Success Quote by Harold Washington

“Chicago is one city” isn’t civics-class sentimentality; it’s a hard-edged governing thesis from a mayor who knew exactly how fractured his city was. Harold Washington took office in 1983 as Chicago’s first Black mayor, inheriting a metropolis organized around race, ward politics, patronage, and the long shadow of the Daley machine. Declaring a single city is less descriptive than aspirational - and, crucially, strategic. It’s a bid to rewrite the default script: Chicago as a map of competing fiefdoms.

The repetition of “common” does the heavy lifting. Washington isn’t offering unity as a warm feeling; he’s framing it as a practical standard for power-sharing and policy. “Common good” invokes public interest over private advantage, a direct challenge to backroom deals and the idea that city government exists to distribute spoils. “Common goals” is even more pointed: it suggests measurable priorities, not just harmony, and implies that opponents are obstructing not him but the city’s progress.

Subtextually, it’s also a coalition pitch. Washington’s base was multiracial and reform-minded, but he faced fierce resistance from entrenched council blocs and anxious white ethnic neighborhoods. “We shall work” signals discipline and inevitability, a promise that participation is available but obstruction will be politically exposed. The line works because it doesn’t deny Chicago’s divisions; it tries to make them sound outdated, even embarrassing, next to the audacity of governing like a single public.