CHICAGO MAYOR HAROLD WASHINGTON | City Council | December 1st and 2nd 1987 | Part 2 of 3

This is part 2 of a series of 3 recordings of the Chicago City Council on the evening of December 1st and the early morning of December 2nd, 1987.  The Council met to decide on the replacement of deceased Mayor Harold Washington, who died just before Thanksgiving, 6 months into his second 4-year term.  City Council had the power to name a replacement to serve as mayor until a required special election in early 1989, which was won by former Mayor Richard M. Daley who served from 1989 through 2010, and was succeeded in 2011 by Rahm Emanuel. Alderman Timothy Evans was the choice of the group of Harold Washington supporters who, in Chicago, were the roots of the ongoing 21st century Democratic Party progressive movement.  Evans was Washington’s choice to serve as Finance Committee Chairman (the most powerful City Council committee).  Evans was believed by this group to be the successor Mayor Washington would have wanted, had he named one.  Alderman Eugene Sawyer was the choice of a coalition of white and black, more conservative, aldermen.  Sawyer supporters included all of Harold Washington’s white City Council antagonists, and a group of several “old-school” black aldermen who formerly supported Washington out of racial solidarity, but did not openly espouse his progressive values.  The black defectors from Washington’s narrow 26-24 City Council majority helped elect Sawyer.        This 46 minute episode started at 11:45 PM and was recorded partially as commentary in the WMAQ newsroom, featuring Carol Marin, Ron Magers and Dick Kay and partially on the floor of the City Council.   It features a series of 2-minute interviews, with Aldermen Terry Gabinski (3:00), community organizer Marian Stamps (7:00), followed by Interim Mayor David Orr calling the City Council meeting to order (8:00).  Orr is assisted and advised by City Corporation Counsel Judson Miner and former alderman, parliamentarian, lawyer and political activist Leon Despres.  The remainder of the recording consists of a series of preliminary and procedural motions proposed and opposed by the Sawyer proponents led by  a skilled parliamentarian, Alderman Burton Natarus.  The remainder of the meeting is continued and concluded in part 3 of this series.  The last 6 minutes of this episode are repeated at the beginning of part 3. The original news coverage is from Chicago’s WMAQ TV news (NBC), and was later re-broadcast, in the early 1990s, on a local Chicago cable access TV station in a program assembled by the Chicago Bar Association.  These episodes were copied from tapes of those cable access TV programs.