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HAROLD WASHINGTON’S LESSONS FOR TAKING ON A POLITICAL MACHINE  
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Mark Engler and Paul Engler
February 21, 2024
Waging Nonviolence
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_ A new documentary explains how, 40 years ago, Chicago’s first
Black mayor shattered status-quo politics, offering insights for
grassroots movements today. _

"Harold Washington (9519692588)", by City of Boston Archives from
West Roxbury, United States (CC BY 2.0)

 

Four decades ago, at the start of 1984, Harold Washington was
finishing his historic opening year in office as Chicago’s first
Black mayor. An outsider candidate who had been persuaded to run by
the city’s social movements, Washington represented a major break
from the past, and his 1983 victory served as an important milestone
in the efforts of civil rights activists to gain footholds in
electoral politics. Today, as social movements increasingly take
interest in running insurgent candidates
[[link removed]] for
office, Washington provides a vital model for how grassroots forces
can bring new constituencies into the electoral realm and upend the
established practices of insider politics.

Once in office, the mayor — widely known in the city simply as
“Harold” — faced entrenched opposition. And yet he was able to
take significant strides in dismantling the city machine. Run for
decades by Richard J. Daley, this machine long maintained a racist and
inequitable system of distributing municipal resources.

Tragically, Washington died of a heart attack just months into his
second term, in 1987. His sudden passing created a lasting trauma for
progressive forces in the city and raised questions about what more he
might have been able to accomplish had he lived.

More recently, the 2023 election of a new progressive mayor
[[link removed]] in
Chicago, Brandon Johnson, has both generated fresh hope and created
revived interest
[[link removed]] in
the lessons that might be drawn from Washington’s example in taking
on Chicago’s old guard some 40 years ago.

As a filmmaker, Joe Winston has tackled topics ranging from
conservative organizing in America’s heartland (as director of
2009’s “What’s the Matter with Kansas”) to the influence of
the ultra-rich on our political system (as producer of 2013’s
“Citizen Koch”). His latest film, “Punch 9 For Harold
Washington,” is showing [[link removed]] in coming
months in cities including Denver, Atlanta, Nashville and Chicago, and
it has just been made available for both educational use
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Recently, we spoke to Winston to discuss insights that Washington’
story can provide for social movements looking to bring new voices
into electoral politics today. Our conversation has been edited for
length and clarity.

TELL US ABOUT YOUR BACKGROUND AND HOW YOU GOT INVOLVED IN THIS STORY.

My film, “Punch 9 for Harold Washington,” is about Chicago’s
first African American mayor. When he was elected in 1983, I was a
junior in a high school that was located just three or four blocks
from Harold’s apartment. He was a huge figure in Chicago, and the
turbulent times of his election, governance and untimely death are
something that no one who lived through it can ever forget.

As a documentary filmmaker, I realized years later that the story of
Harold Washington has universal significance. As a trailblazing Black
mayor in a city which was undergoing rapid demographic change, the
kinds of coalitions that Harold had to build in order to win an
election — and then subsequently to govern — had tremendous
resonance. That was particularly true in the Obama era. Barack Obama
came to Chicago as a community organizer partly because Harold
Washington had taken office. And, subsequently, the white backlash to
Obama’s presidency mirrored almost exactly what Harold Washington
had to navigate as mayor of Chicago.

BEFORE HE DECIDED TO RUN FOR MAYOR IN 1983, HAROLD ALMOST HAD TO BE
DRAFTED BY SOCIAL MOVEMENTS. HE MADE A NUMBER OF DEMANDS THAT LOCAL
ORGANIZERS HAD TO MEET IN ORDER FOR HIM TO RUN, INCLUDING THE DEMAND
THAT THEY REGISTER 50,000 NEW VOTERS — WHICH SEEMED LIKE AN
IMPOSSIBLY HUGE NUMBER.

Right. Washington is a fascinating and complex figure. He was 61 years
old when he first became mayor in 1983, and he had actually run for
mayor before — in 1977, during a special election that was called
shortly after the death of the legendary political boss Richard J.
Daley. That election attracted a lot of candidates, and Washington
only placed third. His experience of an underfunded, hastily put
together campaign taught him that in order to beat an entrenched
political organization like the Cook County Democratic Party machine,
he needed more than a great campaign. He needed to be assured that
there was a true groundswell and a broad coalition willing to support
him.

By the time 1982 came around, Harold was serving in the U.S. Congress
and he was reluctant to run for mayor again, unless he saw that there
was a lot of infrastructure in place. And this time there was. There
were a lot of people working in the neighborhoods who had opposed
Mayor Daley on Vietnam, racism, development and countless other
issues. They knew what they wanted, and they mobilized the community.
Depending on which figure you cite, they registered as many as 200,000
new voters for the 1983 mayor’s race — far more than he had
demanded. And that convinced Harold Washington that it was his time to
run again.

IN YOUR FILM, A CHICAGO POLITICIAN NAMED DAVID ORR, WHO HAD SERVED IN
THE CITY COUNCIL WHEN WASHINGTON WAS IN OFFICE, SAYS THAT WAS “THE
FIRST TIME THIS COALITION HAD COME TOGETHER.” WHAT WERE THE
DISTINCTIVE ELEMENTS OF THE COALITION THAT WASHINGTON CREATED?

The famous Harold Washington Coalition was made necessary by the
ethnic makeup of Chicago at the time. The city was about 40 percent
African American, 40 percent white, and 20 percent other ethnic
groups, primarily Puerto Rican and Mexican. So no single ethnic group
in Chicago could win a majority on its own. Washington and his allies
understood this. They formed an alliance that joined African American
with white liberals — and they also brought in the Hispanic
community, which previously had not been very politically active. That
gave them just the numbers they needed to overcome the entrenched
machine and white resistance.

One of the exciting things about the Washington campaign of 1983, that
would be echoed in the Obama campaign of 2008, is that both brought in
people who were new to electoral politics, people in groups who were
energized by a sense of new possibilities. Washington not only formed
an electoral coalition of these different groups, but he translated it
into a governing coalition.

ONE THING THAT SEEMS TO MAKE HAROLD WASHINGTON DIFFERENT FROM OTHER
POLITICIANS IS THAT HE SEEMED TO REJECT POLITE POLITICS AND TO EMBRACE
POLARIZING SUBJECTS. WHEN HE TALKED ABOUT THE LEGACY OF RICHARD J.
DALEY, WHOM MANY PEOPLE IN CHICAGO STILL LOVED, HAROLD DIDN’T PULL
ANY PUNCHES. INSTEAD, HE DENOUNCED DALEY AS A FLAT-OUT RACIST. IT
SEEMS HE HAD A STRATEGY OF ENERGIZING HIS BASE, WHILE ALSO SOMEHOW
REACHING OUT TO THE MIDDLE OVER TIME. THAT’S DIFFERENT FROM HOW MOST
POLITICIANS THINK ABOUT MESSAGING. WHAT DO YOU THINK?

A lot of the messaging that Harold Washington used was being carried
out over Black radio and newspapers — publications like the
legendary _Chicago Defender _— that most white Chicagoans didn’t
pay any attention to. So when Washington defeated two white Democrats
in the Democratic primary, the major news media was shocked. They
didn’t think this guy had a chance, because they hadn’t been
paying attention to what was being discussed in the media consumed in
Black neighborhoods.

These days, media targeting looks different, but certainly Washington
was a great political communicator. He could be very blunt and
populist in his appeal to voters. But he was smart enough and
understood policy well enough to really engage them. He didn’t have
to waffle on the issues, although he certainly had to try to be
polite. There would have been plenty of opportunities for a Black
politician to be much more negative about the power structure that
existed in the city at the time. To this day, Black politicians always
have this onus on them: they are always expected to reach out, and
Washington was certainly subject to those burdens.

IT SEEMS LIKE WASHINGTON DID THINGS TO INTENTIONALLY AGITATE AND
ENGAGE HIS BASE, WHICH DID PUSH AWAY SOME PEOPLE. BUT HE WASN’T
CONCERNED ABOUT THAT, BECAUSE HE HAD A STRATEGY TO BUILD A MAJORITY.
DO YOU THINK THAT’S CORRECT?

Well, I would take issue with that a little bit. The truth is that
when we’re telling his story, we are focused on the political combat
that he engaged in. By the time he ran, he already had opponents who
were saying the worst possible things about him. When he was running
in the general election against a Republican opponent, his
opponent’s slogan was “Before it’s too late.” Everybody in
Chicago knew what that meant: It was a blunt, racial appeal. So in
some cases, I think Harold Washington was really just fighting back. I
don’t think he intended to push away a single voter. In fact,
winning over white voters was the thing he worked the hardest at.

Harold’s vision for Chicago was very detailed. He made it very clear
that he was taking on an entrenched system of corruption that was
harming the entire city. He put through programs that not only helped
African Americans, but actually benefited a lot of white
neighborhoods, which themselves had been neglected.

ONE OF THE WAYS THAT HE ENDED UP BEATING THE DEADLOCK IN CITY COUNCIL
IS BY PUTTING FORWARD A BOND ISSUE ON INFRASTRUCTURE AND THEN GOING
DIRECTLY TO THE PUBLIC TO SAY, “YOUR CITY COUNCIL MEMBERS ARE
BLOCKING THIS.” HE APPEALED TO THE COMMON INTEREST OF PEOPLE
THROUGHOUT THE CITY OF HAVING THEIR ROADS REPAIRED.

Yes, that was one of his great victories.

IN THE FILM YOU SHOW HOW, ONCE HAROLD CAME INTO OFFICE, HE MADE AN
ATTACK ON THE PATRONAGE SYSTEM IN CHICAGO POLITICS HIS CENTRAL FIGHT.
BUT BECAUSE THIS SYSTEM WAS SO DEEP-SEATED IN CITY POLITICS, HIS
ATTACK CREATED MASSIVE RESISTANCE FROM THE CITY COUNCIL. IT PROBABLY
MADE IT MORE DIFFICULT FOR HIM TO ACCOMPLISH THINGS IN THE SHORT RUN
THAN IF HE TRIED TO MAKE PEACE AND CUT DEALS. WHY DO YOU THINK HE TOOK
ON THIS STRATEGY?

The battle that you’re describing is the crux of the Washington
story. Harold was very determined not just to put a new face on the
old system, but to overthrow the system completely. It was an enormous
challenge, and it led to a stalemate known as the “Council Wars,”
which stymied much of his governance for his first three years.

Many of his allies did not want him to do this, because it was
incredibly difficult. But Washington knew exactly what he was doing.
He himself had come up through this very same system, having served as
a precinct captain as a young man. His father had tried to work his
way up from the bottom ranks of the Democratic Party, too, and was
rebuffed by the Daley machine. So, for Harold, this was the fight of
his life. He felt the system was wrong, and that it needed to be
changed.

IT’S INTERESTING THAT, BEFORE RUNNING FOR MAYOR IN THE 1983
ELECTION, HAROLD WAS SERVING AS CONGRESSPERSON IN WASHINGTON, D.C.
PRIOR TO THAT, HE HAD BEEN IN THE STATE GOVERNMENT. SO HE HAD FIGURED
OUT HOW TO OPERATE INSIDE OF THE MACHINE SYSTEM, EVEN IF HE EVENTUALLY
CAME TO HATE THE MACHINE. HOW DO YOU LOOK AT HAROLD’S POLITICAL
EVOLUTION?

Washington came up through the machine in a ward organization during
the Daley years. Then he found his place in the state legislature,
where you’re kind of at arm’s length from the Cook County machine.
Those legislators had a little bit more latitude. For a couple of
decades, Washington managed to stay within his lane, deciding which
votes he could take and which ones he needed to skip in order to get
good work done. In the state legislature, Harold passed the first
holiday in the country commemorating Dr. Martin Luther King, for
example. But he broke with the machine in the late ‘70s. At that
point, his opponents tried to run somebody against him, but Harold
beat them. So by 1980 or so, Harold was completely independent; he had
his own power base, and he was able to become a U.S. congressman. The
machine itself was weakened after the death of Richard J. Daley in
1976, and that set the stage for Harold to later become mayor.

THERE WAS A HISTORY OF REFORM CANDIDATES IN CHICAGO WHO COULDN’T GET
MUCH DONE. BECAUSE THEY WERE ALWAYS ON THE OUTSIDE, THEY DIDN’T KNOW
THE MACHINE’S INTERNAL WORKINGS. YOU COULD SAY THAT ONE PART OF
HAROLD’S GENIUS WAS THAT HE REALLY KNEW THE SYSTEM, AND THIS IS WHAT
ALLOWED HIM TO TAKE IT APART.

I think that’s absolutely correct. It’s quite remarkable that he
was so schooled in this system of politics and power, but then he
chose to take it on. It’s rare, but that is part of what made him
the right person to do the job.

IN YOUR DOCUMENTARY, THERE’S A SCENE WHERE THEY TALK ABOUT
DISRUPTING THE PATRONAGE SYSTEM, AND HAROLD DECIDES TO FIRE EVERYONE
WHO DOESN’T SHOW UP FOR WORK AND ISN’T IN THE OFFICE. WOULD YOU
SAY THAT HE HAD A VISION OF USING THE POWER OF THE INSTITUTIONAL
BUREAUCRACY IN A WAY THAT MIGHT BE DIFFERENT FROM OTHER POLITICIANS?

At the time that Washington was elected mayor of Chicago, the city
employed something close to 40,000 people, with various positions
directly appointed. When Washington took office, most of these people
had been employed by his opponents. So the machinery of bureaucracy
was working against him. This was kind of the mirror image of what
President Trump would talk about as the “deep state.” There really
was a deep state in Chicago of bureaucrats who had been appointed to
patronage jobs. The reason that they were in the Department of Housing
was not because they knew anything about housing, but because they had
turned out 1,200 votes in their precinct in the last election. Harold
and his allies realized this was a system that could not continue.  

A VARIETY OF PEOPLE, INCLUDING BARACK OBAMA IN“DREAMS FROM MY
FATHER,” HAVE MADE THE POINT THAT THE COALITION THAT PUT HAROLD IN
OFFICE ENDED UP BEING OVERLY DEPENDENT ON THE CHARISMA AND THE
PERSONALITY OF ONE INDIVIDUAL. SO WHEN HAROLD DIED SUDDENLY, THE
MACHINE WAS ABLE TO COME BACK AND CO-OPT PARTS OF HIS COALITION.

 

The saddest part of the Harold Washington story is that he simply did
not live long enough to consolidate his coalition into something that
could outlast him. Harold died of a sudden heart attack in 1987. He
collapsed at his desk, having won re-election just a few months prior.
This was an enormous trauma for the Black community in Chicago, as
well as for all progressives, inside and outside of Chicago.

Politically, it set off complete chaos. The fracturing of the
Washington coalition was an immense tragedy. And it did unfold with
horrifying speed — basically in one week’s time. Part of the
problem was that a lot of city council members, and even a number who
were in the Washington coalition, had come up through the old system
of patronage and corruption. They were really much more comfortable
with that. It was only Harold Washington’s immense popularity and
force of personality that kept them in line. So it became pretty easy
for the operators of the Chicago machine to bring around just enough
Black members to form a new majority and take power again.

There’s that old line from Will Rogers: “I’m not a member of any
organized party. I’m a Democrat.” Progressive coalitions are
always tricky to hold together. And the Washington coalition had not
been together very long. Daley’s son came in as mayor soon after,
and the son ended up ruling longer than his father had.

IN TERMS OF THEIR RELIANCE ON A SINGLE LEADER, DO YOU THINK THERE WERE
ALTERNATIVES THAT MOVEMENTS COULD HAVE PURSUED?

It’s clearly a tremendous weakness for a movement to be dependent on
any one person. Black Lives Matter groups and younger activist groups
have taken this to heart. But at the same time, the forceful
leadership and the cohesiveness that Washington applied was crucial to
getting so much to change so fast. Harold destroyed a decades-old
system of patronage and corruption very quickly, and change like that
is hard to make happen. Having your leader die on you, four years
after getting elected, is a crippling wound. There is no simple
answer. There’s just a continuing need to nurture new political
talent. And we must have an understanding that these movements take
time.

HAROLD WAS NOT THE FIRST BLACK MAYOR OF A MAJOR U.S. CITY AFTER THE
CIVIL RIGHTS MOVEMENT OF THE 1960S. BEFORE 1983, YOU HAD BLACK MAYORS
IN PLACES LIKE CLEVELAND, WASHINGTON D.C., DETROIT, ATLANTA AND LOS
ANGELES. AND YET MANY PEOPLE TALK ABOUT HAROLD WASHINGTON AS A MODEL
IN A DIFFERENT WAY. WHY DO YOU THINK THAT IS?

I think what was really special about Harold was that as a
trailblazing Black mayor of a major U.S. city, he neither presided
over a city which whites had abandoned, like Cleveland, Detroit or St.
Louis, nor was he looking to just put a new face on the old system.
Harold was someone who came into office promising revolutionary
change, as a Black mayor in a city where Black people were a
substantial ethnic group and not the majority. So I think that makes
him tremendously important. What he was able to accomplish was a real
civil rights movement candidacy and governance
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but one in which he did have to reach out beyond African Americans to
form coalitions to make it happen.

WE ARE IN A MOMENT WHERE THERE HAS AGAIN BEEN A LOT OF INTEREST IN
SOCIAL MOVEMENT CIRCLES IN RUNNING INSURGENT ELECTORAL CAMPAIGNS —
SOMETHING THAT’S BEEN ON THE RISE AT LEAST SINCE BERNIE SANDERS’
PRESIDENTIAL RUN IN 2016. WE’VE SEEN THINGS SUCH AS THE RISE OF THE
SQUAD IN CONGRESS COMING OUT OF THAT. WHAT DO YOU THINK ARE THE
LESSONS THAT HAROLD WASHINGTON OFFERS FOR ACTIVISTS WHO ARE LOOKING TO
BRING SOCIAL MOVEMENT ENERGY AND ISSUES INTO ELECTORAL POLITICS TODAY?

The fact that Washington had to build a coalition beyond his base is
really crucial. The fact that he couldn’t just depend on his ethnic
group identification to carry him to victory. And the fact that he did
it through bread and butter issues. He understood infrastructure and
development and redistribution — and how all these things would
actually get done in ways that could broaden his appeal. He had
programs for the whole city, and I think he provides a really valuable
example of how politicians can broaden their coalitions.

It’s also crucial that Harold Washington’s candidacy came from a
movement. Although voters later might remember his qualities as a
politician — his charisma and his political skills — he wasn’t
out there by himself. There was an entire movement behind him that had
goals and also had the ability to mobilize people.

Washington is somebody who was not only brought up in bare-knuckle,
Democratic Party politics, but also in the social movements. In the
1940s he went to Roosevelt College, which was a rare integrated
institution of its day that admitted Blacks, Jews and women. He was
surrounded by really smart people who were doing things like lunch
counter protests very early, 25 years before you were seeing the
events that we celebrate from the 1960s.

IN TERMS OF BRINGING SOCIAL MOVEMENTS INTO GOVERNANCE, WHAT ARE THE
MECHANISMS OF ACCOUNTABILITY OR INCLUSION THAT MAKE GRASSROOTS GROUPS
PART OF A GOVERNING PROJECT?

David Orr, who was a close ally of Washington’s, told us an
interesting story we didn’t end up having room for in the film. He
said that Harold had a meeting with him shortly before his death,
where he was talking about his reelection, having secured his position
and working majority on the council. He finally had the ability to
enact the programs that the two of them and many others have been
fighting for. And then Harold turned to Orr, who was much younger than
him, and said, “You know, I need people to be on the outside pushing
this. Change is hard. And I want to see protests out there.”

This meeting was never documented. But certainly Washington was
somebody who was aware of the tension between grassroots advocacy and
insider governance. There were staff people who were brought into his
administration that came from activism, instead of conventional
politics. And there were lots of others who stayed on the outside and
kept pushing. Had Harold been around longer, that tension would have
always been there. But he embraced it. He understood the usefulness of
having both of those forces pushing for change.

HAROLD WASHINGTON’S STORY IS PRETTY WELL KNOWN. IN MAKING YOUR FILM,
DID YOU FEEL LIKE THERE WAS AN ASPECT THAT HADN’T BEEN TOLD ALREADY?

There have been a lot of films about political campaigns. They make
for good stories because there’s a natural beginning, middle and an
end. There’s a winner and a loser. But we had always wanted to dig
deeper into governance, which is less sexy and much harder to project.
To me, a lot of the stories about inspirational candidates fall short,
especially for the left. Really, the election is only the beginning.
There’s so much that has to happen after that. I wanted to present a
documentary of a unique person and place that could inspire people to
want to do governance better — and maybe give some tips on how to do
that.

BECAUSE HE DIED UNEXPECTEDLY, AND RELATIVELY YOUNG, THERE’S A HUGE
SENSE OF LOST POTENTIAL THAT SURROUNDS HAROLD WASHINGTON. AND THERE IS
THE IDEA THAT BY THE START OF HIS SECOND TERM HE HAD FINALLY SUBDUED
HIS OPPOSITION AND GOT THE POSITION WHERE HE COULD START REALLY
ACCOMPLISHING THINGS. OF COURSE, ALL OF THAT WAS CUT SHORT.

There’s a tendency to say that Harold’s accomplishments were
completely vaporized when Daley took over. But when you look more
closely at it, I think that’s not true. When Washington disassembled
the political patronage machine, no one was able to put it back
together in quite the same way. People had to govern differently. They
were forced to be more inclusive and to distribute services equally to
all areas of the city. I don’t think that would have happened
without Harold.

_Mark Engler [[link removed]] is a
writer based in Philadelphia, an editorial board member at Dissent,
and co-author of "This Is An Uprising: How Nonviolent Revolt Is
Shaping the Twenty-first Century" (Nation Books). He can be reached
via the website www.DemocracyUprising.com
[[link removed]]._

_Paul Engler [[link removed]] is
the director of the Center for the Working Poor in Los Angeles, and a
co-founder of the Momentum Training
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of "This Is An Uprising [[link removed]]."_

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