Mayors - U.S. Political Biography, United States - Ethnic & Race Relations, Midwest State & Local Government, Illinois - State & Local History, African American Political & Historical Biography
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Overview
Chicago--the city whose name is synonymous with urban politics; the city of sharply divided ethnic and racial enclaves; the city whose police force shocked America during the 1968 Democratic convention and then the next year killed Black Panther leader Fred Hampton. As Martin Luther King, Jr., said when he traveled to Chicago in 1965 to turn his attention to the great urban centers of the north, "If we crack Chicago, then we crack the world." Black empowerment "would take off like a prairie fire across the land." In 1983 Chicago elected Harold Washington as the city's first black mayor. This is the story of Washington's improbable victory over Jane Byrne, heir to the late Richard J. Daley's political empire, and over Daley's eldest son. It's the story of a coalition outside the party's mainstream coming to power and ruling in the country's most political of cities. In Fire on the Prairie, Gary Rivlin reveals the personalities and philosophies of those who were at the center of events, from black separatists such as Lu Palmer to community organizers such as Jesse Jackson, and from white liberals who held Washington at arm's length to Chicago originals like Ed Vrdolyak, the opposition's leader. At the center of the drama was Harold Washington, an enigmatic yet engaging figure who fashioned an uneasy but potent multiracial coalition that ruled for five years. The conflicts and compromises of all are described in vivid detail and the resulting history is a thorough account of an election and an administration that captured the nation's attention. Like Mississippi in the 1960s or Boston in the 1970s, Chicago in the 1980s was the stage for a drama that revealed the dimensions of America's racial politics and offered insights and inspiration for future generations.Editorials
Publishers Weekly -
The first black mayor of Chicago, Harold Washington, who died in office in ok? 1987, welded a multiracial coalition that replaced the corrupt political machine put in place by ex-mayor Richard Daley during his 21-year tenure. Washington's embattled administration was, in the author's judgment, ``a grand experiment with national ramifications,'' an assessment not entirely borne out by the facts in this engrossing behind-the-scenes account of the mayor's narrow electoral victory in 1983, the racial backlash his rule inspired and the rancorous City Council wars that deadlocked his reforms and almost subverted his program. Rivlin, who covered local politics for the Chicago Reader , blasts the press for stereotyping Washington as ``racially polarizing'' and for insinuating that his coalition was rotten. The book witheringly portrays Jesse Jackson as an ultra-ambitious, cunning opportunist who claimed undue credit for Washington's election. Rivlin's corrective critique provides a much-needed perspective on Chicago's racially divisive politics. (Mar.)Library Journal
Rivlin, a journalist at the Chicago Reader during the Washington administration, presents a history and commentary on black participation in Chicago politics. Beginning with the irony of Chicago's founder and first resident, a black trapper, he chronicles the conflict between white machine bosses and the growing black community. The details of personality and politics are remarkable and, as such, Rivlin's book is a valuable account of conflicts within the black community and among leaders such as Jesse Jackson, Lu Palmer, and William Dawson, as well as between black and white. This view of Chicago politics is invaluable and a very readable contribution to the literature on the Washington years. It provides a nice counterbalance to the memoirs of Washington's supporters in Harold Washington and the Neighborhoods , edited by Pierre Clavel and Wim Wiewel ( LJ 12/91) and will be of interest to urban specialists and lay readers.-- William L. Waugh Jr., Georgia State Univ., AtlantaBook Details
Published
March 1, 1992
Publisher
New York : H. Holt, c1992.
Pages
320
Format
Hardcover
ISBN
9780805014686