After months of active participation in the Evanston redistricting process, a local black leader told about 15 students Thursday that he was satisfied with the outcome.
George Mitchell, president of the Evanston-North Shore branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, spoke at an Annenberg Hall luncheon as the final presenter in the Undergraduate Lecture Series on Poverty, Race and Inequality. The series ran during U.S. election week and also included speakers on political equality and voters’ rights.
Mitchell’s speech, titled “Gerrymandering, Lobbying and Politics in America,” addressed the NAACP’s role in advocacy and politics — particularly as it applied to the recent redistricting debate. He defined advocacy as having strong beliefs and politics as acting on those beliefs.
“Many people were advocating,” he said of redistricting process. “It always comes down to the political decision.”
The NAACP had pushed for a map with ward boundaries based on total population, rather than voting-age population. A map using total population was approved 7-2 by a committee Monday night and could be passed by Evanston City Council at its Nov. 24 meeting.
Mitchell said the NAACP’s Baltimore headquarters supplied his branch with a book about how to advocate on redistricting proposals, and based on that, he and his colleagues believed a map based on total population would be legally supported.
“We were hoping that it would be 5-4,” Mitchell said of the vote. “But it turned out it was better than we thought.”
Northwestern students were kept in two wards after student leaders lobbied City Council. Mitchell said the students should take advantage of their “political opportunity” as they did in the redistricting process.
Mitchell also answered questions from the audience about other advocacy issues. He disagreed with suggestions other speakers in the series had made about increasing voter turnout, but he said he considers voting part of the price people pay for living in a democracy.
“I guess it’s easier to let someone else make a decision for you,” he said. “Maybe we need to do more on a town hall basis. That way we could narrowly focus on issues.”
In discussing the No Child Left Behind Act, which addresses test-score disparities among students of different races, Mitchell said he supported the act but only in principle.
“It’s fine if you have no funds left behind as well,” Mitchell said.
Patricia Reese, senior publications editor at the Institute for Policy Research, which co-sponsored the event, asked Mitchell if he thought overt racism had been replaced by institutional racism.
“I don’t think overt racism has disappeared,” he replied. “It just put on a suit and a tie.”
Then Reese asked whether Mitchell thought racism would disappear entirely. Mitchell sighed heavily and hesitated slightly.
“I think it will change through political power,” he said. “People tend to respect power.”
