Blacks still divided, many undecided in key Chicago mayoral race

By Ashahed M. Muhammad -Assistant Editor- | Last updated: Apr 1, 2015 - 11:38:53 AM

Cook County Board Commissioner and Chicago mayoral candidate Jesus ‘Chuy’ Garcia takes a picture with a young fan at a recent mayoral candidate forum March 25 at Chicago State University. Photo: Ashahed M. Muhammad

CHICAGO (FinalCall.com) - With less than a week before the election, many Black voters have yet to decide whether they will support a second term for Rahm Emanuel, or make his challenger Cook County Board Commissioner Jesus “Chuy” Garcia the first Latino mayor in the city’s history.

In the nation’s third most populous city, Latinos represent nearly a third of the population, yet despite Garcia’s overwhelmingly large level of support amongst Latinos, recent polls suggest he still has an uphill climb to become the city’s first Latino mayor.

Rep. Bobby Rush (at podium) is pictured shaking hands with Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel recently. Although very critical of Emanuel in the past, Rep. Rush now supports him in the run-off election. Photo: Rahm Emanuel/Facebook

According to the most recent poll from Ogden & Fry, Mayor Emanuel enjoys a double-digit lead (47 percent to 34 percent) over Garcia with 18 percent still undecided.

The crowd politely applauded Mayor Emanuel as he entered the Emil and Patricia Jones Convocation Center on the campus of Chicago State University March 25. It was clear Mr. Garcia’s supporters were more passionate, vocal, and he appeared to be comfortable speaking to the majority Black crowd of several hundred who gathered for a Q&A session featuring the two candidates.

Many political analysts say the Black vote will be key in determining whether Emanuel will remain at the helm, or whether Garcia will usher in a new era of progressive politics for the city, including what many are calling the resurrection of a Black and Brown coalition, which has not existed since the death of the late Mayor Harold Washington. Rainbow/PUSH leader Rev. Jesse Jackson Sr. has endorsed Garcia, as did businessman and philanthropist Willie Wilson, who received nearly 11 percent of the mayoral vote in the Feb. 24 municipal election.

At the same time, Mayor Emanuel is not without his own Black supporters. He recently received an endorsement from Congressman Bobby Rush, as well as over two dozen Black pastors including Rev. James Meeks. No one can really predict how many Black voters will turn out on April 7.

Well-known former Alderman Dorothy Tillman supports incumbent Mayor Rahm Emanuel. She says many of the things Mr. Garcia says he wants to address as mayor, like affordable housing, he could have addressed as a Cook Country Commissioner and has failed to do so. She also says much of the work establishing a Black-Brown coalition predates his candidacy, and questions if it is anything that he even wants to establish.

“You never hear him use the term Black and Brown coalition. He doesn’t say that, he never says that. The Black and Brown coalition is more than just a pop-up for our votes,” said Tillman. “It’s economics, it’s all the other things. He talks about homelessness, he is a commissioner. Cook County has a department of housing and he can build housing in Cook County. He’s got a budget for that and his budget is larger than the city of Chicago’s.”

She said although there are some differences with Mayor Emanuel, she believes he will be better than Mr. Garcia in dealing with issues that concern the Black community like contracts being awarded to Black contractors, establishing a trauma center on the South Side, and school improvement via training.

“Chuy really has not related to our community. You have not seen him. There are Latino brothers and sisters we’ve worked with and he hasn’t been available,” said Tillman.

Kublai K.M. Toure, executive director of Amer-I-Can Illinois Inc., said he would have liked to have seen more from Mayor Emanuel over the past four years but thinks the run-off served as a wake-up call for the mayor causing him to realize he’d better get out in the Black community more than he had been.

“No, I’m not really pleased with Rahm but at the same time he’s in that office, so he can make it better now that he has this run-off,” said Mr. Toure. “Now he realizes that the Black vote is more important than anticipated. One thing I don’t like about the Democratic Party—I’m tired of them taking us for granted, and I think this past election showed that Black folks are tired of being taken for granted and tired of being disrespected by the Democratic Party.”

Mr. Toure said neither mayoral candidate has done a sufficient job of providing solutions to the issues plaguing the Black community. He counts himself as one of those still undecided.

“I want to know who is for the Black agenda,” said Toure. “Right now I’m just hearing a lot of professional lip service and promises,” he added.

Leonard F. Muhammad, an astute and longtime observer and operator within Chicago’s political scene stopped short of openly declaring his support for either candidate, but repeatedly called for Black political empowerment, which has been the consistent plan and approach of the Nation of Islam. Ideally, Black people should be able to thrive economically and socially, no matter what the mayor’s race, ethnicity, or religion is.

“I don’t know any intelligent person with enlightened self-interests that would just trust somebody that doesn’t tell you anything about what they’re going to do,” said Mr. Muhammad. “When you talk about running a city it has nothing to do with color necessarily except if it’s somebody we put up. If you ask me to choose between a Black candidate and the two that’s running, I’m going to try and find some way to have my concern be for Black political empowerment. In this race, it’s about the best candidate to run the city, I don’t know anything recently that Mexican people have done to cement the Black and Brown relationship except give lip service to it,” he added.

Any registered voter in Chicago can make their choice at any of the early voting sites located across the city. Early voting ends April 4. Since early voting began March 23, over 72,000 ballots have been cast—twice the amount cast during the same point in the previous mayoral primary election.

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