CHICAGO (WBBM NEWSRADIO) — What happens when the folks who’ve marched on the castle with torches and pitchforks are invited in and given the keys to the kingdom? Mayor Brandon Johnson, the former Chicago Teachers Union organizer, admitted it can give a person pause.
The mayor was invited to speak at Roosevelt University earlier this week, where he discussed his first months in office. He participated in a panel discussion afterward, which is where one of the participants asked him about being someone who would protest the actions of the government — and now finds himself the target of such protests and criticisms.
“I hate that I’m going to admit this; sometimes when I see the interaction and the attention at City Council, and I’m on the dias, you know what I’m really thinking? ‘When I was organizing, we did it like this. Y’all not even doing it right,’” said Johnson.
As an organizer and activist, Johnson was once blocking City leaders from taking the elevators to the fifth floor of City Hall, the very building Johnson now manages.
“I just want to lift that up because I don’t want anyone to think that, somehow, I’m mayor of Chicago because we knocked on some doors, and we gave some speeches, and we raised some money,” he said. “I’m mayor of Chicago because there was real struggle and tension even within the movement to get to the point where we were able to push back against the power structure.”
When it comes to seeing himself as a target for current activists, Johnson said he still thinks there are “a couple of major targets here.”
The mayor told students and others at the Roosevelt University event that the key, for him, is how he relates to those other targets — who must now come to him as the City of Chicago’s representative.
One of the biggest challenges facing Johnson has been the so-called “migrant crisis.” People seeking asylum in the U.S. have been flowing over the southern border, and the governor of Texas has been leading efforts to send the migrants mostly to sanctuary cities, such as Chicago.
During the West Side event, Johnson was asked about what he wants to see from the Biden Administration as busloads of migrants continue to arrive from Texas and elsewhere.
“There has to be better coordination. What we’ve seen is a very raggety form instituted by right-wing extremism,” he said. “Everyone knows that right-wing extremism has targeted [Democrat]-ran cities and, quite frankly, they’ve been very intentional about going after [Democrat]-led cities that are run by people of color. Their whole motivation is to create disruption and chaos.”
Former Texas Republican Congresswoman Mayra Flores, though, who was visiting Chicago, blamed Democrats like Johnson for letting the plight of the migrants threaten the quality of life for longtime residents.
“Americans right now are struggling to pay their rent, their mortgage, to bring food to the table, and we’re spending $450 billion in housing illegal immigrants,” Flores said. “It’s not right. It’s not right, what we’re doing to the American people.”
She taunted Johnson and suggested that he doesn’t have the guts to demand stronger borders from the president.
Hear more about how leadership can shape a person’s views of a world in crisis on WBBM/’ At Issue program Sunday at 9:30 p.m.
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