Harold Washington Remembered

By Salim Muwakkil
<http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/3428/harold_washington_remembered/>
November 23, 2007

    Although a haze of nostalgia clouds our recall of
    the Harold Washington years, few can disagree that
    the era was a time of hopeful activism.

When Harold Washington, Chicago's first black mayor,
died on Nov. 25, 1987, many of us understood that his
death marked the passing of a great man. But while we
lamented the negative impact of his loss, few of us had
any inkling of the vast political vacuum he would leave
behind.

As time passes, the vacuum expands.

Back then, it seemed likely that Washington's powerful
presence could propel the formation of progressive
alliances across the country. However, as we grope
around in the political darkness he once illuminated, it
seems clear that his unique personality was a major
reason for his success.

Washington was a rare composite. Washington was a
peoples' intellectual and a seasoned political operator.
He was an effective legislator, a progressive activist
and a community leader with deep connections to
grassroots organizations. (He was also a longtime
supporter of this magazine.) His political success was
never duplicated and the movement he inspired quickly
dissipated following his death.

Washington's initial election occurred in 1983, when
progressive forces were mired in the gloom of the Reagan
administration. He found mayoral success using a formula
that was part campaign and part crusade. But Washington
was no political neophyte, full of naïve idealism. He
had already served many years as a state legislator and
a member of Congress, and was well versed in the nuts
and bolts of pragmatic politics.

His candidacy forged political unity among Chicago's
notoriously fractious black community and helped bring
the city's feuding Latino groups (including Mexicans and
Puerto Ricans) together. He ignited a bonfire of
political support among the city's traditionally
laidback Asian electorate. White progressives and
reformers were attracted to his manifest independence
from the Chicago machine and his promises of
governmental transparency.

The forces of reform put into motion by his 1983
election and 1987 re-election inspired hope that a
progressive prairie fire would spread across the nation.
But no such luck.

However, the Washington phenomena did provide hope that
black-led, multiracial coalitions were politically
viable.

The Rev. Jesse Jackson explicitly used Washington's
hybrid campaign/crusade as a template for his
presidential runs in 1984 and 1988, during which time he
amassed respectable vote totals, especially in 1988. But
Jackson's Rainbow Coalition campaigns were the last
hurrah and interest in such efforts later dwindled.

That's why many veterans of the Washington years were
riveted by the political emergence of Sen. Barack Obama
(D-Ill.). His trans-racial appeal and his progressive
politics seemed to echo Washington's, and they triggered
hopes for a revival of the progressive coalitions he
inspired.

Obama initially seemed willing to utilize the Washington
hybrid in his run for the presidency, but he since has
adopted a more conventional campaign model. Illinois'
junior senator may embody aspects of Washington's
appeal, but he is not exploiting it.

Although a haze of nostalgia may cloud our recall of the
Harold Washington years, few can disagree that that era
was a time of hopeful activism. His mayoral tenure was a
time of governmental transparency, political fairness
and even racial reconciliation. The Washington years
were a time when progressive coalitions of multiracial
and multiethnic Chicagoans were celebrating their
successes and mobilizing for more.

Of course, there also was a backlash of an anxious white
electorate and zealous opposition. Many in that camp
opposed Washington for racist reasons and others were
ideological opponents of his progressive assaults on the
encrusted Chicago machine. Those epic conflicts earned
Chicago the moniker, "Beirut on the Lake," drawing
comparisons to the brutal civil war then raging in
Lebanon's capital city. The rancor cooled following a
special election that gave Washington a more balanced
city council, and the mayor went to work engineering the
fairest administration the city had ever seen.

It may be comforting to dream of those days and gloat
about the triumphs and the promise of that era. But the
Washington years happened because people were not
dreaming or awash in nostalgia-they were awake and
active.

Commemorations of the 20th anniversary of his death
should act as a wake-up call to those of us who may have
forgotten the promise ignited by this amazing
intellectual of the people who became a political
champion.

Salim Muwakkil's new book is Harold! Photographs from
the Harold Washington Years (Northwestern University
Press, 2007). For more information, visit
http://www.haroldbook.org.
Salim Muwakkil is a senior editor of In These Times,
where he has worked since 1983, and an op-ed columnist
for the Chicago Tribune. He is currently a Crime and
Communities Media Fellow of the Open Society Institute,
examining the impact of ex-inmates and gang leaders in
leadership positions in the black community.

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