MAYOR’S PRESS OFFICE

CITY OF CHICAGO

Census Boards of Change

July 29, 2020

Good morning, everyone.

It’s wonderful to see so many people participating in this

truly inspiring effort.

First, let’s give another round of applause to Barrett

(Keithley) and Missy (Perkins) from Paint the City for
their incredible work.

I also want to give a big thanks to Sounding Boards . . .

And to the other many artists joining us today, who have

lent their talent and voices to Boards of Change.

I also want to acknowledge our City Council members

here with us, including Alderman Ariel Reboyras for his
leadership on the Census.

As well as Alderman Jeanette Taylor . . .

Alderman Leslie Hairston . . .

Page 1 of 17
 MAYOR’S PRESS OFFICE

CITY OF CHICAGO

And Alderman David Moore.

We also need to give a big thanks to FCB Global who

played a big part in getting this project off the ground and
bringing it to life.

And finally, I want to thank the President of the DuSable

Museum, Perri Irmer, for hosting us . . . and for her
passionate commitment to our city and keeping the stories
of our communities relevant and alive.

As we heard from our other speakers, this moment is

about bringing change, but it really began two months
ago, when we all watched the video of four Minneapolis
police officers taking the life of a truck driver and security
guard named George Floyd.

Evoking collective trauma and righteous outrage across

our city and our country.

Here in Chicago, the murder of George Floyd triggered

memories of Laquan McDonald. Quintonio LeGrier.
Rekia Boyd. Jon Burge. And ongoing racial violence and
institutional injustice that stretches as far back as a least a
century to the Red Summer of 1919.
Page 2 of 17
 MAYOR’S PRESS OFFICE

CITY OF CHICAGO

That pain and that righteous anger brought thousands into

our city’s streets in a mass call for change. Change that
would bring respect. Dignity. And freedom to Black
Americans and all people who have been subjected to the
same racist system of inequity and injustice.

Those thousands gave purpose to their pain through the

power of non-violent protest towards social change.
However, unfortunately, tragically, a subsect of people
chose to use those protests for their own selfish
destruction and violence.

As I said then, while I will always support and uplift

what’s right, I will also strongly condemn what’s wrong.
And the violence and destruction we witnessed against
our neighborhoods and our values was unequivocally
wrong.

Our residents deserve to be safe.

Our businesses and property deserve to be safe.

And our police officers deserve to be safe.

Page 3 of 17
 MAYOR’S PRESS OFFICE

CITY OF CHICAGO

Out of that dark time came many glimmers of light.

Beacons that turned the blighted into beauty.

Many of our city’s buildings and storefronts began putting

up boards like these. They were jarring at first, but it
wasn’t long before they began to transform from symbols
of pain into a canvas for change, filled with artwork,
messages, and voices of our communities.

They became acts of protest and uplift in their own right

because they were themselves symbols of rights for
others.

They were acts of protest because, like protests, they

served to lift voices and prick our consciousness against
racial and economic inequality and injustice.

But they also stood as symbols of our power and our

aspirations and our necessity to be better.

They speak to this moment and the reality of the power of

the artists in our community to really mirror and push us
to be our better selves.

Page 4 of 17
 MAYOR’S PRESS OFFICE

CITY OF CHICAGO

Now there will be some who see me standing here today

before these power and beautiful works of art who will be
appalled. Who believe that I—the Mayor—have given
over my power to criminals. To terrorists. Pandering in
this moment of unrest.

Still others will think that my presence signifies nothing

because the moment is so much bigger than mere paint on
a board.

To both groups, I say: Fear not. Release your anger, and

think about the opportunities that this moment presents to
all of us to rethink our notions of community.

Of fairness.

Of what it means to be each other’s neighbors.

Or, as Gwendolyn Brooks said, to be “each other’s

business.”

I see one of my key responsibilities as mayor in this

moment to listen, but also to remind us of all that binds us
together.

Page 5 of 17
 MAYOR’S PRESS OFFICE

CITY OF CHICAGO

We are not warring factions. And we will not survive if

we retreat to our neutral corners.

We will only survive, we will only move forward and use

this moment to transform our city and the notion of what
it means to be a Chicagoan, if we find the common thread
that binds us together. Because it’s only together that we
will move forward as a better, greater, and fairer city than
we ever have been before.

That destiny is within our grasp if we use this moment to

find common ground and come together.

This week, our nation is celebrating the life of one of the

embodiments of our power to be better, Representative
John Lewis.

“Good Trouble” John Lewis.

“Necessary Trouble” John Lewis.

Page 6 of 17
 MAYOR’S PRESS OFFICE

CITY OF CHICAGO

The man who advanced our democracy by engaging

directly with it through sit-ins, Freedom Rides, and
protests also knew that advancing our democracy
demanded more than a change in our beliefs, but taking
that energy and charging it into engagement in our courts.

In our legislation.

In our public dialogue.

In our public institutions.

And in our ballot boxes.

All of which John Lewis help make possible for Black

and brown Americans.

We talk a lot about Democracy in our country, and even

in our fractured age, the power of Democracy is still real.
The power that transforms lives for the better. But only if
we embrace one of its key tenants, and that’s equality for
all.

Page 7 of 17
 MAYOR’S PRESS OFFICE

CITY OF CHICAGO

In talking about Democracy, we have to remember that

rather than being an end in itself, it is, in fact, a means to
something greater.

It is, in a sense, an argument that says: The best means to

enabling our society’s success is by providing all its
members an equal opportunity to unlock their own
individual God-given talent through their hard work.

But that first argument is dependent on a second that is

deeper and more profound.

And that is the belief in universal equality.

That we—the people—are all created equal in God’s

sight. And in being created equal, we are all endowed
with same, unalienable rights as equals.

Here in our country, that’s meant the rights of life, liberty

and pursuit of happiness—as we’ve heard intoned so
many times before.

Page 8 of 17
 MAYOR’S PRESS OFFICE

CITY OF CHICAGO

Though we’ve failed in fulfilling that ideal throughout our

history, the power and promise in our nation’s enduring
experiment with democracy is nonetheless rooted in that
still revolutionary ideal.

An ideal that entails the right to be heard and the right to

be counted. And respecting the rights of others to have the
same.

Democracy—at its core—represents our shared

acknowledgement of our shared humanity.

In doing so, it follows that a true democracy must also

be—by definition—a full democracy. And that denying
those rights to any part of our society not only denies the
fullness of democracy, but rejects our shared humanity,
and makes us the lesser for it.

But Democracy’s argument demands something from us

as well, and that’s engagement.

Engagement with our public institutions.

Engagement with our elected officials.

Page 9 of 17
 MAYOR’S PRESS OFFICE

CITY OF CHICAGO

With the public dialogue.

With the facts.

With reality.

And, above all, engagement with each other.

Passionate, robust engagement with each other. But

respectful engagement.

I’m saying all this because we are meeting at a moment

when our Democracy is under siege from multiple
directions.

To those who think I’m referring to President Trump and

his brazen corruption and attack on our institutions, I’ll
save you the suspense: I am.

But the siege I’m speaking about is about more than just
him. It’s more than just about one man—even though he
is very much a symptom of the cause.

Our Democracy is under siege because we are losing the

engagement Democracy demands in alarming ways.
Page 10 of 17
 MAYOR’S PRESS OFFICE

CITY OF CHICAGO

This includes people losing confidence in our “small D”

democratic institutions.

Too many people feel their government isn’t engaged

with them. That government doesn’t work for them, and
doesn’t respond to their daily struggles. So they, in turn,
find other outlets for engagement.

And I will say, as an elected leader, I understand that

concern, and we must do better to ensure that everything
we do in government reflects the lived experience of our
residents every single day.

They must have confidence that we hear them.

It was this sense of disengagement that spurred the

revolution that forged our nation two centuries ago.

Earlier this month we marked the 244th anniversary of our

Declaration of Independence. And a few moments ago, I
alluded to the part we all know, which is the preamble
that begins the second paragraph.

Page 11 of 17
 MAYOR’S PRESS OFFICE

CITY OF CHICAGO

But the part that has a special resonance today is the other
part of the Declaration. The part we all forget, which is
the litany of grievances against King George III.

In reading that part you get is a sense of disaffection and

disconnection of people from their government. Of a
people who felt their voices weren’t heard and weren’t
being fully counted.

But our Democracy isn’t only under siege just because of

these issues. It’s under siege from disengagement that we
feel one from another.

We are no longer engaging with each other in a

democratic way.

That is something that should be an alarm, a challenge,

and an opportunity for all of us.

Democracy requires us to engage in a public square,

where we can debate and find the facts and the arguments
to persuade. It requires us to build coalitions and find
common ground.

Page 12 of 17
 MAYOR’S PRESS OFFICE

CITY OF CHICAGO

What Democratic engagement doesn’t mean is who

screams the loudest.

It doesn’t mean issuing a set of demands and then

villainizing anyone who doesn’t immediately pledge
allegiance to your particular manifesto.

If Democracy fundamentally represents our shared

acknowledgement of our shared humanity, then our
Democracy will utterly fail if cease to see that humanity
in each other.

Our democracy is under siege because our public

increasingly conflates community engagement with
social-media snark.

When we limit our means of public engagement and

public dialogue to a mere 140 characters, behind
anonymous monikers or on other forms of social media,
we deepen the divides and burn the bridges that lead us to
solutions.

We’ll get what we’ve seen: conspiracy theories, targeted

misinformation campaigns, and pure hatred.

Page 13 of 17
 MAYOR’S PRESS OFFICE

CITY OF CHICAGO

Our children are watching. What they need to see is that

there’s no substitute for direct engagement and actually
having a conversation and understating another point of
view and tolerating difference.

Make no mistake, this toxic environment is fomented by

extremes on the right and the left, neither of which leave
room for compromise, which is one of pillars of
Democracy.

Compromise is not a dirty word. It’s not complicity or

capitulation. Compromise for the 244 years of this
experiment in democracy is the most important tool that
we have to find common ground and get to solutions that
advance all of our interests together.

We always need to fight passionately for what we believe

in, but we also need to do so in ways that build bridges to
allow for people we disagree with to cross over to us, and
us to them.

It’s those bridges that we need to build on, and it’s that
spirit that finds us here now and brings us here today to
unveil these beautiful Boards of Change.

Page 14 of 17
 MAYOR’S PRESS OFFICE

CITY OF CHICAGO

When we think of the levers of our Democracy, we think

of the vote, free speech, organizing and equal protection
under the law.

And, this year, we also have a unique opportunity to have

our voices heard collectively through the Census. If you
don’t fill it out, you get left out.

If you’re not counted, you give your voice away to

someone else.

That’s because Democracy—at its core—is about more

than just being heard. It’s being counted—and continuing
to be counted—in any way we can.

For us to be represented, we need to be counted.

For us to receive our rightful share of federal funding, we

need to be counted.

Over the past few months, we’ve been doing everything

under the sun to make sure that happens.

These boards represent voices in communities who for too

long have been undercounted, or not counted at all.
Page 15 of 17
 MAYOR’S PRESS OFFICE

CITY OF CHICAGO

Over the coming weeks we’ll be taking them across our

neighborhoods to raise awareness and inspire democracy,
inspire people to act, and inspire people to be counted.

And the Census is only the start.

This simultaneous opportunity to engage with our

Democracy through the Census and through the vote in a
presidential cycle only happens every 20 years.

That’s why, as we move forward, these boards will also

become tools to inspire change through the power of the
vote.

Just as we’ll be doing with the Census, we’ll be having

teams on the ground, and in our communities helping
folks register to vote and go to the polls, and take
advantage of the opportunity to vote by mail.

Just as John Lewis did 50 years ago, and continued to do

so throughout his life.

Page 16 of 17
 MAYOR’S PRESS OFFICE

CITY OF CHICAGO

What the events of the past few months have revealed is

that while we may have come far from where we started,
we still have very far to go on this incredible journey in
democracy.

But this moment now—as fraught as it is—is also an

opportunity for us to channel this energy into
constructive, lasting democratic engagement.

These signs, this message, and this moment calls upon all
of us to fully account for ourselves as participants in our
Democracy, and our shared work in unlocking the full
power and potential that this moment gives us.

And I am incredible proud to be joining all of you here,

on the South Side, at the DuSable Museum, and in that
effort of a lifetime.

Thank you all. Thank you for being here. And Be Safe.

Page 17 of 17