
The Multiracial Promise
Harold Washington's Chicago and the Democratic Struggle in Reagan's America
Gordon K. Mantler(Author)
The University of North Carolina Press
Published on 14. March 2023
Book
Paperback/Softback
366 pages
978-1-4696-7386-8 (ISBN)
Description
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.
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.
More details
Series
Language
English
Place of publication
Chapel Hill
United States
Product notice
Paperback (trade)
Illustrations
21 halftones, 1 map 21
Dimensions
Height: 234 mm
Width: 156 mm
Thickness: 21 mm
Weight
562 gr
ISBN-13
978-1-4696-7386-8 (9781469673868)
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Gordon K. Mantler
The Multiracial Promise
Harold Washington's Chicago and the Democratic Struggle in Reagan's America
E-Book
02/2023
The University of North Carolina Press
€22.49
Available for download
Person
Gordon K. Mantler is associate professor of writing and history and executive director of the University Writing Program at George Washington University. He is author of Power to the Poor: Black-Brown Coalition and the Fight for Economic Justice, 1960-1974.