Achievements
In the early twentieth century many prominent African Americans were Chicago residents, including Republican and later Democratic congressman William L. Dawson (America’s most powerful black politician) and boxing champion Joe Louis. America's most widely read black newspaper, the Chicago Defender, was published there and circulated in the South as well.
After long efforts, in the late 1930s, workers organized across racial lines to form the United Meatpacking Workers of America. By then, the majority of workers in Chicago's plants were black, but they succeeded in creating an interracial organizing committee. It succeeded in organizing unions both in Chicago and Omaha, Nebraska, the city with the second largest meatpacking industry. This union belonged to the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO), which was more progressive than the American Federation of Labor. They succeeded in lifting segregation of job positions. For a time, workers achieved living wages and other benefits, leading to blue collar middle-class life for decades. Some blacks were also able to move up the ranks to supervisory and management positions. The CIO also succeeded in organizing Chicago's steel industry.
Blacks began to win elective office in local and state government. The first blacks had been elected to office in Chicago in the late nineteenth century, decades before the Great Migrations.
Chicago is home to three of four African-American US Senators who have served after Reconstruction. They are Carol Moseley Braun (1993-1999), current President Barack Obama (2005-2008), and Roland Burris (2009-2010), all Democrats.
Read more about this topic: History Of African Americans In Chicago
Famous quotes containing the word achievements:
“Like all writers, he measured the achievements of others by what they had accomplished, asking of them that they measure him by what he envisaged or planned.”
—Jorge Luis Borges (1899–1986)
“There are some achievements which are never done in the presence of those who hear of them. Catching salmon is one, and working all night is another.”
—Anthony Trollope (1815–1882)
“Our achievements speak for themselves. What we have to keep track of are our failures, discouragements, and doubts. We tend to forget the past difficulties, the many false starts, and the painful groping. We see our past achievements as the end result of a clean forward thrust, and our present difficulties as signs of decline and decay.”
—Eric Hoffer (1902–1983)