When Zohran Mamdani won the primary race for New York mayor, the Democratic establishment's lukewarm response echoed the treatment of another charismatic, unconventional candidate decades earlier. This week, we bring you the story of Harold Washington, the greatest politician you've probably never heard of, and the backlash that ensued when he became Chicago's first Black mayor.
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Yesterday
A history of the brief mayoral career of Harold Washington and its lessons for Black and white America, as told by people close to him. (39 minutes)
Harold Washington died on November 25, 1987. This show was first broadcast ten years later, in 1997.
The Present and the Future
Ira revisits interviews with Chicago voters from the 1997 and 2007 rebroadcasts of this episode. In 1997, ten years after Harold Washington’s death, not much had changed in Chicago. By 2007, attitudes had begun to shift slowly, and another Black politician from Chicago was on the rise — Barack Obama. Ira also speaks to David Axelrod, an advisor to both Harold Washington and Barack Obama. (10 minutes)
Song: “Chicago” sung by Harold Washington at his second inauguration
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