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Black Chicago Poised to Re-Elect Kim Foxx as Chief Prosecutor
‘Black Girl Magic’ is Alive & Well in Chicago
“There was an effort to make this election about one big case involving a celebrity. The voters have overwhelmingly put that fallacy to rest.”
— Cook County (Chicago) State’s Attorney Kim Foxx.
In 2016, Kim Foxx (47) became the first black woman elected as Cook County’s State’s Attorney. Cook County is the second largest prosecutor’s office in this nation-state. Indeed, her office oversees 800-plus attorneys. On March 17, Foxx handily won the Democratic Party Primary election, and is virtually assured of re-election in November. Foxx won the Party’s nomination with the not quite unanimous support of Chicago’s black communities.
She also won despite the fact that in-person voter turnout was at an historic low due to both the state and federal governments’ implementation of “social distancing,” and mandatory and voluntary quarantine edicts in the fight against the coronavirus (COVID-19).
As the quotation fronting this essay indicates, Foxx also faced relentless and racist challenges not only from her three official opponents, but from the Chicago Police Department’s mostly white union, the Fraternal Order of Police, from much of the heretofore entrenched white…