Results tagged “chicagomayors”

Believe it or not, there was a time in the 70s and 80s when a Daley wasn't running the city of Chicago. We broke some barriers during that time period, too, when we saw the first African American mayor, Harold Washington, elected as well as his predecessor, Jane Byrne, who was the first and only woman to serve as Mayor of Chicago and was elected on this day, April 3, in 1979. Byrne was no stranger to Chicago politics when she ran for office -- while working to help get John F. Kennedy elected in 1960, she met Mayor Richard J. Daley and in 1968 Daley made Byrne the head of Chicago consumer affairs. She kept that job until Mayor Bilandic -- who took over after Daley's death in 1976 -- fired her. Byrne apparently took the firing personally, and started campaigning to beat Bilandic in the mayoral primary. With the help of Bilandic majorly botching the city's handling of the Blizzard of '79, Byrne defeated him and went on to win the general election.

With Franklin Delano Roosevelt's name being bantered about more these days, what with the comparisons of his New Deal and the current economic stimulus, we thought we would take a look at the 44th Mayor of Chicago, Anton "Tony" Cermak, who died from a gun shot wound 76 years ago today. Had Cermak not taken a bullet intended for the then President-elect, Grandma and Grandpa wouldn't be getting their Social Security checks and we never would have had the chance to watch FDR's delightful fireside chats on television.