125-421: Jane Margaret Byrne (née Burke ; May 24, 1933 – November 14, 2014) was an American politician who served as the 50th mayor of Chicago from April 16, 1979, until April 29, 1983. Prior to her tenure as mayor, Byrne served as Chicago's commissioner of consumer sales from 1969 until 1977, the only female in the mayoral cabinet. Byrne won the 1979 Chicago mayoral election on April 3, 1979 becoming
250-542: A U.S. Marine pilot. The couple had a daughter, Katherine C. Byrne (1957-2024). On May 31, 1959, while flying from Marine Corps Air Station Cherry Point to Naval Air Station Glenview in a Skyraider , Lt. Byrne attempted to land in a dense fog. After being waved off for landing twice, his plane's wing struck the porch of a nearby house and the plane crashed into Sunset Memorial Park, killing him. Byrne married journalist Jay McMullen in 1978, and they remained married until his death from lung cancer in 1992. Byrne lived in
375-630: 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,
500-403: A "revolving door administration". While Byrne initially made inclusive moves with regards to appointments as mayor: shepherding the hiring of the city's first African-American and female school superintendent Ruth B. Love which she later pivoted away from this. Among the later steps that Byrne took that upset many of the progressives and Blacks that had supported her in the 1979 mayoral campaign
625-628: A 4th floor apartment in a Cabrini extension building on North Sedgwick Avenue with her husband on March 31 around 8:30 p.m. after attending a dinner at the Conrad Hilton hotel . Hours after Byrne moved into the housing project, police raided the building and arrested eleven street gang members who they had learned through informants were planning to have a shootout in the mayor's building later that evening. Byrne described her first night at Cabrini-Green as "lovely" and "very quiet". She stayed at Cabrini-Green for three weeks to bring attention to
750-573: A bachelor's degree in chemistry and biology in 1955. Byrne entered politics to volunteer in John F. Kennedy 's campaign for president in 1960 . During that campaign she first met then Chicago Mayor Richard J. Daley . After Daley met Byrne, he appointed her to several positions, beginning in 1964 with a job in a city anti-poverty program In June 1965, she was promoted to working with the Chicago Committee of Urban Opportunity. In 1968, Byrne
875-524: 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
1000-559: A community in the 1840s, with the population reaching 1,000 by 1860. Much of this population consisted of escaped slaves from the Upper South. Following the end of Reconstruction in 1877, African Americans flowed from the Deep South into Chicago, raising the population from approximately 4,000 in 1870 to 15,000 in 1890. In 1853, John A. Logan helped pass a law to prohibit all African Americans, including freedmen, from settling in
1125-705: A community on the South Side of Chicago for decades before the Civil Rights Movement , as well as on the West Side of Chicago. Residing in segregated communities, almost regardless of income, the Black residents of Chicago aimed to create communities where they could survive, sustain themselves, and have the ability to determine for themselves their own course in the History of Chicago . According to
1250-540: A controversial ordinance effectively banning new handgun registration. The ordinance was created to put a freeze on the number of legally owned handguns in Chicago and to require owners of handguns to re-register them annually. The ordinance was approved by a 6–1 vote in February 1982. The ordinance was struck down by the Supreme Court in the 2010 case McDonald v. City of Chicago . Byrne also used special events, such as ChicagoFest , to revitalize Navy Pier and
1375-527: A mass movement." The Great Migration radically transformed Chicago, both politically and culturally. From 1910 to 1940, most African Americans who migrated north were from rural areas. They had been chiefly sharecroppers and laborers, although some were landowners pushed out by the boll weevil disaster. After years of underfunding of public education for Blacks in the South, they tended to be poorly educated, with relatively low skills to apply to urban jobs. Like
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#17327933789481500-519: A museum on the west side and continuing to bring awareness to Juneteenth as a national holiday was rewarded with a proclamation in 2011 by Governor Pat Quinn. Chicago's Black population developed a class structure, composed of a large number of domestic workers and other manual laborers, along with a small, but growing, contingent of middle-and-upper-class business and professional elites. In 1929, Black Chicagoans gained access to city jobs, and expanded their professional class. Fighting job discrimination
1625-500: A new lighting board .As mayor, Byrne funded the construction of the Miró's Chicago sculpture by artist Joan Miró .Byrne also allowed Chicago to be used as a filming location, pushing for such movies as The Blues Brothers to be shot in Chicago. On March 26, 1981, Byrne decided to move into the crime-ridden Cabrini–Green Homes housing project on the near-north side of Chicago after 37 shootings resulting in 11 murders occurring during
1750-515: A number of smaller-scale events in neighborhoods all across the city, wording them with the prefix "Mayor Byrne's". As mayor, Byrne was a strong supporter of the planned Chicago 1992 World's Fair . In 1980, Byrne announced that the city would host a Championship Auto Racing Teams "Indy Car" automobile race at Grant Park on the 4th of July weekend of the following year. However, after facing criticism, Byrne quickly canceled these plans. In her first year in office, she faced strikes by labor unions as
1875-606: A poor, agricultural economy. As White-dominated legislatures passed Jim Crow laws to re-establish White supremacy and create more restrictions in public life, violence against Blacks increased, with lynchings used as extrajudicial enforcement. In addition, the boll weevil infestation ruined much of the cotton industry. Voting with their feet, Blacks started migrating out of the South to the North, where they could live more freely, get their children educated, and get new jobs. Industry buildup for World War I pulled thousands of workers to
2000-672: A return). Washington, on the other hand, stressed reforming the Chicago patronage system and the need for a jobs program in a tight economy. In the April 12, 1983, mayoral general election, Washington defeated Epton by 3.7%, 51.7% to 48.0%, to become mayor of Chicago. Washington was sworn in as mayor on April 29, 1983, and resigned his Congressional seat the following day. In the late 19th and early 20th century many prominent African Americans were Chicago residents, including Republican and later Democratic congressman William L. Dawson (America's most powerful Black politician) and boxing champion Joe Louis . America's most widely read Black newspaper,
2125-693: A small area. In 1946, the Chicago Housing Authority (CHA) tried to ease the pressure in the overcrowded ghettos and proposed to put public housing sites in less congested areas in the city. The White residents did not take to this very well, so city politicians forced the CHA to keep the status quo and develop high rise projects in the Black Belt and on the West Side. Some of these became notorious failures. As industrial restructuring in
2250-677: A stroke she suffered in January 2013. She was survived by her daughter Katherine and her grandson Willie. Her funeral Mass was held at St. Vincent de Paul Church on Monday, November 17, 2014. She was buried at Calvary Catholic Cemetery in Evanston , Illinois. In a dedication ceremony held on August 29, 2014, Governor Pat Quinn renamed the Circle Interchange in Chicago the Jane Byrne Interchange . In July 2014,
2375-625: A three-month period from January to March 1981. In her 2004 memoir, Byrne reflected on her decision to move into Cabrini–Green: "How could I put Cabrini on a bigger map? ... Suddenly I knew—I could move in there." Prior to her move to Cabrini, Byrne closed down several liquor stores in the area, citing the stores as hangout for gangs and murderers. Byrne also ordered the Chicago Housing Authority to evict tenants who were suspected of harboring gang members in their apartments, which affected approximately 800 tenants. Byrne moved into
2500-595: A woman look worse". Nevertheless, the January Chicago Blizzard of 1979 paralyzed the city and caused Bilandic to be seen as an ineffective leader. Bilandic's ineffective leadership caused Jesse Jackson to endorse Byrne. Even many Republican voters voted in the Democratic primary to help beat Bilandic. Infuriated voters on the North Side and Northwest Side retaliated against Bilandic for
2625-522: Is home to three of eight African-American United States senators who have served since Reconstruction , who are all Democrats: Carol Moseley Braun (1993–1999), Barack Obama (2005–2008), and Roland Burris (2009–2010). Barack Obama moved from the Senate to the White House in 2008. In the February 22, 1983, the democrats were split three ways. On the North and Northwest Sides,
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#17327933789482750-479: 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 the city council, the mayor serves as
2875-607: The Chicago Defender , was published there and circulated in the South, helping to facilitate the Great Migration of Southern Blacks to Chicago and other northern cities during the first half of the 20th century. Ida B. Wells , a Black woman journalist and civil rights activist, spearheaded a national anti-lynching movement, co-founded the National Association of Colored Women (1896), established
3000-455: The 1987 Democratic primary , but was narrowly defeated. She endorsed Washington for the general election, in which he defeated two Democrats running under other parties' banners (Edward Vrdolyak and Thomas Hynes ) and a Republican. Early into her 1987 campaign, in October 1985, Byrne called for a feasibility study of the potential to construct a third major airport for the city on the site of
3125-570: The Chicago City Council voted to rename the plaza surrounding the historic Chicago Water Tower on North Michigan Avenue the Jane M. Byrne Plaza in her honor. She was also known for coining the term "fruitworthy". Mayor of Chicago The mayor of Chicago is the chief executive of city government in Chicago, Illinois , the third-largest city in the United States . The mayor
3250-606: The Chicago Defender , made the city well known to southerners. It sent bundles of papers south on the Illinois Central trains, and African-American Pullman Porters would drop them off in Black towns. "Chicago was the most accessible northern city for African Americans in Mississippi, Louisiana, Texas, and Arkansas." They took the trains north. "Then between 1916 and 1919, 50,000 Blacks came to crowd into
3375-650: The Chicago Police Department . In November 1981, the Chicago City Council approved a new redistricting map for the city's aldermanic wards which was drawn by Byrne's administration. The U.S. Court of Appeals would find, in 1984, that the map was in violation of the federal Voting Rights Act of 1965 . On November 11, 1981, Dan Goodwin , who had successfully climbed the Sears Tower the previous spring, battled for his life on
3500-609: 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
3625-475: The South Works . Soon after, Governor James R. Thompson endorsed the idea of immediately planning for a third major airport to serve Chicago. This would be one of the impetuses of decades-long discussions and studies for a third major airport for the city, including the proposed Chicago south suburban airport . Byrne next ran in the 1988 Democratic primary for Cook County Circuit Court Clerk. She faced
3750-462: The U.S. Census Bureau , African Americans accounted for 29% of the city's population, or approximately 800,000 people as of the 2020 census. As per 2023 Census estimates the metro area had just under 1.5 million residents claiming Black alone ancestry, making it the metropolitan area with the fourth-highest Black population after New York, Atlanta, and Washington DC. The Black population in Chicago has been shrinking. Many Black Chicagoans have moved to
3875-505: The West Side ghetto or in the stockyards district. Although there were decent homes in the Negro sections, the core of the Black Belt was a slum. A 1934 census estimated that Black households contained 6.8 people on average, whereas White households contained 4.7. Many Blacks lived in apartments that lacked plumbing, with only one bathroom for each floor. With the buildings so overcrowded, building inspections and garbage collection were below
Jane Byrne - Misplaced Pages Continue
4000-471: The performing arts . Chicago Tribune art critic , Richard Christiansen , hailed Byrne for having made, "the arts and amusements of the city a most significant part of her" mayoral administration. As mayor, she provided $ 200,000 to the Lyric Opera of Chicago for the express purposes of providing family-friendly entertainment. She provided a similar amount to Auditorium Theatre for them to acquire
4125-606: The progressive tenets she had campaigned on. Byrne began to collaborate with aldermen Edward M. Burke and Edward Vrdolyak , whom, during her 1979 campaign, she had denounced as an "evil cabal". In 1982, she supported the Cook County Democratic Party's replacement of its chairman, County Board President George Dunne , with her city council ally, Alderman Edward Vrdolyak. Byrne and the Cook County Democratic Party endorsed Senator Ted Kennedy for president in 1980, but incumbent President Jimmy Carter won
4250-590: The 1780s. Du Sable, the city's founder, was Haitian of African and French descent. Fugitive slaves and freedmen established the city's first Black community in the 1840s. By the late 19th century, the first Black person had been elected to office. The Great Migrations from 1910 to 1960 brought hundreds of thousands of Black Americans from the South to Chicago , where they became an urban population. They created churches, community organizations, businesses, music, and literature. African Americans of all classes built
4375-637: The 1910s. The Pekin Theater, built in 1905, was called "The Cradle of Negro Drama in the United States." The 1920s were the height of the Jazz Age , but music continued as the heart of the community for decades. Nationally renowned musicians rose within the Chicago world. Along the Stroll, a bright-light district on State Street , jazz greats like Louis Armstrong , Duke Ellington , Cab Calloway , Bessie Smith and Ethel Waters headlined at nightspots including
4500-399: The 1930s and 1940s who were disillusioned with traditional Protestantism and energized by his claim that African Americans would soon be restored to freedom. In 1960, Malcolm X, the organization's national spokesperson, founded the newspaper Mr. Muhammad Speaks , which quickly ascended into popularity for a brief period with more than 60,000 newspapers in circulation nationwide. From 2008 to
4625-429: The 1950s and later led to massive job losses, residents changed from working-class families to poor families on welfare. As of May 2016 violence within some Chicago neighborhoods prompted Black middle-class people to move to the suburbs. Between 1916 and 1920, almost 50,000 Black Southerners moved to Chicago, which profoundly shaped the city's development. Growth increased even more rapidly after 1940. In particular,
4750-479: The 1979 mayoral election in which Byrne received 59.3% of the African-American vote, Byrne had lost half of that vote. Byrne was defeated in the 1983 Democratic primary for mayor by Harold Washington , also an anti-machine politician and African-American congressman; the younger Daley ran a close third. Washington won the Democratic primary with just 36% of the vote; Byrne had 33%. Washington went on to win
4875-434: The 20th century began, southern states succeeded in passing new constitutions and laws that disfranchised most Blacks and many poor Whites. Deprived of the right to vote, they could not sit on juries or run for office. They were subject to discriminatory laws passed by White legislators, including racial segregation of public facilities. Segregated education for Black children and other services were consistently underfunded in
5000-444: 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
5125-518: The Austin community area on the city's Far West Side experiencing the largest drop. Part of the decline has also been attributed to the destruction of public housing at the turn of the century, with the Chicago Housing Authority and city government failing to provide sufficient affordable housing for the evicted residents, thus causing many public housing residents to be displaced to unfamiliar neighborhoods and destabilizing middle-class areas. Additionally,
Jane Byrne - Misplaced Pages Continue
5250-463: The Black Belt area of Chicago were from the Southeastern region of the United States. Immigration to Chicago was another pressure of overcrowding, as primarily lower-class newcomers from rural Europe also sought cheap housing and working class jobs. More and more people tried to fit into converted " kitchenette " and basement apartments. Living conditions in the Black Belt resembled conditions in
5375-544: The Black Belt was solidified. Between 1900 and 1910, the African-American population rose rapidly in Chicago. White hostility and population growth combined to create the ghetto on the South Side. Nearby were areas dominated by ethnic Irish, who were especially territorial in defending against incursions into their areas by any other groups. Most of this large population was composed of migrants. In 1910 more than 75 percent of Blacks lived in predominantly Black sections of
5500-464: The Black population by about 10%. Politico reported that Chicago's once wealthy Black community has dramatically declined with the shuttering of many Black-owned companies. Among the 10 US cities with the largest Black populations in 2000, Chicago saw the second highest decline after Detroit, with a net departure of 261,763 Black residents from 2000-2020. The magnitude of Black population outflows corresponds strongly with neighborhood homicide rates, with
5625-470: The Black population of the city as a whole continues to decline. The influx of Black families in the Chicago suburbs has largely mirrored their spatial distribution in the city, with the majority of predominantly-Black suburbs located to the south and west of Chicago. While a smaller share of the Black population than communities in Atlanta or Washington, there is a noticeable Black middle class presence in
5750-807: The Brotherhood of the Sleeping Car Porters in 1925. During the Bronzeville Renaissance period, Chicago hosted many of the nation's leading Black artists, writers, and performers. After long efforts, in the late 1930s, workers organized across racial lines to form the United Meatpacking Workers of America. By then, the majority of workers in Chicago's plants were Black, but they succeeded in creating an interracial organizing committee. It succeeded in organizing unions both in Chicago and Omaha , Nebraska,
5875-557: The Chicago Black Renaissance was substantially more public-facing and approachable to the working class. Indeed, several artists from this area were significantly influenced by Marxist principles and infused their works with a sense of the class-consciousness that the Harlem Renaissance lacked. The classic Black Metropolis , written by St. Clair Drake and Horace R. Cayton, Jr., exemplified the style of
6000-516: The Chicago writers. Today it remains the most detailed portrayal of Black Chicago in the 1930s and 1940s. Around the same time, the Nation of Islam (NOI) moved its headquarters to Chicago from Detroit. From their center on the South Side, Elijah Muhammad and his wife, Clara Muhammad, organized the most well-known and arguably most influential religious movement amongst Black Americans in the 20th century. Muhammad's message appealed to Black Chicagoans of
6125-686: The Deluxe Cafe. The literary creation of Black Chicago residents from 1925 to 1950 was also prolific, and the city's Black Renaissance rivaled that of the Harlem Renaissance . Prominent writers included Richard Wright (author of Native Son ), Willard Motley , William Attaway , Frank Marshall Davis , St. Clair Drake , Horace R. Cayton, Jr. , and Margaret Walker . Chicago was home to writer and poet Gwendolyn Brooks , known for her portrayals of Black working-class life in crowded tenements of Bronzeville . Lorraine Hansberry channeled
6250-544: The Democratic Party's slated candidate, Aurelia Pucinski (who was endorsed by Mayor Washington and is the daughter of then-Alderman Roman Pucinski ). Pucinski defeated Byrne in the primary and Vrdolyak, by then a Republican, in the general election. Byrne's fourth run for mayor became a rematch with Daley in the 1991 primary. She received only 5.9 percent of the vote, a distant third behind Daley and Alderman Danny K. Davis . In 1956, she married William P. Byrne,
6375-535: The Democratic Party's slating of only South Side candidates for the mayor, clerk, and treasurer (the outgoing city clerk, John C. Marcin, was from the Northwest Side). These four factors combined to give Byrne a 51% to 49% victory over Bilandic in the primary. Positioning herself as a reformer, Byrne then won the main election with 82.1% of the vote, still the largest margin in a Chicago mayoral election. Byrne made inclusive moves as mayor such as shepherding
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#17327933789486500-510: The European rural immigrants, they had to rapidly adapt to a different urban culture. Many took advantage of better schooling in Chicago and their children learned quickly. After 1940, when the second larger wave of migration started, Black migrants tended to be already urbanized, from southern cities and towns. They were the most ambitious, better educated with more urban skills to apply in their new homes. The masses of new migrants arriving in
6625-519: The Illinois Democratic Primary and even carried Cook County and the city of Chicago. Byrne's endorsement of Kennedy was later considered detrimental because of her controversial tenure, and Kennedy's loss in the city was a key moment in the 1980 Democratic Party presidential primaries because of Chicago's role in delivering his brother John F. Kennedy the 1960 Democratic presidential nomination . When Byrne and Kennedy walked in
6750-537: The Latino population had risen to 820,000, marking the first census in which Latino residents outnumbered Black residents in Chicago - with potentially major implications for Black political power in the city as formerly comfortably Black-majority wards are diversifying and consolidating. A 2021 report from the Chicago Tribune stated that thousands of Black families have left Chicago in the past decade, lowering
6875-413: The North, as did the rapid expansion of railroads , and the meatpacking and steel industries. Between 1915 and 1960, hundreds of thousands of Black southerners migrated to Chicago to escape violence and segregation, and to seek economic freedom . They went from being a mostly rural population to one that was mostly urban. "The migration of African Americans from the rural south to the urban north became
7000-419: The South Side and was rarely more than seven blocks wide. With such a large population within this confined area, overcrowding often led to numerous families living in old and dilapidated buildings. The South Side's "Black belt" also contained zones related to economic status. The poorest residents lived in the northernmost, oldest section of the Black belt, while the elite resided in the southernmost section. In
7125-503: The United States in Shelley v. Kraemer ruled in 1948 that racially restrictive covenants were unconstitutional, but this did not quickly solve Blacks' problems with finding adequate housing. Homeowners' associations discouraged members from selling to Black families, thus maintaining residential segregation . European immigrants and their descendants competed with African Americans for limited affordable housing, and those who didn't get
7250-475: 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
7375-671: The annual Saint Patrick's Day parade they were sometimes booed by hecklers. Simultaneously, Byrne and the Cook County Democratic Party's candidate in the 1980 election for Cook County State's Attorney (chief local prosecutor), 14th Ward Alderman Edward M. Burke , lost in the Democratic primary to Richard M. Daley, and Daley then unseated GOP incumbent Bernard Carey in the general election. The Chicago Sun Times reported that Byrne's enemies publicly mocked her as "that crazy broad" and "that skinny bitch " and worse. In her first year in office, significant instances of turnover in prominent city positions led critics to accuse Byrne of running
7500-447: The burgeoning Black belt, to make new demands upon the institutional structure of the South Side." The Chicago race riot of 1919 was a violent racial conflict started by White Americans against Black Americans that began on the South Side on July 27 and ended on August 3, 1919. During the riot, 38 people died (23 Black and 15 White). Over the week, injuries attributed to the episodic confrontations stood at 537, with two thirds of
7625-467: The cities captured public attention. At one point in the 1940s, 3,000 African Americans were arriving every week in Chicago—stepping off the trains from the South and making their ways to neighborhoods they had learned about from friends and the Chicago Defender . The Great Migration was charted and evaluated. Urban White northerners started to get worried, as their neighborhoods rapidly changed. At
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#17327933789487750-419: 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
7875-515: 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
8000-530: The city with the second largest meatpacking industry. This union belonged to the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO), which was more progressive than the American Federation of Labor . They succeeded in lifting segregation of job positions. For a time, workers achieved living wages and other benefits, leading to blue collar middle-class life for decades. Some Blacks were also able to move up
8125-568: The city's transit workers, public school teachers, and firefighters all went on strike. There had been plans under Daley and Bilandic to demolish the Loop elevated rail and replace it with a subway. Byrne appointed a commission that ultimately recommended that the Loop should be retained along with modernization. In 1981, Byrne disbanded the Chicago Transit Authority 's dedicated security force, transferring its duties instead to
8250-496: The city. The eight or nine neighborhoods that had been set as areas of Black settlement in 1900 remained the core of the Chicago African-American community. The Black Belt slowly expanded as African Americans, despite facing violence and restrictive covenants, pushed forward into new neighborhoods. As the population grew, African Americans became more confined to a delineated area, instead of spreading throughout
8375-414: The city. When Blacks moved into mixed neighborhoods, ethnic White hostility grew. After fighting over the area, often Whites left the area to be dominated by Blacks. This is one of the reasons the Black belt region started. The Black Belt of Chicago was the chain of neighborhoods on the South Side of Chicago where three-quarters of the city's African-American population lived by the mid-20th century. In
8500-470: The community. Widely credited as Chicago's first Black banker, Jesse Binga came to Chicago as a Pullman porter before opening the city's first Black bank, Binga Bank, in 1908 and amassing significant wealth. Binga would go on to spearhead an integration campaign on the South Side that put him at odds with the White establishment, with some even attributing the lethal damage of the 1919 race riots in part to
8625-451: The downtown Chicago Theatre . ChicagoFest had first been held the year prior to her election. One of Byrne's first efforts as mayor had been an attempt to cancel future editions of the event. But, after facing complaints from citizens and unions, Byrne allowed the festival to continue as an annual event, and formally renamed it "Mayor Jane M. Byrne's ChicagoFest". Festivals inaugurated during her tenure included Taste of Chicago . Byrne held
8750-506: The early 1940s Whites within residential blocks formed "restrictive covenants" that served as legal contracts restricting individual owners from renting or selling to Black people. The contracts limited the housing available to Black tenants, leading to the accumulation of Black residents within The Black Belt, one of the few neighborhoods open to Black tenants. The Black Belt was an area that stretched 30 blocks along State Street on
8875-520: The experience of her family's attempt to move into a racially-restricted neighborhood on the city's South Side, as well as the broader conditions in working-class Black Chicago, into the renowned play A Raisin in the Sun - the first play written by an African American woman to be produced on Broadway. These writers expressed the changes and conflicts Blacks found in urban life and the struggles of creating new worlds. In Chicago, Black writers turned away from
9000-597: The first African American elected to the Illinois General Assembly , beginning the longest uninterrupted run of African-American representation in any state legislature in U.S. history. After the Great Chicago Fire , Chicago mayor Joseph Medill appointed the city's first Black fire company of nine men and the first Black police officer. Chicago was the "Promised Land" to Black Southerners . 500,000 African Americans moved to Chicago. As
9125-496: 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
9250-540: The first Black kindergarten in Chicago (1897), and co-founded the NAACP (1909), among her many other achievements. Chicago also saw some of the first instances of Black labor organization in the country. In 1909, tired of poor working conditions, porters for the Pullman Train Company began their first attempts to unionize but encountered heavy opposition. Later, Black Pullman porters organized secretively to
9375-536: The first female mayor of the city, and causing an upheaval in beating the city's political machine . She was the first woman to be elected mayor of a major city in the United States, as Chicago was the second largest city in the United States at the time. She narrowly lost her bid for reelection in the Democratic primary for the 1983 Chicago mayoral election . Again, after trying for the party nomination in 1987, she threw her support to Harold Washington . Byrne
9500-448: The folk traditions embraced by Harlem Renaissance writers, instead adopting a grittier, uncompromising style of "literary naturalism" to depict life in the urban ghetto. Furthermore, as compared with the Harlem Renaissance, the Chicago Black Renaissance blossomed without the involvement of well-known intellectuals such as W.E.B Du Bois and without the oftentimes heavy-handed role played by White entrepreneurs and benefactors. In that sense,
9625-484: The general election. A 1993 survey of historians, political scientists and urban experts conducted by Melvin G. Holli of the University of Illinois at Chicago saw Byrne ranked as the tenth-worst American big-city mayor to serve between the years 1820 and 1993. When the survey was limited only to mayors that were in office post-1960, the results saw Byrne ranked the fourth-worst. Byrne ran against Washington again in
9750-624: 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
9875-423: The hiring of the city's first African-American and female school superintendent Ruth B. Love , and she was the first mayor to recognize the gay community . Byrne helped to make Chicago more welcoming to the gay community. She ended the police department's practice of raiding gay bars , and declared the city's first official "Gay Pride Parade Day" in 1981. However, during her tenure, Byrne drifted away from many of
10000-430: The house lived on the streets. In a succession common to most cities, many middle and upper-class Whites were the first to move out of the city to new housing, aided by new commuter rail lines and the construction of new highway systems. Later arrivals, ethnic Whites and African-American families occupied the older housing behind them. The White residents who had been in the city longest were the ones most likely to move to
10125-666: The housing project's crime and infrastructure problems. Her stay there ended on April 18, 1981, following an Easter celebration at the project which drew protests and demonstrators who claimed Byrne's move to the project was just a publicity stunt. One of the crises that Byrne faced in her first year as mayor was a major shortage of funds in both the municipal government and by the Chicago Board of Education (the city's school board). This arose due to questionable past borrowing practices, and necessitated both budget cuts and further borrowing to resolve. In January 1982, Byrne proposed
10250-527: The idea of renovating Navy Pier , also implemented subsequent to her tenure. Byrne additionally expanded O'Hare International Airport . In August 1982, Byrne decided that she would seek a second term as mayor. At the beginning of her re-election campaign, she was trailing behind Richard M. Daley , then Cook County State's Attorney, by 3% in a poll done by the Chicago Tribune in July 1982. Compared to
10375-401: The incumbent mayor Jane Byrne led and future mayor Richard M. Daley , son of the late Mayor Richard J. Daley , finished a close second. the Black leader Harold Washington had massive majorities on the South and West Sides. Southwest Side voters overwhelmingly supported Daley. Washington won with 37% of the vote, versus 33% for Byrne and 30% for Daley. Although winning the Democratic primary
10500-496: The influx driven by college-educated Black residents. Notably in Bronzeville, demographers found two of just 193 census tracts nationally that achieved a significant decrease in poverty with minimal displacement of existing populations between 2010 and 2015 - attributed in large part to the abundance of vacant lots which have created opportunities for new construction. This area holds potential for continued future growth even as
10625-483: The injured being Black and one third White, and approximately 1,000 to 2,000, most of whom were Black, lost their homes. Due to its sustained violence and widespread economic impact, it is considered the worst of the scores of riots and civil disturbances across the nation during the "Red Summer" of 1919 , so named because of the racial and labor violence and fatalities. The increasingly large Black population in Chicago (40,000 in 1910, and 278,000 in 1940 ) faced some of
10750-473: The insurance field." There were four major Black insurance companies founded in Chicago. Additionally, the African-American market on State Street during this time consisted of barber shops, restaurants, pool rooms, saloons, and beauty salons. African Americans used these trades to build their own communities. These shops gave the Blacks a chance to establish their families, earn money, and become an active part of
10875-645: 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. History of African Americans in Chicago The history of African Americans in Chicago or Black Chicagoans dates back to Jean Baptiste Point du Sable 's trading activities in
11000-400: The mid-20th century, as African Americans across the United States struggled against the economic confines created by segregation, Black residents within the Black Belt sought to create more economic opportunity in their community through the encouragement of local Black businesses and entrepreneurs. During this time, Chicago was the capital of Black America. Many African Americans who moved to
11125-565: The minimum mandatory requirements for healthy sanitation. This unhealthiness increased the threat of disease. From 1940 to 1960, the infant death rate in the Black Belt was 16% higher than the rest of the city. Crime in African-American neighborhoods was a low priority to the police. Associated with problems of poverty and southern culture, rates of violence and homicide were high. Some women resorted to prostitution to survive. Both low life and middle-class strivers were concentrated in
11250-474: 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
11375-588: The new citizens caused the growth of local churches, businesses and community organizations. A new musical culture arose, fed by all the traditions along the Mississippi River. The population continued to increase with new migrants, with the most arriving after 1940. The Black arts community in Chicago was especially vibrant. Early Vaudeville performers and entrepreneurs like the Griffin Sisters created and managed venues for Black performers in
11500-410: The newer, most expensive housing, as they could afford it. After 1945, the early White residents (many Irish immigrants and their descendants) on the South Side began to move away under pressure of new migrants and with newly expanding housing opportunities. African Americans continued to move into the area, which had become the Black capital of the country. The South Side became predominantly Black, and
11625-408: The newly appointed mayor Michael Bilandic of being unfair to citizens of the city by approving an increase in regulated taxi fares, which Byrne charged was the result of a "backroom deal". Byrne was then dismissed from her post as head of consumer affairs by Bilandic. Months after being fired as head of the consumer affairs department, Byrne challenged Bilandic in the 1979 Democratic mayoral primary,
11750-419: 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
11875-593: The office ever since. The Chicago area has elected 18 African Americans to the House of Representatives , more than any state. William L. Dawson represented the Black Belt in Congress from 1943 to his death in office in 1970. He started as a Republican but switched to the Democrats like most of his constituents in the late 1930s. In 1949, he became the first African American to chair a congressional committee. Chicago
12000-402: 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
12125-401: 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
12250-618: The period. The exodus has been particularly acute in majority-Black neighborhoods: only 35% of predominantly-Black, middle-income census tracts stayed that way in 2017, while 63% fell to low- or moderate-income. In recent years, the City has adopted measures to try to curtail Black population loss. In 2019, for example, then-mayor Lori Lightfoot announced the Invest South/West initiative to bring $ 750 million into 10 underserved communities. Other redevelopment efforts have focused along
12375-412: The political leaders of Chicago began to adopt racially restrictive covenants . The Chicago Real Estate Board promoted a racially restrictive covenant to YMCAs , churches, women's clubs , parent teacher associations , Kiwanis clubs, chambers of commerce and property owners' associations. At one point, as much as 80% of the city's area was included under restrictive covenants. The Supreme Court of
12500-634: The present, the West Side Historical Society under the guidance of Rickie P. Brown Sr. began to document the rich history of the West Side of Chicago. Their research provided proof of the Austin community having the largest population of Blacks in the city of Chicago. This proved that the largest population of Blacks are on its west side, when factoring in the Near West Side, North Lawndale, West Humboldt Park, Garfield Park, and Austin communities as well. Their efforts to build
12625-414: 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
12750-599: The radical aversion to his efforts. With a growing base and strong leadership in machine politics, Blacks began to win elective office in local and state government. The first Blacks had been elected to office in Chicago in the late 19th century, decades before the Great Migrations. Chicago elected the first post-Reconstruction African-American member of Congress. He was Republican Oscar Stanton De Priest , in Illinois's 1st congressional district (1929-1935). The district has continuously elected African-Americans to
12875-453: The ranks to supervisory and management positions. The CIO also succeeded in organizing Chicago's steel industry. After peaking at 1.2 million residents in 1980, the Black population of Chicago has entered a steady decline. This decline has coincided with a growing Latino population which is increasingly pushing for greater political representation. The 2020 Census results showed that the Black population of Chicago had slipped to 788,000, while
13000-532: The real contest in the heavily Democratic Chicago. Officially announcing her mayoral campaign in August 1977, Byrne partnered with Chicago journalist and political consultant Don Rose, who served as her campaign manager. At first, political observers believed she had little chance of winning. A memorandum inside the Bilandic campaign said it should portray her as "a shrill, charging, vindictive person—and nothing makes
13125-453: The same apartment building from the 1970s until her death in 2014. She has one grandchild, Willie. Her daughter, Kathy, who died in 2024, was a lawyer with a Chicago firm. Mayor Byrne's book, My Chicago (1992) covers her life through her political career. In 2011, Byrne attended the inauguration of the city's then new mayor, Rahm Emanuel . Byrne had entered hospice care and died on November 14, 2014, in Chicago, aged 81, from complications of
13250-710: The same discrimination as they had in the South. It was hard for many Blacks to find jobs and find decent places to live because of the competition for housing among different ethnic groups at a time when the city was expanding in population so dramatically. At the same time that Blacks moved from the South in the Great Migration, Chicago had recently received hundreds of thousands of immigrants from southern and eastern Europe. The groups competed with each other for working-class wages. Though other techniques to maintain housing segregation had been used, such as redlining and exclusive zoning to single-family housing, by 1927
13375-447: The same time, recent and older ethnic immigrants competed for jobs and housing with the new arrivals, especially on the South Side, where the steel and meatpacking industries had the most numerous working-class jobs. With Chicago's industries steadily expanding, opportunities opened up for new migrants, including Southerners, to find work. The railroad and meatpacking industries recruited Black workers. Chicago's African-American newspaper,
13500-527: The side of the John Hancock Center . William Blair, Chicago's fire commissioner, had ordered the Chicago Fire Department to stop Goodwin by directing a full-power fire hose at him and by using fire axes to break window glass in Goodwin's path. Mayor Byrne rushed to the scene and ordered the fire department to stand down. Then, through a smashed out a 38th floor window, Byrne told Goodwin, who
13625-427: The south suburbs of Cook County. A report from the National Association of Real Estate Brokers (NAREB) indicated that between 2012-2016, 5 of the top 10 municipalities nationwide (with at least 500 Black households) registering the highest Black homeownership rates were Chicago suburbs - including Olympia Fields (98%), South Holland (85%), Flossmoor (83%), Matteson (80%), and Lynwood (80%). The report notes that
13750-536: The southern lakefront, with the Obama Presidential Center construction bringing jobs - but also potentially gentrification - to the Woodlawn neighborhood. And, bucking the trend of Black population declines, communities along the southern lakefront including Bronzeville , Hyde Park , Woodlawn , and South Shore all recorded population gains between 2010 and 2020, with a significant portion of
13875-485: The state. However, in 1865, the state repealed its " Black Laws " and became the first to ratify the 13th Amendment , partly due to the efforts of John and Mary Jones , a prominent and wealthy activist couple. Especially after the Civil War , Illinois had some of the most progressive anti-discrimination legislation in the nation. School segregation was first outlawed in 1874, and segregation in public accommodations
14000-459: The suburbs or Southern cities such as Atlanta, Dallas, Houston, and San Antonio. Chicago also has a foreign-born Black population. Many of the African immigrants in Chicago are from Ethiopia and Nigeria . Jean Baptiste Point du Sable was a Haitian of French and African descent. Although du Sable's settlement was established in the 1780s, African Americans would only become established as
14125-661: The surrounding suburbs gained about 125,000. Other Black Chicagoans are participating in a "Reverse Great Migration" in search of greater economic opportunities in the U.S. South , including cities such as Atlanta , Charlotte , Dallas , Houston , and San Antonio . From 2000-2017, the Chicago Federal Reserve found that the largest number of Black households exiting the city had incomes under $ 35,000, although those with middle incomes (defined as $ 35,000 - $ 75,000) constituted 40% of leavers. Black households making at least $ 100,000, meanwhile, increased modestly during
14250-476: 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
14375-544: The widely-criticized closure of 50 CPS schools - primarily in Black neighborhoods - under the mayoral administration of Rahm Emanuel further exacerbated the population spiral. Many Blacks leaving Chicago are now moving to outlying suburbs, primarily to the south and west of the city in Cook County, or to the east in Northwest Indiana. Indeed, while Chicago lost more than 260,000 Black residents from 2000-2020,
14500-427: Was a constant battle for African Americans in Chicago, as foremen in various companies restricted the advancement of Black workers, which often kept them from earning higher wages. In the mid-20th century, Blacks began slowly moving up to better positions in the work force. The migration expanded the market for African-American business. According to Allen Spear, "The most notable breakthrough in Black business came in
14625-615: Was appointed head of the City of Chicago's consumer affairs department. She served as a delegate to the 1972 Democratic National Convention (DNC) and chairperson of the DNC resolutions committee in 1973. In 1975, Byrne was appointed co-chairperson of the Cook County Democratic Central Committee by Daley, over the objection of a majority of Democratic leaders. The committee ousted Byrne shortly after Daley's death in late 1976. Shortly thereafter, Byrne accused
14750-587: Was born Jane Margaret Burke on May 24, 1933, at John B. Murphy Hospital in the Lake View neighborhood on the north side of Chicago, Illinois, to Katherine Marie Burke (née Nolan), a housewife , and William Patrick Burke, vice president of Inland Steel . Raised on the city's north side, Byrne graduated from Saint Scholastica High School and attended St. Mary of the Woods for her first year of college. Byrne later transferred to Barat College , where she graduated with
14875-496: Was first outlawed in 1885. In 1870, Illinois extended voting rights to African-American men for the first time, and in 1871, John Jones, a tailor and Underground Railroad station manager who successfully lobbied for the repeal of the state's Black Laws, became the first African-American elected official in the state, serving as a member of the Cook County Commission . By 1879, John W. E. Thomas of Chicago became
15000-503: Was hanging from the building's side a floor below, that though she did not agree with his climbing of the John Hancock Center, she certainly opposed the fire department knocking him to the ground below. Byrne then allowed Goodwin to continue his climb unimpeded to the top. Byrne also initiated the idea for creating a unified lakefront museum campus, which was implemented subsequent to her tenure as Museum Campus , as well as
15125-648: 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,
15250-425: Was normally considered tantamount to election in heavily Democratic Chicago, after his primary victory Washington found that his Republican opponent, former state legislator Bernard Epton was supported by many high-ranking Democrats and their ward organizations. Epton's campaign referred to, among other things, Washington's conviction for failure to file income tax returns (he had paid the taxes, but had not filed
15375-485: 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
15500-653: Was replacing Black members of the Chicago Board of Education and Chicago Housing Authority board with White members, some of whom even held stances that critics viewed as racist. During the 1979 mayoral election, Byrne pledged to fire Superintendent of the Chicago Police Department James E. O'Grady , accusing him of having "politicized" the department. Days after her inauguration, O'Grady resigned. Later that year, she relieved interim superintendent Joseph DiLeonardi of command. She appointed Samuel Nolan interim superintendent in his place, Nolan
15625-553: Was the first African American to serve as head of the Chicago Police Department . In January 1980, Richard J. Brzeczek took office as permanent superintendent, having been appointed by Byrne. On her last day in office, after the resignation of Brzeczek as superintdendent, Byrne appointed James E. O'Grady as interim superintendent. By this time, Byrne had rescinded her past criticisms of O'Grady. In 1980, Byrne appointed William R. Blair as Chicago fire commissioner . During her campaign for mayor, Byrne promised to provide strong support to
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