His heroes are Martin Luther King Jr., Toussaint Louverture and his mother.

His admiration for King marks Lionel Jean-Baptiste, the newest alderman on the Evanston City Council, as a true son of the ’60s and the civil rights movement. Louverture, a Haitian liberator, reveals Jean-Baptiste’s cultural heritage as clearly as his name. And the alderman’s mother, a determined immigrant who raised six strong children, testifies to his belief that “nothing is beyond any human being.”

Although coming from different eras, backgrounds and levels of prominence, each of his heroes shares the distinction of, in their own way, having fought the good fight. Much like Jean-Baptiste himself.

From protesting in high school and college, to teaching in the projects, to his new role replacing Dennis Drummer as Second Ward alderman, the 51-year-old Jean-Baptiste has been involved in the fight for racial and economic equality since his teens.

“Nothing happens because people are good enough to be equitable,” he said. “It’s a fight. And I’m part of that.”

‘The community deserved to have him’

Jean-Baptiste was inaugurated as Second Ward alderman on April 26, three weeks after winning a landslide election with 84 percent of the vote. With the oath of office he became the first Haitian elected to public office in Illinois and the only new face on the nine-member City Council.

Alderman wasn’t a title he was eager to take at first. About a year before the election then-Ald. Dennis Drummer approached Jean-Baptiste at a community meeting and told him that, after 17 years on the council, he was retiring. Jean-Baptiste should run for his seat, he said.

Jean-Baptiste was reluctant. He felt more comfortable with behind-the-scenes community organizing, and besides, with a family, a law practice and a plethora of other community positions, did he really have the time? He politely declined the alderman’s offer and didn’t think any more about it.

Although Drummer was the first to raise the idea, he was not the last. Other people began to suggest that Jean-Baptiste mount a campaign for the empty seat, including Mayor Lorraine Morton. Finally, he discussed the suggestions with a fellow member of the Ninth Congressional District African and Caribbean Advisory Committee, Hayelom Ayele.

“You’re going to do that,” he told Jean-Baptiste.

It was a matter of duty, argued Ayele, who said he put in his “five cents” to persuade his colleague. A campaign by Jean-Baptiste could dissolve some of the “invisibility” surrounding immigrant groups living outside mainstream American culture. A win could set an important precedent for others to follow.

“My reaction was that he belonged there, and the community deserved to have him,” he said.

It was the perfect hook; the call to serve his community had never been one Jean-Baptiste could ignore.

‘a passion for social justice’

He was born the day before Christmas in 1949 in Port-au-Prince, Haiti. In a way, he was politically minded from the start, Jean-Baptiste said, because the first 14 years of his life were spent in a despotic country where freedom of expression was illegal.

Jean-Baptiste’s parents worked in a hotel that catered to American tourists. Eventually, through their connections there, they managed to come to the United States as domestic workers. Two-year-old Lionel stayed behind with other family members, but emigrated later.

“It was an adventure from the time I got here.

“I came here on Sunday, and Monday I was in school,” he remembered. “I didn’t know what the hell they were talking about.”

His life changed again when his parents, always in search of better jobs, moved the family to Evanston to be near his aunt and uncle who were already living there. On the Fourth of July, 1964, Jean-Baptiste’s uncle picked them up, and the family drove in a station wagon to their new home.

At Evanston Township High School, in addition to soccer and student council, Jean-Baptiste arranged house visits between black and white students, lobbied for African-American history classes and protested the Vietnam War.

“I had a passion for social justice,” he said. “I wanted to be part of the fight to bring about change in society.”

This desire to make the society a better place for all drove many of the decisions of Jean-Baptiste’s adult life. For example, when trying to decide whether to attend Columbia or Princeton universities in 1970, politics made up his mind.

“Princeton was hotter at that time,” he said.

Once there, he studied political science because he was interested in activism. After graduation, he taught in Bedford-Stuyvesant, an impoverished community in New York City. He worked in New York’s housing department and taught at New Rochelle Community College. And when he became a lawyer, it was because he saw law as a powerful tool to address issues concerning rights and liberties.

But after Jean-Baptiste and his wife Lenore, whom he married in 1976, started their family, they began to think about leaving their home in Brooklyn. Living in “the concrete jungle” was fine for them, but they wanted to raise their children in a more hospitable environment. So in 1984 Jean-Baptiste returned to Evanston.

‘The Support System’

Family is the anchor of Jean-Baptiste’s life. He states this as self-evident. So do the people who know him. Pictures of his wife and three children – Lionel, Aisha and Ayinde – hang on the wall of his office at 1900 Asbury Ave.

“They’re the support system,” he said.

In coming to Evanston, Jean-Baptiste literally became closer to his family: He said he has between 40 and 50 extended family members living in and around Evanston, who are among the 20,000 Haitians living in Evanston and Rogers Park.

The area’s Haitian community boasts seven radio programs, five cable channels and a number of churches and businesses. During Jean-Baptiste’s campaign, members of the Haitian community acted as foot soldiers and collected donations.

“Lionel is very Haitian,” Ayele said, although his participation in the community is not so obvious to those not part it. He attends meetings about political events in Haiti, and speaks on Haitian radio stations.

But having lived in the United States for 37 years, he moves comfortably in the mainstream as well.

“He’s able to relate to both societies,” Ayele said. “I think he’s a bridge maker.”

‘A city That Belongs To All OF US’

Building bridges just might be Jean-Baptiste’s job description as alderman. A self-described good negotiator, Jean-Baptiste will have the chance to intervene in several municipal relationships, including that between the city and Northwestern, and the neighborhoods and downtown.

The fight between NU and Evanston over whether NU should give money to the city is a fight on the policy level, he said. But the two entities collaborate on other levels: their police departments sometimes work together, the city provides NU with emergency services, NU students volunteer in Evanston school districts. The city and the university need to sit down together and overcome their policy differences, he said.

“They’re Siamese twins,” he said. “The future of one is tied to the other.”

The city’s neighborhoods and other business districts also maintain a symbiotic relationship with downtown. Rapid development downtown impacts neighborhoods in terms of traffic and parking, he said. Also, too much focus on downtown can lead to neglect of the city’s other business centers on Main, Central and Dempster streets.

“Every piece of the city is important,” he said.

The relationship between downtown and Evanston’s black community also concerns Jean-Baptiste. At the July 9 council meeting he urged all Evanston residents to enjoy the shops and restaurants downtown, since their tax dollars helped pay for development there.

“This is a city that belongs to all of us, and I believe black people need to be reminded … it’s part of their investment there too,” he said.

Black people have to feel they have a right to use the resources in the downtown, Jean-Baptiste said. But psychological barriers create
d by years of segregation can sometimes block that. Much of Evanston’s history is the history of two communities, one black and one white, with separate schools, YMCAs, churches and hospitals. The city has changed, but the past still shapes the issues of the present, he added.

Jean-Baptiste worries that black residents perceive that they have less of a right to downtown than other residents. For example, they may feel shopkeepers profile them when they walk in a store. Whether or not it is true, it keeps them from enjoying downtown and creates what Jean-Baptiste calls “a fight for perception.”

HIstory as ‘part of a continuum’

Americans have a desire to constantly start anew, Jean-Baptiste said, to wipe clean their slate and move forward. They do not naturally see events as part of the larger pattern of history.

In Haiti, students memorize their lessons, including the history of their country. Jean-Baptiste developed a taste for the subject, and in addition to his major, he graduated from Princeton with a certificate in African-American history. Consequently, he views an event from a perspective stretching beyond the present.

“I see it as part of a continuum,” he said. “It’s not just today.”

Haiti was the second country in the Western Hemisphere to proclaim its independence, a fact that has infused its people with a certain pride. For Jean-Baptiste, it’s a natural transition from his pride in independence to his commitment to social justice.

But like his heroes, it is obvious he has realized another historical truth when he quotes Frederick Douglas: “‘Without struggle there is no progress.'”

For Jean-Baptiste, his next four years as alderman are just the next stage of the fight.