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For Black Voters, Local Elections Are a Matter of Life and Death
Just outside of Democratic Chicago, where I live, it’s Trumpland
There’s a saying in Illinois, among Black people of a certain age: Once you get 50 miles south of Chicago, you might as well be in Mississippi. My little hometown of Joliet sits just barely inside that 50-mile hot zone, and like all border cities, we have both the best and the worst of the political left and right.
Situated between big-city life in Chicago and the villages and farmland of the downstate, our town survived on factory jobs and small businesses — or it did until the 1980s, when the plants all closed and the jobs moved to exploit poor immigrant workers.
Like Chicago, our town was integrated in public spaces, but rigidly segregated in living and working spaces. Like Mississippi, some lunch counters and hotels and stores were “White only.” Except they didn’t hang up signs — you just had to remember which was which.
Chicagoans called us “hicks” and “country.” Downstaters called us “slick” and “citified.” The political divisions between us seem just as stark as the social ones — until you take a closer look, and see the common thread running through them.
