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62-676: CCCO member AFSC members SCLC members Mayor of Chicago Superintendent of Chicago Public Schools State of Indiana State of Kansas State of Michigan State of Missouri State of Ohio The Chicago Freedom Movement , also known as the Chicago open housing movement , was led by Martin Luther King Jr. , James Bevel and Al Raby . It was supported by the Chicago-based Coordinating Council of Community Organizations (CCCO) and

124-549: A 15-day sit-in with other protesters to challenge the university's alleged off-campus segregated residential properties. In October 1963, tens of thousands of students and residents boycotted the CPS due to the segregationist policies of Superintendent of Chicago Public Schools Benjamin Willis , who was notorious for placing mobile units on playgrounds and parking lots to solve overcrowding in black schools. While city authorities made

186-630: A metonym for the office and power of the mayor. The mayor of Chicago is elected by popular vote every four years, on the last Tuesday in February. A run-off election, in case no candidate garners more than fifty percent of the vote, is held on the first Tuesday in April. The election is held on a non-partisan basis. Chicago is the largest city in the United States not to limit the term of service for its mayor. In accordance with Illinois law,

248-524: A city and headed by mayors. The mayoral term in Chicago was one year from 1837 through 1863, when it was changed to two years. In 1907, it was changed again, this time to four years. Until 1861, municipal elections were held in March. In that year, legislation moved them to April. In 1869, however, election day was changed to November, and terms expiring in April of that year were changed. In 1875, election day

310-493: A promise to investigate the conditions raised by civil rights activists, they never made a serious effort to take action. Protests, sit-ins and demonstrations in Chicago continued throughout 1964 and 1965. On August 11, 1965, riots ignited in Watts , a predominantly black section of Los Angeles , after the arrest of a 21-year-old black man for drunk driving. The violence lasted five days and resulted in 34 deaths, 3,900 arrests and

372-565: A result, social and racial tensions in the city intensified, as native-born residents, migrants and immigrants fiercely competed for jobs and limited housing due to overcrowding. Tensions eventually simmered into the Chicago race riot of 1919 during the Red Summer era, in which ethnic Irish gangs attacked black neighborhoods on the South Side, leading to the deaths of 23 blacks and 15 whites as well as many arson damages to buildings. In

434-554: A significant number of rural workers. The lack of opportunities in the agricultural sector, combined with ongoing racial segregation and discrimination, pushed African Americans to seek better prospects in Northern cities. In the 1930s and 1940s, the introduction of the mechanical cotton picker and other forms of farm mechanization reduced the demand for field labor in southern agriculture, leading many African Americans to seek new jobs in urban areas. Migrating north and west out of

496-401: Is currently estimated that over 70% of blacks operating in a given metropolitan area live in the city center. Comparatively, only 30% of whites operating within that same city live in the inner city. White flight was driven in part by the process of blockbusting . White property owners, fearful of minority groups, sold their homes to real estate agents at a low price, often due to the tactics of

558-763: The Birmingham campaign , the Freedom Summer voter registration drive and the Selma to Montgomery marches helped spur federal action that slowly broke down legalized racial segregation in the South. While much of the attention was focused on the South, little had been paid to the conditions in the North and West . Civil rights activists attempted to expose and contest the inequities of life in Chicago. In 1962, then- University of Chicago student Bernie Sanders organized

620-579: The Chicago Public Schools (CPS), and African American children attended all-black schools in overcrowded conditions, with less funding in materials. As a result, many black families were locked in the overcrowded South Side in shoddy conditions. In 1910, the population of black residents were 40,000. By 1960, it grew to 813,000, fueled by the Second Great Migration of blacks into the city during World War II to work in

682-535: The Metropolitan Pier and Exposition Authority . Under Richard M. Daley , the Illinois legislature granted the mayor power to appoint the governing board and chief executive officer of the Chicago Public Schools and subordinated the district to the mayor; the district had long been an independent unit of government. The Chicago City Clerk and City Treasurer of Chicago are elected separately, as are

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744-609: The South Side area of Chicago and the South Central region of Los Angeles were established as designated areas for African Americans as early as the 1920s and 1930s respectively. Working class blacks were attracted by the low price of housing intentionally placed in order to encourage the concentration of minorities away from whites. Freeways were often built with the isolation of racial communities in mind. They served to reinforce lines of segregation and further contributed to

806-576: The Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC). The movement included a large rally, marches and demands to the City of Chicago . These demands covered a range of areas beside housing discrimination in the United States , including educational inequality , transportation and employment discrimination , income inequality , health inequality , wealth inequality , crime in Chicago , criminal justice reform in

868-485: The anti-Vietnam war movement . On July 10, 1966, King placed a list of demands on the door of the Chicago City Hall to gain leverage with city leaders. The 1968 Fair Housing Act passed by Congress was a direct result of the 1966 Chicago open housing movement and King's assassination . Mayor of Chicago The mayor of Chicago is the chief executive of city government in Chicago, Illinois ,

930-562: The third-largest city in the United States . The mayor is responsible for the administration and management of various city departments, submits proposals and recommendations to the Chicago City Council , is active in the enforcement of the city's ordinances, submits the city's annual budget and appoints city officers, department commissioners or directors, and members of city boards and commissions. During sessions of

992-481: The 1920s, the Chicago Real Estate Board established a racially restrictive covenant policy in response to the rapid influx of southern black migrants who were allegedly feared in bringing down property values of white neighborhoods. Contractual agreements among property owners included prohibiting sale or lease of any part of a building to specific groups of people, usually African Americans. For

1054-703: The 1950s and 1960s, the growing discontent among black Americans about their continuous mistreatment in the US culminated into the formation of the Civil Rights Movement . Nonviolent actions led by African-Americans nationwide, such as the court case Brown vs. Board of Education , the Montgomery bus boycott , the Little Rock Nine 's enrollment in a segregated school, the Nashville sit-ins ,

1116-444: The 50 alderpersons who form the city council. The mayor is empowered, however, to fill vacancies in any of these 52 elected offices by appointment. In turn, the city council elects one of its own to fill a mayoral vacancy. By charter, Chicago has a " weak-mayor " system, in which most of the power is vested in the city council. In practice, however, the mayor of Chicago has long been one of the most powerful municipal chief executives in

1178-496: The California and United States Supreme Court declared Prop 14 unconstitutional. It was officially repealed by California Proposition 7 in 1974, but while it was in practice it contributed to the segregation of black migrants and is cited as a direct cause of the Watts riots in 1965. The effect of racially homogeneous communities composed largely of migrant blacks that formed because of spatial segregation in destination cities

1240-679: The Second Great Migration by reshaping the economic dynamics of the Southern United States. It was actually the cornerstone of President Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal, aimed at alleviating the economic hardships faced by American farmers during the Great Depression . Unfortunately things didn't go as planned. The act aimed to increase agricultural prices by reducing production, resulting in land consolidation and technological advancements that displaced

1302-571: The Second Great Migration, not only the Northeast and Midwest continued to be the destination of more than 5 million African Americans, but also the West as well, where cities like Los Angeles , Oakland , Phoenix , Portland , and Seattle offered skilled jobs in the defense industry. Most of these migrants were already urban laborers who came from the cities of the South. In addition, African Americans were still treated with discrimination in parts of

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1364-616: The South was a way to improve their economic fortunes. World War II resulted in labor shortages due to millions of people enlisting or being drafted into active military service. As a result, northern and western employers began recruiting southern blacks and whites to keep up with the nation's demands for the war effort . Social factors such as educational opportunities, political disenfranchisement, and racial violence also drove migration. The rapid mobilization of resources and weapons during World War II prompted many African Americans to migrate to Northern and Western cities in search of jobs in

1426-573: The United States , community development, tenants rights and quality of life . Operation Breadbasket , in part led by Jesse Jackson , sought to harness African-American consumer power. The Chicago Freedom Movement was the most ambitious civil rights campaign in the Northern United States , lasted from mid-1965 to August 1966, and is largely credited with inspiring the 1968 Fair Housing Act . During World War I , tens of thousands of African Americans moved to Chicago as part of

1488-475: The absence of the mayor during meetings of the city council, the president pro tempore of the city council, who is a member of and elected by the city council, acts as presiding officer. Unlike the mayor, the president pro tempore can vote on all legislative matters. If neither the mayor nor pro tempore can preside, the vice mayor presides. Between 1833 and 1837, Chicago was incorporated as a town and headed by town presidents. Since 1837, it has been incorporated as

1550-663: The attention of the national press. During one demonstration King said that even in Alabama and Mississippi he had not encountered mobs as hostile to Blacks' civil rights as those in Chicago. In mid-August, high-level negotiations began between city leaders, movement activists and representatives of the Chicago Real Estate Board. On August 26, after the Chicago Freedom Movement had declared that it would march into Cicero, an agreement, consisting of positive steps to open up housing opportunities in metropolitan Chicago,

1612-478: The black communities. Like participants in the Great Migration, those in the Second Great Migration were motivated to move for economic reasons. The economic deprivation suffered by southern African Americans prior to the Great Migration has been well documented. Plantation agriculture such as sharecropping limited African Americans to gain and work up the "agricultural ladder". The agricultural ladder

1674-708: The booming munitions industry. While the Northern black communities such as Chicago and New York City were already well-established from the first Great Migration, relocating to the West was a new destination for the migrants in places like the San Francisco Bay Area , Los Angeles , Portland , Phoenix , and the Puget Sound region in Washington . Once they arrived, they were met with a variety of factors that separated emerging migrant communities from white ones. This urban spatial segregation led to

1736-419: The city council elects a vice mayor who serves as interim mayor in the event of a vacancy in the office of the mayor or the inability of the mayor to serve due to illness or injury, until the city council elects one of its members acting mayor or until the mayoral term expires. However, if a vacancy occurs in the office of mayor with more than 28 months remaining in the mayoral term and at least 130 days before

1798-515: The city council elects a vice mayor who serves as interim mayor in the event of a vacancy in the office of the mayor or the inability of the mayor to serve due to illness or injury, until the city council elects one of its members acting mayor or until the mayoral term expires. The current vice mayor is Walter Burnett . The position was created by a state law that was passed in response to the power struggle that took place over succession following Richard J. Daley 's death in office . If neither

1860-452: The city council, the mayor serves as the presiding officer. The mayor is not allowed to vote on issues except in certain instances, most notably where the vote taken on a matter before the body results in a tie. The office of mayor was created when Chicago became a city in 1837. The first mayor was William B. Ogden (1837–1838). Forty-six men and two women ( Jane Byrne , 1979–1983, and Lori Lightfoot , 2019–2023), have held

1922-543: The city. The white residents did not take this very well and reacted with violence when black families tried to move into white areas, so city politicians forced the CHA to keep the status quo and develop high rise projects in black neighborhoods. Some of these became notorious failures. As industrial restructuring in the 1950s and later led to massive job losses to the suburbs amidst the white flight , black residents changed from working-class families to poor families on welfare. In

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1984-475: The city..." Other guests included Mahalia Jackson , Stevie Wonder and Peter, Paul and Mary . By late July the Chicago Freedom Movement was staging regular rallies outside of Real Estate offices and marches into all-white neighborhoods on the city's southwest and northwest sides. The hostile and sometimes violent response of local whites, and the determination of civil rights activists to continue to crusade for an open housing law, alarmed City Hall and attracted

2046-542: The country, and many sought to escape this. Compared to the more rural migrants of the period 1910–1940, many African Americans in the South were already living in urban areas and had urban job skills before they relocated. They moved to take jobs in the burgeoning industrial cities in the North and West , including the defense industry during World War II. Workers who were limited to segregated, low-skilled jobs in some cities were able to get highly skilled, well-paid jobs at California, Oregon, and Washington shipyards. By

2108-449: The creation of racially homogeneous areas in cities that saw large amounts of African American migration. It is estimated that less than 1% of Los Angeles's 461,000 black residents lived in communities without a black majority in 1960, resulting in de facto segregation. In order to exploit the poor financial situation many migrants were in, areas of low income housing were established in places city planners wanted them to live. For example,

2170-528: The decision by SCLC's Director of Direct Action, James Bevel , to come to Chicago to work with the AFSC project on the city's West Side . (The SCLC's second choice had been Washington DC.) The Chicago Freedom Movement declared its intention to end slums in the city. It organized tenants' unions , held rent strikes , assumed control of a slum tenement , founded action groups like Operation Breadbasket and rallied black and white Chicagoans to support its goals. In

2232-405: The destruction of over 744 buildings and 200 businesses in a 20-square-mile area. The riots shocked the nation and raised awareness of the struggles urban blacks faced outside the South. Martin Luther King Jr. told a New York paper that "The non-violent movement of the South has meant little to them, since we have been fighting for rights that theoretically are already theirs." The riots were one of

2294-636: The discriminatory housing laws that were put in place to counteract progressive legislation following World War II. The 1963 Rumford Fair Housing Act that outlawed discrimination in housing was effectively nullified by California Proposition 14 in 1964. This legislation, sponsored by the California Real Estate Association and conservative state institutions, affirmed the property owner's right to refuse to sell, rent or lease their property based solely on race. The federal government immediately cut funding to California housing and both

2356-512: The early summer of 1966, it and Bevel focused their attention on housing discrimination, an issue Bevel attributed to the work and idea of AFSC activist Bill Moyer . A large rally was held by Martin Luther King at Soldier Field on July 10, 1966. According to a UPI news story that ran the next day, "About 35,000 persons jammed Chicago's Soldier Field for Dr. King's first giant 'freedom rally' since bringing his civil rights organizing tactics to

2418-522: The end of the Second Great Migration, African Americans had become a highly urbanized population. More than 80% lived in cities, a greater proportion than among the rest of American society. 53% remained in the Southern United States, while 40% lived in the Northeast and North Central states and 7% in the West. While African Americans were often relegated to support roles during World War II, often these roles could be exceedingly hazardous. An accidental munitions explosion at Port Chicago , California, claimed

2480-600: The events that helped convince King and some other civil rights activists to join the ongoing Chicago Freedom Movement in combating the widespread de facto segregated conditions across the country. The Chicago Freedom Movement represented the alliance of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), the American Friends Service Committee (AFSC) and the Coordinating Council of Community Organizations (CCCO). The SCLC

2542-574: The first African American mayor. Lightfoot (2019–2023) was the city's first African American woman and first LGBT mayor. Brandon Johnson (2023–present) is the fourth African American mayor, Eugene Sawyer (1987–1989) having been selected by the council after Washington died in office. The mayor appoints the commissioner of the Chicago Fire Department , the superintendent of the Chicago Police Department and

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2604-624: The heads of other departments, the largest of which are the Water Management Department (formed by the consolidation of the former Water Department and Sewer Department under Richard M. Daley ), and the Streets & Sanitation Department. The mayor also appoints members to the boards of several special-purpose governmental bodies including City Colleges of Chicago , Chicago Park District , Chicago Public Library , Chicago Housing Authority , Chicago Transit Authority , and

2666-531: The isolation of racially homogeneous communities in racially diverse cities. The fear of racially motivated violence and discrimination also served to isolate communities of minorities as they sought collective security and nondiscriminatory treatment close to home. The limited amount of housing, combined with the upsurge of migrants during the Second Great Migration lead to severe overcrowding and housing shortages that contributed to increasingly low property values. As property values within these communities plummeted,

2728-515: The lives of over 200 African American sailors in 1944. Some sailors refused to resume work until conditions were made less hazardous. Up to 50 were imprisoned after a court martial convicted them of mutiny. Further up the West Coast, high-paying shipbuilding war jobs attracted large numbers of African-Americans into the small existing communities. Their numbers in Seattle, Washington, tripled;

2790-609: The many destinations in the Great Migration to urban and industrial centers in the Northeast and Midwest in search of jobs, and to escape the Jim Crow laws and racial violence in the rural South . Large numbers of black migrants to the city resided in the South Side area near the established Irish and German American communities as well as neighborhoods of many recent immigrants from southern and eastern Europe. As

2852-453: The mayor nor president pro tempore can preside over a City Council meeting, then the vice mayor presides. The position was long considered to be largely ceremonial. However, in 2023, Mayor Brandon Johnson successfully championed a resolution that gave the office a $ 400,000 budget. He also had his vice mayor, Burnett, act as an official community liaison for the mayoral administration. Second Great Migration (African American) In

2914-404: The middle class, mostly white residents of target areas evacuated en masse. This is a phenomenon known as white flight . The introduction of non-white residents into a traditionally white area, in this case, inner city neighborhoods, caused the rapid evacuation of whites, usually to the suburbs. In this way, the common social trope of white suburbia and the racially diverse inner city came to be. It

2976-474: The nation. Unlike in most other weak-mayor systems, the mayor has the power to draw up the budget. For most of the 20th century, before the decline of patronage and the mayor's office becoming officially nonpartisan in 1999, the mayor was the de facto leader of the city's Democratic Party, and had great influence over the ward organizations. Located in City Hall , "the fifth floor" is sometimes used as

3038-405: The next few decades, blacks were prevented from purchasing homes in certain white neighborhoods in Chicago. Although highly skilled African Americans gained unprecedented access to city jobs, they were not given as many opportunities for work and were often left with less desirable positions, sometimes in dangerous or unpleasant settings. School boundary lines were carefully drawn to avoid integrating

3100-419: The next general municipal election, then a special election must be held to choose a new mayor to serve out the remainder of the term at that general municipal election; if a vacancy occurs with fewer than 28 months remaining in the mayoral term or fewer than 130 days before the next general municipal election, then the acting mayor serves as mayor until the mayoral term expires. The order-of succession involving

3162-573: The numbers in Portland, Oregon, quadrupled. The newcomers became permanent residents, building up black political influence, strengthening civil rights organizations such as the NAACP , calling for antidiscrimination legislation. On the negative side, racial tensions increased, both black and white residential areas deteriorated from overcrowding, and inside the black community there were angry words between "old settlers" and recent arrivals for leadership in

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3224-402: The office for one week, the shortest time period. Richard M. Daley was elected six times becoming Chicago's longest-serving mayor, his 22 years surpassing his father's record of 21 years. The first Irish Catholic mayor was John Patrick Hopkins (1893–1895), and Rahm Emanuel (2011–2019) is the only Jewish American to have served as mayor. Harold Washington (1983–1987) was

3286-401: The office. Two sets of father and son have been elected Mayor of Chicago: Carter Harrison, Sr. (1879–1887, 1893) and Carter Harrison, Jr. (1897–1905, 1911–1915), as well as Richard J. Daley (1955–1976) and Richard M. Daley (1989–2011). Carter Harrison, Jr. was the first mayor to have been born in the city. As an interim mayor, David Duvall Orr (1987) held

3348-445: The real estate companies themselves. Agents would then encourage that the vacant properties be bought by black families seeking respite from the overcrowded neighborhoods in which they were sequestered. When one black family moved in, the white neighbors would immediately sell their homes to the waiting real estate companies, who would in turn sell to more black people at a significant markup. Another obstacle facing migrating blacks were

3410-476: The vice mayor was made concrete following disputes that arose in the aftermath of the death in office of Richard J. Daley , and was subsequently implemented following the death in office of Harold Washington , which saw Vice Mayor David Orr become acting mayor. Prior to this, the city had vague succession laws which indicated that the president pro tempore of the City Council would succeed as mayor. This

3472-577: The war industries and during the post-war economic expansion. The United States Supreme Court ruled in Shelley v. Kraemer in 1948 that racial covenant policies were unconstitutional, yet such practice continued without opposition over the next two decades. During the post-war economic boom, the Chicago Housing Authority (CHA) tried to ease the pressure in the overcrowded ghettos and put public housing sites in less congested areas in

3534-505: Was a system in which a worker's status determined their position, not how skilled or valuable they were. Because of segregation, African American men were placed in agricultural jobs and women were placed in domestic services. These conditions had little to no change from the early decades of the twentieth century, which was a powerful incentive for African American southerners to leave and go look for opportunity elsewhere. The Agricultural Adjustment Act (AAA) of 1933 significantly influenced

3596-568: Was looking for a site to prove that nonviolence and nonviolent direct action could bring about social change outside of the South. The CCCO had harnessed anger over racial inequality, especially in the public schools, in the city of Chicago to build the most sustained local civil rights movement in the North. The activism of the CCCO pulled SCLC to Chicago, as did the work of the AFSC's Kale Williams, Bernard Lafayette , David Jehnsen and others, owing to

3658-648: Was moved back to April by the city's vote to operate under the Cities and Villages Act of 1872 . 1 month 1.5 months 6 months 8 months 7 months 4 months 11 months 8 months 4 months 7 months 4.5 months (5 elected) 1 month Died/murdered in office. Since 1999, mayoral elections have officially been nonpartisan. A 1995 Illinois law stipulated that "candidates for mayor ... no longer would run under party labels in Chicago". However, Richard M. Daley, Rahm Emanuel, Lori Lightfoot, and Brandon Johnson are known to be Democrats. In accordance with Illinois law,

3720-485: Was not followed after the death of Daley, and the city council appointed Michael Bilandic acting mayor instead of having pro tempore Wilson Frost become mayor, due to City Corporation Counsel William R. Quinlan ruling that, since the city did not have a statute specifically outlining succession, the City Council would need to elect the interim mayor. Six instances have seen the City Council appoint either an acting mayor, acting mayor pro tempore, or interim mayor. In

3782-525: Was reached. The Summit Agreement was the culmination of months of organizing and direct action. It did not satisfy all activists, some of whom, in early September 1966, marched on Cicero over the objection of James Bevel, who had directed the movement for SCLC. After the open-housing marches and Summit agreements, the overall Chicago Freedom Movement lost much of its focus and momentum. By early 1967, Martin Luther King, James Bevel and SCLC had trained their energies on other projects, mainly – for King and Bevel –

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3844-549: Was that they were largely influenced by the Southern culture they brought with them. The food, music and even the discriminatory white police presence in these neighborhoods were all imported to a certain extent from the collective experiences of the highly concentrated African American migrants. Writers have often assumed that Southern migrants contributed disproportionately to changes in the African-American family in

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