Huang has shared an article by someone who described the role that Harold Washington played in liberating urban politics before his death twenty years ago.
Harold Washington changed Chicago – and the possibilities for African Americans and, indeed, of Latinos, whites and, he hoped, Asian Americans as well. He was my boss and my role model.
Harold was a liberal state representative and Congressman. But he did not stand out in those roles. His run for Mayor in 1983 against a powerful Democratic machine and his service as Mayor were revolutionary. It liberated the city from racial limitations that kept minority groups under control. For me, having worked in politics for a number of years before, initially to end the War in Vietnam, then to oppose the excesses of a dictatorial Daley machine, Harold also liberated me. He let me see that politics could also mean that my community could achieve more and that even if our numbers were small; excluding us was not acceptable. He used his power to cut us in.
Latino numbers had grown in Chicago. When the white Democratic organization turned on him after he won his first Democratic primary (the majority of whom crossed party lines to support a Republican – a great sin in Chicago), Harold won by a solid African American vote, a majority of Latino voters and a handful of independent liberal whites and an even smaller group of Asian Americans.
The white majority of the City Council opposed Harold on everything. Harold and his Black and Latino allies went to court to show that Latino numbers were minimized by discriminatory districting. The 29-21 balance of City Council, with the creation of four new Latino wards allowed Harold control of the City Council and the Latinos real political power for the first time in Chicago history. A Latino Congressional district was also created, filled by the Alderman who gave Harold his City Council majority.
Harold was an immigrant rights advocate. He issued an executive order requiring the Immigration Service to have court authority before using city resources to interfere with immigrant Chicagoans.
Asian voters were not even significant enough to be broken out in vote tabulations at that time. In the first election, it is my guess that most voted for the incumbent Mayor. Yet Harold set up an Advisory Commission and hired me as his liaison to our community anyway. He appointed the first Asian city department head – a Filipina American engineer as head of the sewers department (formerly a patronage haven for political hacks). He appointed the first Asian to the public library and health boards. And his city planning department worked to allow the first significant expansion of Chinatown by developing abandoned rail yards that had boxed in the community. His affirmative action program brought Asians into the city employ in the largest numbers ever, including in the law department, the health department and the park district. His minority business enterprise order allowed Asian businesses the first city contracts ever.
It was unheard of to give communities city programs, jobs and projects even though they hadn’t delivered for you politically. Harold talked to me about how we needed to elect our own representatives. That day has still not arrived, at least in Chicago.
As opposed to some other cities, when Black-Korean relations became strained, Harold used his administration to try to bridge that gap, investing city resources to keep the peace and his political capital in the Black community to prevent the kind of strife that tore Los Angeles apart. He stood with us because our unity mattered to him.
I asked Harold for some time off to help organize the first Chicago Asian American bar association and, ultimately, the National Asian American Bar Association (which celebrates its 20th anniversary next year). To him, however, it was a part of my job to empower our community and build our institutions – that was enough.
The night before he died, Harold honored the city’s veterans. At that reception he told me that he needed me to work on human rights issues for communities beyond my own.
The next day, when I heard he was stricken at his desk I joined thousands of others holding a vigil outside city hall. Harold taught me about political self respect. I have never apologized for my beliefs or my choices after working for him.
He was elected in the face of entrenched racism and against a powerful patronage fueled party machine. I remember seeing people wearing the blank white button signifying that they were part of the “Before it’s too late” campaign to stop his election. He beat them twice and overcame a rigged City Council. Before Harold, in Illinois, it was unheard of for a minority to be elected without a clear and unequivocal majority. Because of Harold, Congressman Luis Gutierrez, Senator Carol Moseley Braun and now Senator, hopefully President, Barack Obama became possible. After his death, eventually Richard M. Daley was elected – but his administration was different because of Harold, cutting in Latinos and supporting affirmative action (with the exception for a time of Asians in minority contracting).
Earlier this year, a young columnist at Asian Week wrote a spiteful article entitled, “Why I Hate Blacks.” It doesn’t take much history to know that is another way of saying, “I hate myself.” We have a lot to live up to. Harold’s slogan was, “Chicago Works Together.” The progressive minority coalition that he put together is still what this nation, and the Democratic Party, needs to move beyond the bias that limits us all.
- Paul Igasaki
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