Mayor Richard J Daley Quotes

Mayors Richard J. Daley, Michael Bilandic, and Jane Byrne all relied on the votes of solidly Democratic South Shore to be elected, but life grew no better for Ida Mae. Ida Mae and other black residents had the highest hopes that their concerns might be heard when Harold Washington was elected mayor in 1983, but his election was so fraught with racial tension and his tenure so embattled that they could not look to him for much more than historic symbolism, which had a certain value but did not make their streets safer. Then Washington died unexpectedly at the start of his second term.

In his memoirs, Nixon explains why he decided not to contest the Illinois results. He was concerned that a challenge to the legitimacy of a presidential race would have hurt the nation’s standing in the world, he says. Perhaps more sincere was the other reason he gave: his concern that if he did contest the result “[c]harges of ‘sore loser’ would follow me through history and remove any possibility of a further political career.