Political strategist Maze Jackson standing outside City Hall March 1, 2011. Jose More/Chicago News Cooperative
Nostalgia does not bother Maze Jackson. Like most people he knows, he cherishes the memory of Mayor Harold Washington.
But what does upset the 40-year-old political consultant and makes him fear for the future of black politics in Chicago is what he witnessed during the mayoral campaign: black leaders “stuck in the past.”
“I call them the ‘remember-when crew’” Mr. Jackson said. “Remember when Harold said this? Remember when Harold did that? We need to honor and respect the accomplishments of our elders. But it’s time for them to step back and allow us to serve.”
Mr. Jackson, and his group, the Next Generation Leadership Council, are among many in the black community who are seeking new ways to find and train the political candidates, pollsters and campaign mangers of tomorrow.
The search for new blood and fresh ideas only became more intense after a contentious coalition of black elected officials, business leaders and ministers repeatedly evoked Mr. Washington’s name as they struggled to find a consensus black candidate for the Feb. 22 mayoral election. And the stark disappointment of Carol Moseley Braun, who failed to win more than 9 percent of the citywide vote, accentuated the need for new thinking.
“There’s been a lot of soul-searching going on since the election,” said Cathy Cohen, a professor of political science at the University of Chicago.
The search for new talent is not confined to blacks. Miguel del Valle, the city clerk, who came in third in the mayoral election, is also trying to recruit and train the next generation of political leaders. He hopes to create a citywide, multiracial coalition to improve life in the neighborhoods beyond the gentrified areas of downtown and the North Side.
“Everybody is talking about this,” Mr. del Valle said. “But if we don’t do it right, we’ll end up with more of the same. It really has to be done at a community level. It’s not retired politicians who are going to make this happen.”
Rahm Emanuel, armed with a $12 million campaign fund, won 55 percent of the mayoral vote, almost five times the combined total of the three blacks in the six-candidate race. Yet, voter turnout across the city was just 42 percent.
Mr. del Valle said the low turnout was evidence that there was “a tremendous amount of work to be done to engage young people in the process.”
“They’ve got to hear more voices out there, rather than the same old people,” said Mr. del Valle, 59. “But the young have to step to the plate and assume leadership roles. They must be prepared to run for office. It’s one thing to declare a candidacy. It’s x1another to do all the work before that it takes to win. It’s not just putting up posters.”
LeAlan Jones, 31, who ran for the United States Senate on the Green Party ticket in 2010 and won about 3 percent of the vote, said generational and class conflicts kept voters home.
“There’s a battle in the black community between the elites and the grass roots,” Mr. Jones said. “And the old guard politicians don’t care. All they want is for you to kiss their ring. There are too many gatekeepers, but there’s nothing behind the gate.”
Last Tuesday night, a week after Mr. Emanuel’s victory, about 25 members of the Task Force for Black Political Empowerment gathered for their regular weekly meeting. The group’s longtime chairman, Robert T. Starks, a professor of political science at Northeastern Illinois University, took the podium and said the blame for the defeat of the consensus black candidate, Ms. Braun, rested with her under-financed, gaffe-plagued campaign and “the combined black political leadership that did a poor job of preparing for this election just as we have for the last four elections.”
“We must face up to the fact that we have been ill prepared for political battle since the election of Harold Washington,” Mr. Starks said. “We somehow believed that there was no longer a need for intense community organizing, strong community organizations and independent churches.”
In an interview, Mr. Starks said a new generation of political leaders had to emerge because “the young people don’t trust any of us over 50.”
Mr. Jackson, the political consultant, said the generation gap within the black community was evident during the recent mayoral election process.
“For people over 50, their model was Harold Washington,” he said. “For people under 50, it was Barack Obama and coalition building.”
The two models, however, are not that different. Mr. Washington was Chicago’s original coalition builder. He was swept into office in 1983 on a multiracial wave of support, which the city had not seen up to that point.
“Nobody is disputing the power of a multiracial coalition,” said Mr. Starks, who supported the search for a consensus candidate. “It’s absolutely necessary. But how can you coalesce with someone else unless you have coalesced within your own group first?”
So, who might make up this next generation that so many people are searching for? The names most frequently mentioned are a combination of the familiar and the less well-known. Some are elected officials; others are banging on the door trying to get into the City Council or other positions.
They include State Representative Will Burns, who was just elected to the City Council; Genita Robinson, a lawyer, who lost her bid for the 2nd Ward aldermanic seat; Larry Rogers Jr., a commissioner on the Cook County Board of Review; Rudy Lozano Jr., who lost a close race for state representative, and Ameya Pawar, who became the first Asian-American elected to the City Council.
On Thursday night, the year-and-a-half-old Next Generation Leadership Council is scheduled to hold its first public event, at a South Loop nightspot called Tantrum. Mr. Jackson said he expected a multiracial group of young professionals to show up and leave their e-mail addresses so the council could begin building a database for the future. He said the organization wanted to support not only black elected officials and candidates, but also white, Latino and Asian ones.
“We want to bring Chicago into the 21st century,” he said.
People like T..J. Crawford, 34, are the type of people that the next-generation council and other groups have in mind. A co-founder of the Hip Hop Political Convention, Mr. Crawford participated in the effort to find a consensus candidate and said he intended to run for office someday.
“Established political leadership doesn’t want increased participation,” he said. “We have a tendency to get people engaged when there’s an election and then forget about it for four years.
“We need to make it part of their lifestyle rather than something they do once in a while. We have to make not being involved socially unacceptable.”
I hear everything that is being said about the next generation taking over. I want you to know that it will take much work at the grassroots level. I see nothing wrong in starting right now. To beginn to engage and educate and garner participation. The issues are not new but the are formed differently. We are not necessarily talking factory (although that’s still a viable employ) we are talking eco/tech/green…If you begin right now engaging high school kids, entreperneurs under 30 you will gather steam. As long as we keep talking about it there will still be nothing behind the gate. Blacks have a viable cause and no one to fight it right now. The old ones are saying the same things over again. We need to show them that we have listened and get out there. Their kingdom was not handed to them and ours will not be either. Time to take a good hard look at how to mobilize people and the dollar and just do it!
How can I contact the NEW GENERATION group. Send me their contact information
I would like to help the New Generation.
I hear what brother Maze is saying and I agree to a point, what’s needed is the history of the rise and fall of the Harold Washington movement with knowledge of all the players and the realization of why the urban community voted for Obama without a commitment for their agenda as well as the election for a Mayor of Rahm Emmanuelwho everyone knew never worked for the concerns of African-Americans.
It should be made manditory that 2 books be read by this group of leaders they are ” The Boss- the story of Mayor Daley’s father, and The Secret Relationship Between Blacks and Jews and one more book From Gangster Disciple To Growth and Development”.
I remember the youth and young adult movement that said they couldn’t trust people over 30, they where in their 20′s before they saw the fruits of their labor, they majority of the founders were 31 or older.
All I can say n make sure there is a grandfather clause, just my opinion and food for thought. We were about 21st Century Vote in the 90′s, helped elect the only African-American woman to the Senate, help train Obama in grassroot organizing in the Gardens ( Noonie Ward )and in the 21st Century we were already prepared to elect hm to the U.S. Senate and the President of U.S. I was able to be on top of my game because Harold, Jerry Iceman Butler, Cecil Partee, John Stroger, Larry Hoover my father, mother and Prince Asiel. I went from a cell house to the Oval office n the White House.
Stroger, Partee and Braun were symbolic victories. Obama wasn’t a true community organizer, instead he worked downtown. Let’s have substantive, empowering victories in 2011.
Glad to see some generational change coming. Along with new ideas for representing the community, these folks also need to break from the past by showing fiscal honesty, personal integrity, a strong work ethic and an ability to work out good compromises. There are some good people out there like Toni Preckwinkle. Room for plenty more.
I would like to assist in this process with the New Generation project
We have all beared witness to the end and fall of collective cooperative Black empowerment and unity in Chicago!!! A city founded by a black man, majorally populated by blacks, and has been the origin for success for many blacks. What a legacy to hand over to the next generation.
Latino(a)s are the majority now, not Blacks.
Know your stats, Hispanics are not the majority yet, and still hold no collective voting power and or political respect. LGBTQ groups have more power! Lol. Nonetheless, all so called minority groups, who are truly the majority are still controled by the oligarchy, elitist, and egalitarianist…until native man realize and wake up they will never have any true power and will continue to be led like sheep to the slaughter and used for there massive consumership and spending patterns. America was over run with over 50 million natives before the pale man set footing there; south africa is majorily black but is still controll by the minority Dutch africaners, america has a black president but blacks are still treated as second class citizens and of whom has the worst societal prognosis. Conclusion: Lesson unlearned! Must minorities be visually gunned down in the streets for them to understand that they are the targets of an unjust system and prejudice?
I read the statistics.
Latino(a)s are the majority. For real US Change, minorities must stop continuous Democratic Voting. We are in Chicago, not South Africa. If Minorities want a just system, tell them to stop gunning each other down.
Frederick Douglass once said for blacks to not vest any interest into either party because their true interest is not at heart. Change should first start with intelligent progressive unlifting knowledge and intent not just change for the sake of change that continues to push groups like sheep over a mountaintop into the abyss. Have some been pushed down so much that they will accept anything that speaks of moving inches from the ground, even to their very detriment. I hope the next generation leaders can honestly provide solutions for decreasing minorities in the penal system, poor healthcare, social-economic poverty, low education toward gross self-defeative miseducation, responsibility, self emowerment, independence and freedom. We don’t need a new bunch of mercenaries and false prophets to replace the old ones. People need to be taught to be independent, self-reliant, positive, and free….certainly not under the clutches of newer owners! The old so-called leaders ruined future generations asking for civil rights…when they should have demanded
freedom! We are now bearing witness to unclear, clouded, illogical thinking, and the reversal of human rights strides. We need to put social constructs away like race and other unfathomables and engage in the total uplift of the one true race: The Human Race. At all cost!
By now, Blacks would have had Black Political Empowerment, if each Black had decided for himself/herself to support candidates from DIFFERENT POLITICAL PARTIES. Good grief, in 2011, some or most Blacks are still looking at preachers, politicians, leaders et. al. to tell them how to vote. This isn’t 1865, 1877 or 1900.
Regarding large number of minorities in the penal system, where are the parents, schools and religious teachers? With churches and/or mosques “everywhere”, crime should be non-existent in the Black Community.
I knew if I lived long enough young African Americans would take the Baton from those of us who have spent years trying to teach political education in our community. I agree whole heartly with your group and I am willing to share any information you may need. TJ Crawford is excellent .
I can be reached via telephone at 708-730-3397. Good Luck!!!
I was humbled that The Next Generation Leaders reached out to me to network, as I have added them to my agenda and they have added me to theirs and we are bring various factions of “next generation” leadership and groups together. Its a good first step where I learn from them, they learn from me and we learn and work together.
Generational change alone won’t get it. Who in the communities of color have benefited over the past twenty years and who did they support in previous elections and this years fiasco? That is a key question. The brother from the Green Party who mentioned class is on the right path. There are other questions: How do we build a grassroots political infrastructure powered by funding that the community provides? How do we use the new technologies to build a bottom up movement and communications sytem? Are there lessons taht can be learned from other parts of the world like the North Africa and South America?
Pushing forth younger politicians and activists with examination the structures that socialize and fund them is not meaningful change. It is like pulling off the flower of a dandelion and thinking you have done something.
How do I get on the mailing list for Next Generation Leaders Council? I definitely think this is needed and am willing to assist.
All the problems in the black community are a result of the absence of MANHOOD!
Who made Venus, Serena, Michael Jackson, Michael Jordan, and Tiger Woods??? ANSWER: STRONG BLACK FATHERS! Detroit was destroyed by the silly black politicians; like their dumb mayor who was removed from office!!!