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The Hat Versus Pat
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Politics is theater. Dorothy Tillman knows that. She's dressed for the part in an impossibly bright yellow and black suit with a matching wide brimmed hat. But there's a problem. Dorothy Tillman has lost her voice.
TILLMAN: Okay I'm going to try to talk to you.
GLINTON: Your voice doesn't sound too good.
TILLMAN: I have a little virus
Friends and foes alike say the same thing. This race is Tillman's toughest. And that may be part of the reason she's lost her voice. It's because she's been out hitting the streets. And I thought I'd do the same thing.
GLINTON:I'm standing here on the corner of 47th and King Drive. 47th and King Drive is spiritual one of the hearts of the black community on the south side, historically atleast. You can see all the promise and problems of the third ward. I'm about to go into Glamorama the barber shop. I'm going to see if I can talk to some people inside of here
JOHNSON: My name is Desiree Johnson and I'm a hairstylist. Okay look at 47th street. Yes it came a long way but still. Look at the crime. Look at the neighborhood. If you ask me nothing much has changed. Besides they put a few new buildings up. You got the theater right there. But what does it do when still you got a thousand people outside in front of them selling drugs. What have you really accomplished.
But it's not just residents of the ward who are paying attention. There are a lot of people paying attention to this race. Guess who I ran into walking down 47th street.
GLINTON: Is that Congressman Jackson? What are you doing in this neck of the woods?
JACKSON Campaigning for Pat Dowell, the next alderman of the third ward.
GLINTON: Why?
JACKSON: She's bright. She's intelligent, articulate, clearly represents the voice of change for the people of the third ward.
I ran into Jesse Jackson Junior, as I was on the way to meet Pat Dowell. The one word you'd use to describe her is tall...basketball player tall...tall and well determined. That's the sound of me trying to keep up with her as we head to her SUV....
SOUND
One of Tillman's biggest knocks against Dowell is that she's being manipulated by outside forces like Jackson. Dowell answers the claim on a white knuckle ride to the western edge of the ward.
DOWELL: I live in the community. I've lived in the community since 1998. I've worked in the community for longer. So, I'm not an outsider. I'm someone whose deeply invested in this community. And who's running because change is needed. And the alderman isn't doing anything.
One of the main issues in the third ward is organized labor. The unions have staked out this race. Why? In part as retribution for Tillman's vote against the so called big box ordinance. The unions have been dumping money in races around the city. Targeting vulnerable Alderman who didn't support a measure which would have boosted the minimum wage for large retailers. And Tillman's challenger...Pat Dowell has been the beneficiary of the labor unions largesse.
DOWELL: The union issue is a smoke screen. It's not the important issue. Dorothy's not running against the union. Dorothy is running against Pat Dowell. Who's running to make change in the ward. And a ward where people want change.
GLINTON: How much union money have you got?
DOWELL: Approximately $147,000 that's the amount that's in the papers. So, I imagine that that's accurate.
Give or take few thousand dollars that is about right. It's also most of the money she's raised in the campaign. But Dowell isn't the only candidate getting money from outside the ward. A political action committee controlled by Mayor Daley has funneled thousands of dollars to Tillman. Money she needs in her struggle to prove herself, again, to voters.
TILLMAN: I have leadership, integrity. And we're building off our records. You know, we have worked hard in this community, to rebuild this community businesses for black people, a community that everyone wants to come into now.
But the ward just isn't the same as when Tillman took control in the early 80's. Since then the Chicago Housing Authority has torn down the Robert Taylor homes...forcing many out of the ward. They've been replaced in part
by black urban professionals whov've returned to neighborhoods like Bronzeville and the Gap, in part because of their closeness to downtown, the beauty of the housing stock and the history.
GLINTON: When I talk to people, the people who say they're not going to vote for you. They say, "we respect Alderman Tillman". But one of the criticisms is...that they say, "she's good for the movement. She was good twenty years ago." Everyone respects and knows that you marched with Martin Luther King. And they know that you stood up in the city council in the mid-eighties to um...
TILLMAN: But I also built a community for them to move in. They wouldn't be here if wasn't here. That's it my voice is gone.
So, Dorothy Tillman has lost her voice. And in the next week or so she'll have to hit the streets and spend more time in the elements. Because she surely knows that Pat Dowell will be following right behind her.
I'm Sonari Glinton, Chicago Public Radio.
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