Plus, streamline your workflow with built in appointment scheduling and email marketing tools. Head to squarespace.comamerican for 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain.

[Sponsor/Announcer]

This message comes from NPR sponsor Rosetta Stone, an expert in language learning for 30 years. Right now, NPR listeners can get Rosetta Stone's lifetime membership to 25 different languages for 50% off. Learn more at RosettaStone.com NPR this message comes from Michelin. More than a tire company, Michelin is an innovation company, from connected mobility to clean materials and now taking on one of the toughest mobility challenges, space developing an airless wheel for space exploration designed to withstand the extreme conditions at the moon's south pole. Michelin isn't just making exceptional tires, they're helping build a better future. Motion for life [e-mail] y-michelin innovation.

[Ira Glass]

This is American Life. Myra Glass, if you're just tuning in today, what we're doing is that in this moment, when a Democratic socialist, a Muslim candidate, Zoran Mamdani, stands poised to become the next mayor of New York, sending the Democratic Party into a kind of identity crisis as he does it. We're rerunning this show that we first broadcast back in 1997 about another big city mayor who forced the Democrats to reexamine what the party was all about and pick sides. Harold Washington, Chicago's first black mayor, who took the mayor's office in 1983 and died just four years later, just a few months into his second term. We rejoin that old episode now. So in Chicago, in most American big cities, the way it used to work, and I say used to with some reservations, you could argue that a version of this still exists lots of places. But the way it used to work was that when Irish Americans took the mayor's office, or Italian Americans or Polish Americans, they channeled contracts and patronage jobs and other municipal goodies to their own communities. Lou Palmer was one of the people at the center of the movement to elect a black mayor in Chicago. He convened the early organizational meetings in his basement. It is hard to imagine that Harold Washington would have ever come to office without him. And he was disappointed by Harold.

[Lou Palmer]

I don't know. But he never became what I would consider the black mayor. Black people wanted something that was so simple, fairness. And I used to get upset with Harold after he became elected because Harold was too fair. In fact, he would say in his speeches, you know, I'm going to be fair. I'm going to be more than fair.

[Harold Washington]

No one, but no one in this city, no matter where they live or how they live, is free from the fairness of our administration. Will find you and be fair to you wherever you are.

[Lou Palmer]

I used to cringe when he would say, I'm not only gonna be fair, but I'm gonna be fairer than fair. Well, come on, you know, you don't have to go overboard. And, Harold, those of us who are considered radicals, we simply believe that since dailies, the dailies, Byrne and all the rest of the white mayors had always put white people first. Without any question, without any apology. We said, well, Harold got to put black people first. And that's what we wanted. I'm not sure we wanted to be to white people what Daley was to black people. That is, you know, he was just ridiculous. But people wanted. They wanted to see the opportunity to have our community thrive like other communities.

[Ira Glass]

It wasn't just black nationalists like Lew Palmer who felt this way. Old time machine loyalists like Eugene Sawyer, who was the black alderman, that the white democratic machine wanted to secede. Harold Washington as mayor said the same thing.

[Lou Palmer]

That was part of things that I.

[Harold Washington]

Think we probably were too fair.

[Lou Palmer]

I think Harold was too fair.

[Patrick O'Connor]

A lot of people think it was.

[Lou Palmer]

Too fair by giving a lot more.

[Harold Washington]

And giving everybody the same thing.

[Lou Palmer]

And people didn't expect it.

[Harold Washington]

A lot of black folks think that.

[Lou Palmer]

You know, you should have given your.

[Harold Washington]

Own people a little bit more.

[Monroe Anderson]

Well, a major problem with being a black person in America, reporter Monroe Anderson, is you're in this trap. I mean, this is sort of.

[Harold Washington]

Our.

[Monroe Anderson]

Curse and our blessing because of this racial history is that we have been complaining and pointing out all these inequities for a very long time. And therefore, all these things that you have pointed out that have been an injustice to you, now that you're in power, you can't do because it'll be injustice to whites. And therefore the rules have to be this great even. Everything's fair and square.

[Ira Glass]

People close to Harold Washington say that it was smart politics for him to be foolish. Fairer than fair. After all, black wards had been treated so unfairly in the past that simply giving them the same services that the rest of the city got would be a huge step forward. It was also the political stance he felt most comfortable with by disposition. And when black politicians or community activists came to city hall trying to get more for one neighborhood over another, he was so enormously popular in black Chicago, where 85% of the black electorate turned out to vote for him. And where everyone simply referred to him as Harold, that he could ignore the pressure. Jackie Grimshaw was a staff person.

[Jackie Grimshaw]

I think there is a difference between the black population and the black politicians. I think on the part of the black politicians, it was definitely, it's our turn. And I had to deal with some of these folks. I mean, they'd come in and they want 10 jobs and crap like that. 10 jobs. But I think on the part of the people, I mean, they were into fairness. I mean, I think the fairness thing played with them, you know, I mean, they were proud of Harold. They supported him, what he was doing.

[Ira Glass]

Privately, Harold Washington talked about the danger of doing away with the old patronage system, how it could make the first black mayor weaker than any of his white predecessors. But publicly, for all intents and purposes, patronage was over.

[Harold Washington]

It's gone. It's gone. In the words of Cornell Davis, they said he wasn't dead. So I went to his grave, and I walked around that grave, and I stomped on that grave, and I jumped up and down and I called out, patronage, Patronage, are you alive? And patronage didn't answer. It is dead, dead, dead.

[Ira Glass]

Washington attacked the machine. The machine struck back. From the first day of Washington's first city council meeting, 29 aldermen, all of them white. The old Democratic machine teamed up to oppose him. For the first time in memory, a Chicago mayor did not control city hall. For the first time in memory, Clout. That's what we call it in Chicago. Clout. Sheer bullying force that was at the heart of Chicago politics. Clout was no longer in the mayor's control. It was the machine's 29 votes to Harold's 21 votes. The 29 not only blocked his appointments, but it never brought them up for consideration. It blocked most of his legislative initiatives and dedicated enormous energy to looking for ways to embarrass him and thwart him. It was mayhem. A battle so divisive and chaotic that it sustained the animosity and suspicion between black Chicago and white Chicago for years. It came to be known locally as council wars after a local African American comic named Aaron Freeman began staging moments in local politics as scenes from the star wars trilogy. Harold appeared as Luke Skytalker, leader of the rebellion, constantly spouting off long, difficult words. Harold's main political opponent, Ed Verdoliak, the alderman who led the 29, also got a big part.

[Harold Washington]

What are you doing in my office, Lord Darth Vridolia?

[Lou Palmer]

I wish to discuss committee assignments for the new council.

[Ira Glass]

I don't have to talk to You.

[Harold Washington]

I'm the mayor.

[Ira Glass]

I can do whatever I want.

[Harold Washington]

I can.

[Lou Palmer]

I find your lack of respect disturbing. It is obvious you do not know the power of the clout. It has served all of the mayors before you. It can bring you great wealth and power, or it can destroy you as easily. The choice is yours.

[Ira Glass]

You do not consternate me, Verdoliak.

[Harold Washington]

Take this parliamentary maneuver. Pow.

[Lou Palmer]

Well done, Mayor. But I counter with this negotiated majority.

[Harold Washington]

And I file a suit in court.

[Lou Palmer]

But the decision is in my favor.

[Harold Washington]

You may have prevailed at this juncture, Vidoliac, but I will assiduously pursue your disestablishment.

[Ira Glass]

Perhaps, Mayor, but to do so, you.

[Lou Palmer]

Must use the dark side of the clout. You must make deals and compromises.

[Harold Washington]

Never. Yes, Mayor.

[Lou Palmer]

To defeat me, you must become me. Look at my face, Skytalker, for I am your mentor.

[Harold Washington]

No.

[Ira Glass]

Even under these adverse conditions, Washington did manage to pass budgets and get some things done. Black wards finally got the same street repair and garbage pickup as all the other wards. Jackie Grimshaw describes one scheme Washington came up with to do some improvements around the city designed to be, of course, fairer than fairer, to give every ward the same benefits. But the 29, of course, opposed it. And Washington needed their approval because to pay for it, he wanted to issue a city bond.

[Jackie Grimshaw]

So every ward was to get, I think it was 10 miles of street resurfacing and alleys, a certain number of alleys done, and street lighting. And so he had all of these on the bond issue and they were refusing to pass it. So he put all of the reporters on the bus and he would go around to these various wards and like we went out to Mount Greenwood, another area of the city that doesn't. That did not welcome blacks at the time to say, your alderman is refusing to support this bond issue that I want to use to give you real streets, and if you want it, you better tell your alderman to vote for it. And so by the time he got through doing this, you know, the folks in the communities were pretty much outraged. You know, black mayor or not, they wanted their streets, they wanted their sewers, they wanted their vaulted sidewalks repaired and so forth.

[Ira Glass]

What happens to American population politics when one of the politicians happens to be black? In this case, what happened was that everything in city politics was seen through the prism of race, even though often it had nothing to do with race, often it had more to do with reform. Gary Rivlin is the author of a very even handed history of Washington's years.

[Gary Rivlin]

Fire on the Prairie you know, everyone wants to understand Harold Washington as the first black mayor. And it's true, he was the first black mayor, and that was a very significant thing. But he was also the mayor who beat the Chicago political machine. He was the first reformer in 30 years to take on the machine. And he did it more successfully than anyone else before him, purely on a reform point of view. And so he was a different kind of politician, but no one could ever see beyond his race. In fact, there was a political cartoon at the time I loved, and it was an editor asking a reporter covering the election. So, anything change? Anything new? And the reporter answered, nope, he's still white and he's still black. And really, it was never. It really wasn't that much more sophisticated than that cartoon indicated.

[Harold Washington]

You pick up a local paper, and these guys just wax so eloquent. They don't know what the hell they're talking about. Don't have the slightest idea about the phenomena. Don't understand the history, don't understand the mindset, don't understand what pushed people. All they say is, gee, black folks must be angry. Gee, black folks voting for black folks, they must hate white folks. Ain't got nothing to do with nothing. Nothing crazy stuff. But that's what you read around in Chicago. That's what I have to put up with every day when I look in the reporter's eyes. All little silly business, you know. How many white folks did you convert today, Harold?

[Ira Glass]

Ow.

[Harold Washington]

Wow. And the answer is, more than you did, Bart. Cause I do my job irregardless of race, color, creed, or sex.

[Ira Glass]

Because everything he did, even things that were more about reform than about race, was seen through the lens of race. It gave Washington's opponents a tool that they could use against him, which they did. A typical example, some crime rates went up between 1985 and 86, even though overall crime was lower under Washington than under his white predecessor. But his opponents tried to make the case that this proved that the black mayor did not care about crime. Hate literature had said that he would do nothing about crime because most crime is caused by blacks.

[Gary Rivlin]

So they were using this statistical.

[Ira Glass]

Bump.

[Gary Rivlin]

Between 85 and 86 to prove what the hate literature was saying, that the black mayor is going to be indifferent to crime. See, that's playing the race card and playing in a dirty way. It's a way of distorting statistics to play to racial fears out there. So did Washington talk about race? Did he talk about the Chicago political machine always being biased against the black community? Sure. Is that playing the race card, sure. But I also happen to think it's true what he was saying, Whereas what I think the opposition was doing much more of was playing the race card and playing it in a dirty way. You know, trying to tweak and abuse statistics any way they could to prove their point and play into the worst fears of the white community. I never saw Washington playing into the worst fears of the black community. In fact, his rhetoric was, I'm going to be fairer than fair.

[Ira Glass]

Fact is, by the time he died, just a few months into his second term of office, Harold Washington had put together a working majority on the council. Not many more whites voted for him in his second election than in his first. But every political observer in Chicago says that he was making headway. Patrick O' Connor was one of the 29 aldermen who opposed Washington, though he was one of the few swing votes who sometimes sided with the mayor.

[Patrick O'Connor]

We invited him up to a picnic in our ward, and he showed up at our picnic, and he got a great reception. People that really didn't vote for him and probably wouldn't vote for him the next time respected the fact that he came out there, that he wanted to say a low, that he wanted to participate. And bear in mind that I was voting consistently with a block that was voting against him. And he came out, and we spent the day, and it was fine. I remember one time we were both invited to a place that neither of us were particularly popular in the ward. And so I got a call from his office, and this is again, at a time when there was a council war going on, asking was I going to this festival or whatever it was, and if I was, would I meet the mayor on a corner in our ward and go in there together with him? And I told the guy, no, I'm not meeting him on the corner. I said, he wants me to go. He's going to pick me up at my house. So the mayor pulls up to the front of my house. He comes in, we have a glass of wine that he had, and I had a beer, and we sat around for a couple minutes, and he met my family, and he looks in my dining room. We didn't have any dining room furniture at the time. The kids were all young, and we just moved. Moved into the house. So he says. He says, where's your dining room furniture? And my wife says, you don't pay him enough money. And Harold goes, I knew this cheese was going to cost me something. I mean, and he was just that quick. He was really very Very good. But my point is that we got in the car, we went to this festival, and by the time he left, he had people dancing with him. He went over, he was, he was talking with folks. By the time he left, it might not have changed the mind of everybody in there that he was okay, but he had made a significant impact. And he understood by keeping that schedule and going to areas where he was not expected to show up or would traditionally not be the most welcome person, that he was winning percentages of people, and that's all he had to do.

[Ira Glass]

Vernon Jarrett says that if Washington had lived, he would have done a lot to ease the strains of modern Chicago apartheid.

[Vernon Jarrett]

Harold was going to win over a big chunk of the white population, and I don't mean Gold coast liberals. They were beginning to like this guy, and they could see something in him that represents he was chubby, warm, friendly, and not only that, he was going into some lower class white neighborhoods having their streets paved for the first time, and they were slowly beginning to lose their fear.

[Ira Glass]

Act 2 the present and the Future Today's rerun, first broadcast in 1997, 10 years after Harold Washington's death, continues. There are ways, I think, that the mayor has changed the city forever, but they're not things you can necessarily measure by doing headcounts and using a lot of numbers. Laura Washington, Harold's former press secretary, now editor at a sort of muckraking publication called the Chicago Reporter. I think he opened up the city in ways that it will never be closed again. If you look at the numbers, you'll still see a lot of inequity. You'll still see neighborhoods that are poorer, probably poorer than they were 15, 20 years ago. You'll see neighborhoods that still probably don't get their fair share of city services. But you'll see, I think, a dramatic difference in the attitude that public officials and policymakers have to equity in the city. Ten years after Harold Washington, people who follow politics in Chicago say that if nothing else, current Mayor Richard M. Daley, son of Richard J. Has to worry about making black voters angry. He's been careful to have black press secretaries and kept a number of appointees from the black administration before him. He's done nothing so far to infuriate black Chicago the way his white predecessors regularly did. City services are distributed more fairly even today, though there's been a bit of backsliding here and there. And Richard Daly's latest proposed bond issue follows the model of the Washington years. It gives all of Chicago's wards Equal benefits. Something that was unheard of in the years before Washington. Okay, so this is Ira in 2025 again. Hi. @ the end of Harold Washington's first term, 88% of white voters still voted against him. And 10 years after his death, when we first broadcast the program that you're listening to right now, we sent a reporter, Rachel Howard, to the 39th Ward out near O' Hare Airport, a mostly white ward that voted against Washington, to see if times had changed, to see if they would consider voting for a black mayor. Short answer, no longer answer. She talked to people in a bar who got totally riled up. As soon as she mentioned Harold Washington called him the N word, they would.

[Jackie Grimshaw]

Start ranting about how he should have stayed on the south side, how he wasn't there. Mayor, 10 years is not a very long time.

[Ira Glass]

No, I didn't vote for Harold at all. Why not?

[Harold Washington]

Because he was black.

[Jackie Grimshaw]

Most people I spoke with felt this way. Some even said they were scared when Harold was elected. And at another bar up the street, a guy explained what everyone had been afraid of.

[Ira Glass]

He thought, that's it. We're done.

[Patrick O'Connor]

That was a big thing.

[Ira Glass]

North, south, south side. Now, consider north side and south side are very segregated.

[Patrick O'Connor]

Let's put it this way. He thought that the black people are going to take over the city.

[Gary Rivlin]

No, not that, though.

[Ira Glass]

Slums be slums.

[Patrick O'Connor]

You know, you worry about slums.

[Ira Glass]

Okay, so that was 1997. But then we went back 10 years after that, 2007. And I have to say, it was interesting to change. Reporter Rob Wiltbore went to a bunch of the wards where Harold Washington was not welcome back in the day, the 10th, the 11th, the 23rd wards, and he talked to 50 people, and all but three of them said they would be willing to vote for a black mayor. Now, to be clear, people were openly racist. Okay? Unapologetic about it. Like this guy Pete.

[Judge Eugene Pincham]

We bought a house here in Hegwish.

[Harold Washington]

And what happened?

[Judge Eugene Pincham]

Blacks moved in, taking over the parks.

[Harold Washington]

Taking over schools, taking over everything. Go on a holiday to Wolf Lake. Well, who's over there?

[Lou Palmer]

They're all barbecuing over there.

[Harold Washington]

We can't even go to our own parks. We got nothing.

[Ira Glass]

But then this same guy said that he wished that a black alder woman, Tony Preckwinkle, would run for mayor. He'd vote for her. He said she did a great job cleaning up Hyde Park. Or there was a woman named Mary Kay who lived in the 23rd Ward by midway Airport, the neighborhood where Washington got the Lowest vote total in the city in 1983. Less than 1%. Just 199 votes. Mary Kay was not one of the 199. ChiTOTA reporter Rob Things are just different now.

[Jackie Grimshaw]

Back then, for me, it was white or black. You know, I was prejudiced back then, probably more so than I am now.

[Ira Glass]

There's still some lingering around.

[Jackie Grimshaw]

Oh, yeah, a little bit. You know, don't turn my back on them. But, yeah, no, I mean, that was 20 years ago. I don't have that fear these days, you know, now I accept you're black or white, you know, and Washington didn't do bad. I mean, he, he was a decent mayor.

[Ira Glass]

So what's changed? Everything.

[Jackie Grimshaw]

I mean, I've changed, they've changed. You know, the black people are more educated. They're, you know, they're standing on something these days. They've come a long way in this world and they deserve, you know, they worked hard. You see it in the stores. You know, they're, you know, they're doing just as good as that. They're well dressed. They're, you know, they're clean. They're not the ghetto. And they want what we got. Well, we've always had.

[Harold Washington]

Every group. And if the press is listening, I want them to hear this. They didn't hear it when I ran for office. I'll say it again. Every group, when it gets population ascendancy as night follows day, decide without malice to anybody, not angry to anybody, that it is their turn, Period.

[Judge Eugene Pincham]

That's all.

[Harold Washington]

Ain't nothing wrong with that. I made that statement two months ago and they said it was racist, but they left out most of the statement, which the Irish do it, the Polish do it, the Jews do it, and every intelligent group on earth, which is every group, does it, and we do it and we should do it and we do it in a positive sense, not in a negative sense. You're not anti Irish because you're pro black. You're not anti black because you pro Jewish. I mean, that doesn't follow. You just happen to be pro. And as long as you are not, as long as you are not anti, as long as you are not anti, your proism is acceptable. It's just that simple. Now, I hope the press gets it right this once.

[Ira Glass]

Okay, so obviously that's Harold. And then before that was tape from 2000, 2007, voters speaking 20 years after he died. 2007, that same year, you may remember, there was another black Chicagoan in politics capturing people's attention. Barack Obama. Was running for president.

[Harold Washington]

Some of you may know that I originally moved to Chicago in part because of the inspiration of Mayor Washington's campaign. And for those of you who recall that era and recall Chicago at that time, it's hard to forget the sense of possibility that he sparked in people.

[Ira Glass]

When Barack Obama ran for senate and later for president, one of his advisors was David Axelrod, a man who's uniquely positioned to comment on how racial politics have changed in Chicago since Harold's time because he was also a political advisor to Harold Washington. Back during Harold's second run for mayor back in 2007, I reached Axelrod on his cell phone to talk about that. It was during the Obama campaign. He was on a campaign bus in Iowa. He told me back then that things had significantly changed in Chicago's white wards in the years since Harold's death.

[Harold Washington]

I remember that the night of the.

[Lou Palmer]

2004 Democratic primary for the U.S. senate when Barack Obama was nominated. And one of the things that I looked at that night was how he did on the northwest side of Chicago. You know, in Harold rand, he got 8% of the white vote in his first. I think he got 20% in the reelection. And much of the determined resistance was on the northwest side of Chicago. And Obama carried all but one ward on the northwest side of Chicago. He even carried the precinct in which St. Pascal's Church sits. That was the church where Harold Washington and Walter mondale campaigned in 1983 and met with really hostile resistance from the crowd. Obama carried that precinct. And I said to Barack that night, I think Harold's smiling down on us tonight.

[Ira Glass]

When Obama got to the general election for Senator, he won 70% of the vote or more in every white ward in the city. His results weren't far from that when he ran for president years later. When Kamala Harris ran against Donald Trump in 2024, that mostly held most of those white wards went solidly for Harris, with 60 or 70% voting for her. Trump only won one Chicago award out of 50. When I asked the people who urged Howard Washington to run in the first place, that's Lou Palmer and Timuel Black, what the lessons of the Washington years are. They both said the same thing. They talked about how it was mistake to think you can make the world change if you pin your hopes on just one man. After Harold died, the movement died too.

[Lou Palmer]

And I tell you, a lot of people don't like to criticize Harold Washington. I blame Harold for this.

[Harold Washington]

What should have been happening, we should have anticipated either his demise or removal from office and been organizing for that possibility.

[Lou Palmer]

Harold was put on a pedestal, and I think that was a major mistake. We lifted him to almost God status.

[Ira Glass]

Barack Obama noticed the same problem. In fact, there's a passage in Dreams from my father about this when he writes about what Chicago was like immediately after Harold's death.

[Sponsor/Announcer]

The day before Thanksgiving, Harold Washington died.

[Ira Glass]

This is Obama reading on the audiobook.

[Sponsor/Announcer]

It occurred without warning, sudden, simple, final, almost ridiculous in its ordinariness. The heart of an overweight man giving way.

[Ira Glass]

It rained that weekend, cold and steady, indoors and outside. People cried.

[Sponsor/Announcer]

By the time of the funeral, Washington.

[Ira Glass]

Loyalists had worked through the initial shock.

[Harold Washington]

They began to meet, regroup, trying to.

[Ira Glass]

Decide on a strategy for maintaining control.

[Sponsor/Announcer]

Trying to select Harold's rightful heir.

[Ira Glass]

But it was too late for that. There was no political organization in place, no clearly defined principles to follow. The entire of black politics had centered on one man who radiated like the sun.

[Harold Washington]

Now that he was gone, no one.

[Ira Glass]

Could agree on what that presence had meant. I guess it's worth pointing out that this is what so many Democrats said when Barack Obama left office and Donald Trump came to power, that Obama and his team didn't leave the Democratic Party in proper shape to face the battles ahead. In 2017, after Donald Trump was elected for the first time, I checked again with David Axelrod. He told me that Harold might have been surprised that a black man was elected president just two decades after Harold won his second term. But he said Harold would not have been surprised at the backlash once that black man got to the Oval Office. Well, today's program was originally Produced back in 1997 by Alex Bloomberg and myself with Nancy Updike, Elise Spiegel and Julie Snyder. Senior editor for this show was Paul Tough. Production help from Rachel Howard, Seth lynne, Bruce Wallace, B.A. parker, Matt Tierney, Suzanne Gabbard, Stone Nelson and Michael Comet.

[Lou Palmer]

Hey.

[Ira Glass]

Since we first put this show on the air nearly 30 years ago, four of our interviewees, Blue Palmer, Fernand Jarrett, Eugene Sawyer and Judge Eugene Pincham, have died. None of them live to see a black man win the Oval Office, or, of course, what's happened since. We used archival footage today from the following sources. From Brian Boyer's film Harold Washington and the Council wars, from Bill Cameron's taped recordings of Harold Washington's speeches and press conferences. We got tape from Chicago's Museum of Broadcast Communications, thanks to Bruce Demant and the staff there. Also from Harold Gladstone and Jim Weiselis's film the Race for Mayor, from Bill Stamets film, Chicago Politics and Theater of power. And from WBBM's archival news footage, WXRT radio gave us archival tape of Aaron Freeman's Council wars satire and WTTW TV gave us archival footage of the 83 debates. In addition to all that we got, thank Eva Baiza, who at the time was director of the Chernin center for the Arts at the Duncan ymca. And thanks to Gary Rivlin who gave us advice throughout this production. We recommend his book Fire on the Prairie. It's a great history of the Washington years. Thanks to Hugo Tyrell and Dolores woods. Our website thisamericanlife.org this American Life is delivered to public radio stations by prx, the public radio Exchange. Thanks as always to the co founder of our program, Mr. Tori Malatea. I'm Hira Glass. Let us close out today with a recording from the night of Harold Washington's second mayoral victory.

[Harold Washington]

I saw him and he danced with his wife in Chicago, Chicago, my hometown.

[Ira Glass]

Next week on the podcast of this American Life, Evan creates an AI version of himself and sends it into the world to see what happens. Jesus, I'm talking to AI right now. What makes you think that? I don't know.

[Lou Palmer]

Just the way you're talking. It seems a little stilted.

[Ira Glass]

I get it. Sometimes we all wear different masks. Can people tell the difference between you and AI? Not always. That's next week on the podcast on your local public radio station.

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