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AUSTINWEEKLY news ■
Vol. 33 No. 5
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You’re invited to an election forum like no other on Feb. 7,
January 30, 2019
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PAGE 5
R Remembering b i Vater Fite, page 8
County pol eyes Medicare for All
Brandon Johnson looking at progressive taxes, as well By MICHAEL ROMAIN Editor
Brandon Johnson, the Austin resident and former Chicago Public Schools teacher, pulled off a narrow, seemingly unlikely, victory against incumbent Richard Boykin to win the 1st District Cook County Commissioner seat by running well to the left of his opponent. Now that he’s been sworn-in, the veteran organizer is poised to be the most vocally progressive member of the Cook County Board of Commissioners. “There’s opportunity for real, bold progressive ideas to come from the county level of government,” Johnson said in his first interview with Austin Weekly News since taking office. The former Chicago Teachers Union organizer said that he’s still committed to many of the most ambitious proposals he called for while on the campaign trail — proposals, he said, that he’s advocated for years as an organizer and activist. Top of the list are ways of redistributing revenue that has been hoarded by wealthy individuals and corporations, so that it equitably flows to its highest and best use, he indicated. “There’s a whole host of things the district can benefit from with a progressive revenue See JOHNSON on page 9
BONNIE McKEOWN/Contributor
SAGE COMPANY: Rep. Danny K. Davis; Rev. Colleen Vahey, pastor of Third Unitarian Church; historian and guest speaker Timuel Black; and church member Betty Harris after Black’s talk at Third Unitarian on Jan. 20.
Needed: More community activism
Timuel Black, at 100, shares lessons from Civil Rights movement during Jan. 20 talk By BONNI McKEOWN Contributing Reporter
If you ask Timuel Black, who has just turned 100 years old, he’ll say we need more community activism of the kind he witnessed in the Civil Rights movement over 60 years ago. Black spoke on Jan. 20 at Austin’s Third Unitarian/Universalist Church, 301 N.
Mayfield Ave., about his new book Sacred Ground: The Chicago Streets of Timuel Black. The energetic South Side historian said he dedicated his life to improving the human condition after serving in the U.S. Army in World War II in Normandy and the Battle of the Bulge. After viewing the Buchenwald concentration camp after the Nazi execution of 6 million Jews, witnessing ra-
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cial discrimination in the Army and learning the U.S. had killed millions of Japanese by dropping the atom bomb, Black said that he mused that there must be a better way. Born Dec. 7, 1918, in Birmingham, Ala., Black was an infant when his family came to Chicago in 1919 the summer of the Chicago race riot, as part of the first Great MiSee BLACK on page 4
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