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• 1 2021-02-01T14:24:40-06:00 Race, Housing, and Poverty 45 plain 2021-07-01T12:41:08-05:00 Chicago’s ethnic and racial diversity helped make it the international city Daley celebrated. From World War I (1914-1918) onward, this diversity grew richer and more complex as hundreds of thousands of black Americans from the South moved to Chicago in search of better economic opportunities and freedom from the Jim Crow restrictions against their civil rights. In Chicago they found jobs, access to schooling, and some political representation.
  
  But black Chicagoans also found widespread discrimination. “Redlining”  and other practices shunted blacks into small, overcrowded ghettos on the city’s south and west sides. Black residents believed they did not enjoy the services and opportunities available to white Chicagoans. This de facto segregation, along with the related issues of poverty, proved difficult to resolve.
  
  James Compton, former president of the Chicago Urban League, reflects on race relations during Richard J. Daley's years as mayor:
  In 1966, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and his colleagues came to Chicago. Their goal was to work with like-minded activists to improve the conditions of urban slums, end housing discrimination, and expand access to public schooling.
  
  

  I was at the mayor’s office when Dr. King came in. What surprised me the most was – first, the room was filled with ministers, elected officials, his aides, and department heads, and people were talking – but when Dr. King came in, the silence he brought into that room and the command. And he was not a tall man. I was shocked, but I remember the quietness. As soon as he entered the room, it became quiet. And then he sat right across from my dad. They discussed the problems in the city that he came to address. And he said, “Dr. King, we’re willing to work with you, we will work this out.” And they came up with a plan, my dad and him. They announced it.
  
  John Daley, son of Richard J. Daley, interview excerpt, May 9, 2007

  
  

  It was a tough period in the ‘60s with the open housing marches in the middle 1960s. You had Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. marching on the southwest side, and the mayor was largely responsible for helping to develop the agreement that provided for open housing.
  
  James O’Connor, Executive at Commonwealth Edison, interview excerpt, July 22, 2014

  Some commentators believed that the city did not honor the promises made in that agreement. And as historian Arnold R. Hirsch has noted, critics also believed it was short on details. But the agreement did recognize a commitment to the principle of open housing for all Chicagoans.
  
  Andrew Young, former mayor of Atlanta who had worked with Dr. King,remembers that Mayor Daley helped sponsor a fundraising event for civil rights activists:
  Some steps the mayor took to address poverty and housing shortages were controversial, particularly the decision to use federal money to build high-rise public housing.
  

  And so I think his inspiration initially on public housing might have been right, to get people into new, in those days, new dwellings, even high-rise public housing. But also it was to make sure that the black and white problem was going to be contained within certain areas. As that public housing disintegrated, you could tell this was not the answer.
  
  Richard J. Durbin, United States Senator, interview excerpt, September 8, 2014

  Mayor Daley's son, Michael, explains one reason Chicago adopted high-rise public housing:

  I think that he was against high-rise housing all of the time. He didn’t think that the high-rise housing was a good idea.
  
  Newton Minow, Chair of Federal Communications Commission 1961-1963, interview excerpt, October 2, 2003

  The ones that bothered him were the high-rise public housing. He said, “Father, we had this problem and we went to the experts to ask what to do. And they told us to build these high-rise things. It was the biggest mistake I ever made. We would just pile a slum on a slum. And they were just terrible.” But that bothered him tremendously. But he said, “We didn’t know any better.” And most of them are gone now.
  
  Father Gilbert Graham, Daley Family Friend, interview excerpt, November 17, 2003

  Mayor Daley speaks at the groundbreaking for Lake Grove Village apartments, a site for affordable housing:
• 1 2021-02-01T14:53:14-06:00 Remembering the Mayor 37 plain 2021-07-01T12:01:47-05:00

  He was the right person for the job at the right time. There was a tremendous demand for housing, a demand for consumer products, and a demand for expansion, with office space and everything else. And that’s exactly as I saw Mayor Daley. That’s what he wanted to accomplish. He wanted to build Chicago. He wanted to make it better. He wanted to improve it, both through construction and through education. I think the only thing that trumped his interest in doing that was his devotion to his family. He was about as family oriented a person as I think that I have ever known.
  
  Lester Crown, Financier, interview excerpt, August 31, 2009

  He will always be seen as one of the great mayors, who took a very complex, complicated city in an extremely difficult time and made it a model for the nation and the world.
  
  Andrew Young, Mayor of Atlanta, interview excerpt, October 20, 2014

  I think he would like to be remembered as a man who ran a tight ship and a good city. He was proud of his Chicago.
  
  Wilson Frost, Alderman, interview excerpt, November 13, 2014

  Daley was liberal. He had some blind sides on some things, particularly on civil rights, and issues like education, and to some extent in housing. The public high-rises were an example. He was a governmental activist. He was calling me and saying, ‘Why aren’t you doing more on transportation?’ So, you say liberal, yes and no. He was the boss. But he was an old time, kind of new deal type of Democrat.
  
  Adlai Stevenson III, Illinois Politician, interview excerpt, July 9, 2003

  I saw a man--a mayor who, over time, began to lose the broader popularity that he once enjoyed as a mayor. Certainly that became true within the African American community, as the African American community was seeking more opportunities across the board, and more positive respoonse out of governnment.
  
  James Compton, civic leader, interview excerpt, August 10, 2010

  When I think you look back in history as to where this city was in the 40’s and early 50’s and where it came out in 1976, it’s the city that it is now, and it’s set up now to only become a better city. And I think that foundation is what was started with my grandfather, and continued on with other mayors. But I think if those accomplishments hadn’t occurred during that time period you wouldn’t want to see what the alternative would be. So that pretty much sums up what I am most proud of.
  
  Mark G. Vanecko, grandson of Richard J. Daley, interview excerpt, July 9, 2014

  Overall, I’d give him an “A” for being the mayor. My test would be to compare Chicago with other major cities. Look around the country at major urban centers, during the sixties, seventies, and what happened. Clearly, if you look at New York, Detroit, Los Angeles, Washington D.C., and Cleveland, Chicago came through those years much better than anybody else. And I attribute that, for the most part, to the mayor. So I’d give him an “A” on that.
  
  Newton Minow, Chair of Federal Communications Commission, 1961-1963, interview excerpt, October 2, 2003

  The real burst of energy and the real growth of the city happened during Richard J. Daley’s term of office. I think his motivation at all times was because he loved the city. And I think he should be remembered that way. … He brought us out of the doldrums into one of the great cities of the world. I mean, everybody likes to talk about us as a world class city. He made us a world class city.
  
  Bernard Stone, Alderman, interview excerpts, July 1, 2010

  How would he like to be remembered? The mayor would have no time for this question. He lived in the present, accepted its challenges, and recognized limitations.
  
  Richard L. Curry, Corporation Counsel City of Chicago 1970-1974, interview excerpt, November 10, 2014

  Thomas Donovan, an assistant to Daley, recalls the many legacies of the mayor:

  [H]e was a very good mayor. The city became the city that works. But was he a visionary? I mean, did he understand what was happening in those housing projects? No. And I think he totally missed the school segregation issues....He was not an integrationist. He was not a civil libertarian. He was a creature of his environment, like we all are. He was a good administrator. He was not a visionary. He was not a theorist. He was a great political leader.
  
  Adlai E. Stevenson III, Illinois politician, interview excerpt, July 9, 2003

  State legislator Michael Madigan remembers Mayor Daley as the "master of his time":
  

  He was a great leader, a great person, and a kind and generous man. He was someone who cared about the city.
  
  Thomas Hynes, State Senator, interview excerpt, March 10, 2010

• 1 2021-02-01T14:24:51-06:00 1968: A Key Year 31 plain 2021-05-18T16:33:56-05:00

  I think 1968 was a key year, if not the most important, in recent history. And people forget how tense things were, how fluid. One of my memories from that week was being at home and seeing jets fly overhead. Military jets. And at the office, there were all these maps of the city laid out. There were maps like this of Vietnam, and now there were maps of Chicago. People forget how close the country was to tearing itself apart. Chicago suffered some of its worst race riots during the 1960s, most notably in April 1968 following the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr.
  
  William Daley, son of Richard J. Daley, interview excerpt, December 5, 2008

  The April 1968 riots

  In this audio clip, Joseph Fitzgerald, former Chicago Building Commissioner, remembers the riots:
  Ray Simon, Chicago corporation counsel under Mayor Daley, and the mayor's son, William, discuss Daley's controversial decisions during the riots:
   
  
  

  Democratic National Convention

  In 1968, Chicago hosted the Democratic National Convention at the International Amphitheater.
  
  Thousands demonstrated the week before and the week of the convention to protest the Vietnam War and the Democratic Party’s presumptive nominee, Hubert Humphrey. They and the Chicago police clashed on numerous occasions during this two-week period.
  Ray Simon presents the city's side of the dispute over where protestors would be allowed to demonstrate:
  

  Well, do you know what? Everybody played their parts. The mayor played his part. The police played their part. The protestors played their part. The media played their part. And it all blew up. The pot finally boiled over. It had been boiling and bubbling. And terrible things had happened around the world in 1968. The whole thing blew up and boiled over in Chicago for those five days. Nobody was killed. In his mind, the city didn’t riot. The outsiders rioted.
  
  William Daley, son of Richard J. Daley, interview excerpt, January 12, 2009

  I believe that some forward planning could have averted the disaster that happened. I don’t know.
  
  Newton Minow, Chair of Federal Communications Commission 1961-1963, interview excerpt, October 2, 2003

  
  

  After the convention, the mayor’s office was getting sacks upon sacks of mail. The sacks would probably fill this entire room with mail from around the country saying, “God bless you.”
  
  Ed Bedore, City Budget Director, interview excerpt, May 18, 2009

  The Eastern liberal media that came to Chicago to cover the convention didn’t like Daley. They didn’t like his reputation. But after the convention, Daley could never be defeated. The people of Chicago viewed him as standing up almost like a paterfamilias concept and protecting his city. And he truly did love Chicago, and he wanted nothing more than to be the mayor of Chicago. He could have been Secretary of HEW or whatever if he wanted to, but he never wanted to leave Chicago.
  
  Ed Burke, Alderman, interview excerpt, August 5, 2014

  
   
• 1 2021-02-01T14:00:19-06:00 A Union Man, A business Mayor 25 plain 2021-07-01T12:22:15-05:00 Mayor Daley came from a union family. His father was a lifelong member of the Sheet Metal Workers International Union, Local 73 in Chicago.

  He was a union man. But he wasn’t a coward with the unions. I sat in meetings where he was talking with union leaders. He’d say, “No. This is not good for business.” I can remember when we’d have meetings sometimes. People would want to come in and either establish a company or build something. He would call some of the business community in. And he’d say, “Look, you tell me whether this is good for Chicago or not. I’m going to leave the room. My criteria is that if it makes jobs, I’m for it. If it doesn’t make jobs, I’m against it.” And he’d leave. We’d sit and talk. Then he’d come back.
  
  A. Robert Abboud, First National Bank of Chicago, President, interview excerpt, December 3, 2009

  Ed Bedore recalls one negotiation between Mayor Daley's office and the Chicago Teachers Union:
  
  

  My dad had a great relationship with the business community in Chicago, and most of the people were Republicans. But he knew that for the city to be sound, you needed a good sound business community and a strong relationship with them. And they respected him and were very supportive of him on issues. They disagreed at other times, but he knew that he needed that base for different causes, whether it was the university or whatever. The business community helped him tremendously. It wasn’t just politicians.
  
  John Daley, son of Richard J. Daley, interview excerpt, May 9, 2007

  The business community, I think, always felt that if they had a problem, they could go to the mayor. The mayor would give them a fair hearing. And if he could help them, he would.
  
  Newton Minow, Chair of Federal Communications Commission, interview excerpt, October 2, 2003

  
  

  Did the mayor raise property taxes? Yes he did. What he also did was that he had this great relationship with the business community and the unions that built this downtown. They kept putting more and more millions of dollars on the tax rolls.
  
  Ed Bedore, City Budget Director, interview excerpt, May 18, 2009

• 1 2021-02-01T14:25:08-06:00 New Rules for the Democratic Party 17 plain 2021-07-16T14:22:20-05:00 In the months leading up to the 1972 Democratic National Convention, the Democratic Party, hoping to ensure greater minority representation, adopted new rules for how delegates to its convention would be chosen.
  
  When the convention opened in Miami Beach, Florida, the party refused to seat the fifty-nine Chicago delegates elected in the Illinois Democratic Party primary. Mayor Daley had slated those delegates, and the party leadership claimed that the slating process had violated the new rules. Instead, the party seated an alternate slate of delegates.
  

  Where I think he tended to make mistakes, it was that I think he had a fairly narrow group of advisors who were sometimes afraid of him and sometimes would be ‘yes’ men. I mean, somebody should have gone to the mayor and said, “These Democratic rules are a big problem. You’d better get on this thing.” Nobody did. Somebody should have gone to him before the convention and said, “You’re going to have a big problem here.” I don’t know that he welcomed some strong contrary advisors. But they certainly weren’t there. There was nobody who would say, “Mayor, you’re making a huge mistake here. Just wait a minute.” I don’t think he had that. So I think that was an error.
  
  Newton Minow, Chair of Federal Communications Commission 1961-1963, interview excerpt, October 2, 2003

  
  

  My dad was thrown out of the convention. But that did not stop him from helping the McGovern candidacy. And I think if you look at it, Cook County was one of the few counties that had any activity for him after the convention for McGovern, and one of the few counties that carried him in the 1972 election. As I look back that changed the party and brought a number of new people and great diversity to the party.
  
  John Daley, son of Richard J. Daley, interview excerpt, May 9, 2007