The Snowstorm That Fired Chicago's Mayor

The Snowstorm That Fired Chicago's Mayor In January 1979, Chicago's L trains started running express past stations in Black neighborhoods, and a month later those neighborhoods helped vote Mayor Michael Bilandic out of office. The 1979 Chicago blizzard dropped 20.3 inches on the city, but the snow is only part of the story. We go back to December 1976, when alderman Wilson Frost was told the keys to the mayor's office couldn't be found and Bilandic took Richard J. Daley's chair. Then we follow the storm, the $90,000 snow plan written by Daley's former deputy mayor, the CTA express runs, and the Valentine's Day speech that made the front page. Jane Byrne won the 1979 Chicago mayoral primary with Black, lakefront and Northwest Side voters behind her. Four years later, the Black voters she'd turned on helped make Harold Washington Chicago's first Black mayor.