Chicago Divided
The Making of a Black Mayor

Paul Kleppner (Author)

9780875801063

Hardback, published 1 April 1985

331 pages
22.9 x 15.2 x 2.8 cm, 0.907 kg

An important and provocative book that chronicles the history of black empowerment in the city of Chicago and the sumultaneous defeat of the last great urban political machine. The dramatic nature of events that culminated in Washington's victory are carefully unfolded by Kleppner so that this political history reads like an exciting novel.

In April 1983, Harold Washington became the first black mayor of Chicago. His victory came at the end of a rancorous campaign that attracted national media coverage and left Chicago "a city divided against itself." Chicago Divided sensitively reconstructs the developments that led to Chicago's 1983 political season. Investigating the election and its background, Kleppner taps a formidable array of sources-including newspapers, court cases, public opinion polls, and voting returns-to analyze the causes and consequences of Chicago's electoral revolution.

Table of Contents
1. Politics Chicago Style: The Turning Point
2. Population Diversity and Political Change, 1870–1970
3. Racial Change and Group Conflict
4. Race, Ethnicity, and Electoral Politics: The Daley Years, 1955–1976
5. Race, Ethnicity, and Electoral Politics: From Bilandic to Byrne, 1976–1982
6. The Politics of Race: The Democratic Mayoral Primary, 1983
7. Race War Chicago Style: The Election of a Mayor, 1983
8. Beyond Chicago and April 1983
Notes
Index