Harold Washington campaign: Long on promises, but short on solutions

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CHICAGO-In 1983 Harold Washington was elected mayor of Chicago, the first Black to achieve that position in the nation's most racially segregated city.

Washington's Democratic Party campaign that year aroused unprecedented enthusiasm among Chicago's Black population. Washington's bid for mayor became for many Blacks more than just another election—it was a vote against racism and an expression of Black pride. With Washington's election victory, it was hoped, the stale air of racism and poverty would at last begin to lift The Proaressive "Council 29," the conservative majority bloc on the city council led by 10th Ward Alderman Edward "Fast Eddie" Vrdolyak. This "Council Wars" battle has only served to solidify support for the mayor in the Black community.

It also helped the mayor for a time to deflect criticism of his lack of substantive accomplishments. However, several supporters of Washington have recently won election to the city council, including Luis Gutierrez in the hotly contested 26th Ward election. Washington can Black residents of and roach-infested established last year by the state Democratic Party after followers of Lyndon LaRouche captured the Democratic nominations for lieutenant governor and secretary of state.

In 1983, Vrdolyak told white Democratic precinct captains that they should oppose Washington because the campaign was "a racial thing." Four years later Vrdolyak continues to spew a steady stream of racist-tinged rhetoric on such issues as crime, welfare abuse, gang violence, single-parent households, illegitimate children, and the high-school dropout rate.

In the parlance of Vrdolyak's appeal to white voters, such issues reflect no genuine concern for human needs, but rather are calculated code words for his real message: Blacks are the problem.

Cook County Assessor Thomas Hynes and Republican Donald Haider are also challenging Washington in the general election. Hynes, who is running as an independent and is aligned with the remnants of the old Daley faction, is popular with the business community for his consistent under-taxation of downtown real estate. Haider's campaign has received scant media attention, and he is given little chance to unseat Washington.

In light of such opposition, Washington will undoubtedly win the votes of many who believe that-even if his accomplishments are few—he is a far lesser evil than the other candidates.

Lesser evil in a high-rise hell?

The choice of a "lesser-evil" alternative, of course, is becoming a rather moot point when measured against the truly terrible and worsening conditions of daily life-especially for Blacks—in America's urban areas.

Among Black residents of the "high-rise hell" of Chicago's public-housing projects, where Washington won a 99-percent majority in the 1983 election, a recent Chicago Tribune poll reports that more than a third think they are worse off today than when Washington was elected, and half say that little has changed.

Chicago's minority communities actually have the highest unemployment, the worst schools, the highest crime rates, and the lowest per-capita incomes in the nation, according to a recent report on life in Chicago by the Regional Agenda Project, a panel of urban scholars.