University of Pennsylvania ScholarlyCommons Publicly Accessible Penn Dissertations 1-1-2015 Policing, Race, and Politics in Chicago Peter Constantine Pihos University of Pennsylvania, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: http://repository.upenn.edu/edissertations Part of the African American Studies Commons, Public Policy Commons, and the United States History Commons Recommended Citation Pihos, Peter Constantine, "Policing, Race, and Politics in Chicago" (2015). Publicly Accessible Penn Dissertations. 1948. http://repository.upenn.edu/edissertations/1948 This paper is posted at ScholarlyCommons. http://repository.upenn.edu/edissertations/1948 For more information, please contact [email protected]. Policing, Race, and Politics in Chicago Abstract Policing, Race, and Politics in Chicago asks how local political institutions structured the relationship between race and policing in Chicago. It follows Renault Robinson, the Afro-American Patrolmen’s League, and their allies, as they challenged both a political order in which black politicians and voters played critical roles and a Police Department that had the most black officers of any in the United States by the early 1960s. Their cta ivism impelled recognition that Richard J. Daley’s Democratic Party and city government simultaneously incorporated and subordinated black urbanites. Daley’s political monopoly forced the League to seek leverage outside of local electoral politics, through tactics that included citizen monitoring, legal challenges, alliances with state and federal political actors and institutions, and, ultimately, political revolt. The rise of “law and order” among police officers in the mid-1960s was only half of a more complicated story in Chicago. League members challenged their colleagues and the blue wall of silence by working with black communities and police reform activists. They ap rticipated in the creation of a network of organizations, the institutionalization of which increased the capacity of citizens to monitor police behavior. They also engaged the federal government, whose transfer of federal funds to state and local criminal justice agencies was more than a catalyst for punitive policies. The League’s efforts to use Title VI to compel civil rights compliance produced more robust federal civil rights enforcement and this, in turn, transformed local personnel practices. Finally, their struggle over policing provided a wedge issue for black politicians to break from the regular Democrats. Robinson and the League facilitated this transition from politics to protest, playing key roles in forging an insurgent movement to defeat the machine. Despite their success in Harold Washington’s epic 1983 mayoral victory, their experience tracked growing intra-racial stratification. Even as the Mayor sought to deliver greater public safety to his constituents, federal fiscal hostility and local white intransigence, limited his options. His reliance on more intensive policing of drugs as a vehicle to stem gang-motivated homicides began a local war on drugs with devastating consequences for black communities. Degree Type Dissertation Degree Name Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) Graduate Group History First Advisor Sarah B. Gordon Keywords Afro-American Patrolmen's League, Black Politics, Chicago Police Department, Chicago Politics, Harold Washington, Renault Robinson This dissertation is available at ScholarlyCommons: http://repository.upenn.edu/edissertations/1948 Subject Categories African American Studies | Public Policy | United States History This dissertation is available at ScholarlyCommons: http://repository.upenn.edu/edissertations/1948 POLICING, RACE, AND POLITICS IN CHICAGO Peter Constantine Pihos A DISSERTATION in History Presented to the Faculties of the University of Pennsylvania in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy 2015 Supervisor of Dissertation __________________________ Sarah Barringer Gordon Arlin M. Adams Professor of Constitutional Law and Professor of History Graduate Group Chairperson __________________________ Benjamin Nathans, Ronald S. Lauder Endowed Term Associate Professor of History Dissertation Committee Walter Licht, Walter H. Annenberg Professor of History John MacDonald, Professor of Criminology and Sociology Thomas J. Sugrue, Professor of Social and Cultural Analysis and History at New York University POLICING, RACE, AND POLITICS IN CHICAGO COPYRIGHT 2015 Peter Constantine Pihos This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution- NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 License To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-ny-sa/2.0/ To Michael B. Katz (April 13, 1939 – August 23, 2014) iii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS In the fall of 2006, Bill Novak was kind enough to spend an hour or so discussing history graduate school with me. Among the other things he told me was that I would not be able to find a better committee anywhere than Michael Katz, Tom Sugrue, and Sally Gordon at the University of Pennsylvania. Bill Novak is a smart guy. I have many lasting memories of Michael B. Katz, to whom this dissertation is dedicated. The one that I cherish most comes from the last time I had lunch with him, in a Vietnamese restaurant off Baltimore Avenue in West Philadelphia on December 23, 2013. While Michael was already undergoing treatment for the cancer that would take his life, he showed the same zest to be out in his city, listening carefully, and sharing freely of his knowledge and experience. Michael was a critical scholar in the best tradition and yet, one of the most important lessons he taught me was the priority of understanding over critique. He believed that criticism is often the easy way out; scholarship, like life, is messy and imperfect. His question always was what can we learn from it and what can we do with it? It is this lesson, above all else, that I hope comes through in this dissertation, in my teaching, and in my life. Even before Sally Gordon took over my committee, I felt a profound debt to her as a scholar and a person. That’s not exactly right, though, for Sally effaces the common distinction that we make between the work and its human embodiment. Her extraordinary empathy crosses these boundaries. Sally’s moving work on how religious outsiders have tried iv to make a place for themselves in the American constitutional order speaks to the broader ethical ordering of her life. I feel privileged to be a part of it. One of the great pleasures any 20th century American historian can have is an hour or two talking history with Tom Sugrue. It is not merely that few people know as much about things that interest me as Tom; rather, it is his infectious joy and curiosity, and his ability to see things as few others do. Tom’s example as a scholar asking vital questions about race, power, and cities has profoundly shaped what I do and how I think. I consider myself quite lucky for the various ways in which Walter Licht showed up in my academic career as a teacher: first, schooling me in American capitalism; then in a wonderful semester as his teaching assistant; critiquing and challenging the proposal on which this dissertation was based. Thank you, Walter, for your unceasing enthusiasm for my work and for the way in which you have supported countless others. We notice. John MacDonald was gracious to join this committee in its final stages. I look forward to a continuing dialogue with him as I try to continue to master some of the complex questions about crime and policing at the heart of this dissertation. None of this work would have been possible without funding from the University of Pennsylvania, including a dissertation completion grant from the School of Arts and Sciences. I also benefitted from a fellowship at Harvard Law School during 2012-2013, and from the tutelage of Tomiko Brown-Nagin, Ken Mack, Jed Shugerman, and Bruce Mann, among others. Librarians at the Chicago Public Library Municipal Reference Collection and Special Collections, the University of Illinois at Chicago, and the University of Chicago, offered repeated assistance. v Many friends and colleagues assisted me throughout the process of writing this dissertation. Early on, I met a quartet of women also writing about the history of criminal justice in New York City. Elizabeth Kai Hinton, Jessica Neptune, Meghan Stubbendeck, and Logan McBride, all provided friendship, encouragement, and inspiration. Special thanks goes to Rachel Guberman and Sean Dempsey, who helped me to keep focused in the dog days. Julilly Kohler-Hausman has offered invaluable wisdom and good cheer on a number of occasions, as has Anne Fleming. My debts to Adam Goodman cannot be repaid, since I continually run up a tab on his extraordinary bigheartedness. My students and their curiosity are the reason that the life I have chosen is meaningful. Thanks are due to many and, in particular, to the men of DS12 and DS13. Over the past three semesters, many Duke freshman have enlivened my days and deepened my appreciation for the privilege it is to try and convince young people that doing history can change their understanding of the world. Though they may not see their influence directly in these pages, this dissertation begins and ends with my families, who have supported me in all ways. I continually marvel at great good fortune I had in acquiring the Heims and Franceschettis, who have been such an important part of the last 16 years of my life. Tante grazie a voi. My own family seems to multiply with big men and little men each year: John, Cary, Kosta, Markos, Nikitas, and Dean—can I say more than this list of names does? As to you who have been there for all time, Mom and Dad, Deanna and Andria: As Marilynne Robinson has said, we intimately know from the death of our beloved brother and son, Michael William Pihos, “All love is in vi great part affliction.”1 And, it is so much more. The six of us have shared both the joys and sorrows.