The Democratic National Convention which is taking place this week in Chicago has placed the city’s mayor Brandon Johnson in a national spotlight. Johnson, a former schoolteacher and activist in the Chicago Teacher’s Union, has prepared the city not only for this week’s Convention but also for a week of protests focusing on the war in Gaza and the Biden administration’s continuing diplomatic, financial, and military support for the war.
The Democratic National Convention which is taking place this week in Chicago has placed the city’s mayor Brandon Johnson in a national spotlight. Johnson, a former schoolteacher and activist in the Chicago Teacher’s Union, has prepared the city not only for this week’s Convention but also for a week of protests focusing on the war in Gaza and the Biden administration’s continuing diplomatic, financial, and military support for the war. While this has drawn comparisons to the Democratic Convention that took place in Chicago in 1968 and that was marked by then-Mayor Richard Daley’s severe repression of protests against the Vietnam War — which a federal commission later described as a “police riot,” the contrast between the two conventions could not be stronger. Unlike Daley, who deployed troops of the Illinois Army National Guard as well as police against protestors in downtown Chicago, Johnson has met with protest organizers and has promised that
“I will do everything in my power to ensure that the First Amendment of all residents [which includes the constitutional guarantee of freedom of assembly], people of this country, remain intact.”
As early as January, Chicago became the largest city in the United States to call for a permanent ceasefire at a time when this was in direct contradiction with the Biden administration’s foreign policy; and the resolution passed in the Chicago City Council because Mayor Johnson cast the tie-breaking vote. More recently, in an interview with Mother Jones magazine, Johnson has explicitly said what few politicians in the United States are willing to acknowledge:
At a contentious January city council meeting marked by passionate speeches and so much heckling that an hour-long recess had to be called, the new mayor cast the tie-breaking vote on a 23-23 deadlock to approve a resolution calling for a permanent ceasefire in Gaza. More than 100 local governments have done so, but Chicago remains the largest by population.
If Johnson wasn’t mired in meetings with local and national lawmakers and law enforcement personnel ahead of the convention, it’s not crazy to envision a previous version of him among the activists painting picket signs to march near the convention site. His support for the city council resolution put him at odds with President Joe Biden and much of the rest of Democratic Party leadership, which has so far continued to supply Israel with military aid despite more than 40,000reported Palestinian deaths since the terrorist-group Hamas launched its October 7 attacks on Israel, killing 1,200 and capturing more than 240 hostages.
Johnson’s position on the conflict also goes well beyond that of freshly minted Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris, who has shown sympathy for Palestinian suffering but has also expressed “unwavering” commitment to Israel and its security. “What’s happening right now is not only egregious, it is genocidal,” Johnson, by contrast, says in our interview. “We have to acknowledge and name it for what it is and have the moral courage to exercise our authority.”