Mostly Black Chicago Ward Picks A White Alderman Who `Delivers'

CHICAGO - Determined to put more power in the hands of black voters, a federal court last summer redrew Chicago's ward boundaries. Tom Murphy winced when he got a look at the map.

"They had moved my house out of my ward," the veteran white alderman recalls. Soon, eight black rivals were running against him in the newly drawn ward, where eight voters in every 10 were black.

But on election night last month, the 45-year-old Murphy was all smiles - he had won, with considerable black support.

Civil-rights forces seem disconcerted by Murphy's victory. But his supporters say it could signal an easing of racial tensions in Chicago, where about 40 percent of the city's 2.7 million people are black.

"We have to get away from this color thing," says Roosevelt Hamilton, a 65-year-old federal retiree who says he won't vote for black candidates just because they are black and so is he.

"Alderman Murphy has done a lot for the 18th Ward. He has brought a library into our area. He has brought banks into our area. When we need to talk with him, he's Johnny on the spot. He gets the job done."

Mayor Richard M. Daley also was re-elected Feb. 23, carrying several predominantly black wards against Rep. Bobby Rush, a former Black Panther. Both results marked a sharp switch from the extreme racial polarization in the era of Harold Washington, Chicago's first black mayor.

White politicians have won in mostly minority Chicago areas before, usually where the racial makeup of a ward changed gradually. But Murphy won immediately after a redistricting aimed at getting a black candidate elected.

Civil-rights advocates, however, note that no black aldermen represent predominantly white wards on Chicago's 50-member City Council.

"This thing is being romanticized," says political consultant and civil-rights advocate Don Rose.

Murphy's ward was 54 percent black before the remap. Now, it's about 85 percent black. The east end is predominantly black; the west end blue-collar white ethnic.

Murphy won with 58 percent overall and claims his support among black voters topped 50 percent. Experts aren't so sure but agree that his black support was substantial.

"They couldn't have done it without significant support from the black community," says Loyola University political scientist John Pelissero.

The remap resolved a six-year court fight. Civil-rights forces claimed that Chicago's ward boundaries discriminated in a way that gave black voters 19 black aldermen when the population figures would suggest 20.

What the civil-rights forces didn't count on, though, was someone like Murphy, an eight-year veteran whose campaign slogan was "He delivers."

Murphy runs his ward in old-fashioned machine-style: public-payroll jobs for precinct captains and "community-service representatives" who fan out to befriend the voters with favors that pay off on Election Day.

On Monday night, ward residents visit Murphy's office and, behind closed doors, he listens to their problems.

"They want to see that their streets get resurfaced, they want to see that the sidewalks get done on their block, they want to see that the schools in their neighborhood are being improved," he says. "It can be anything from getting a tree cut down to having a car that's been left on the street towed away. And they come in looking for city jobs."

When Chicago was buried under a huge snowfall in January, Murphy fought to get every street in the ward plowed fast. Failure to do so has been known to cost Chicago officials their jobs, and Election Day was only weeks away. A black Murphy aide was pounding on doors, warning people to move their cars so they wouldn't get buried under newly plowed snow.

"That's when you really have to produce," Murphy says.

"If you don't produce, then . . ." He draws his index finger across his throat.