Abstract
This thesis will examine the political work done by Chicago Black Power advocates to elect the largest number of black politicians to the city government in its history during the 1970s and 1980s. Focusing through the lens of four organizations, the Chicago-Area Friends of SNCC, the Illinois Black Panther Party, the Citizens Schools Committee, and the Original Rainbow Coalition, black power activists worked inside and outside of traditional civil rights organizations to launch their political campaigns or to support the candidacies of other black politicians. By engaging in voter drives, political education programs, and by building multi-racial and ethnic coalitions that were grounded in class solidarity, black activists built a powerful voting bloc that created a new black political elite, independent of political party control. The contributions of black power advocates and their allies over the course of a decade dismantled the political domination of the Democratic Party Machine and provided new strategies that future black politicians would follow in electoral politics locally and nationally for decades to come.