The Nation - News from Dec. 6, 1987

Eugene Sawyer, Chicago’s new mayor, lacks the support of a majority of black Chicagoans but has the approval of a majority of whites, a CBS News poll found. Of the blacks questioned, 62% said they disapproved of Sawyer’s election Wednesday by the City Council to succeed the late Harold Washington as acting mayor. Twenty-one percent of the blacks approved of Sawyer, who became the city’s second black mayor. But among whites, 57% approved of Sawyer as mayor while 20% disapproved. Overall, the new mayor won approval of 42% of those surveyed, while 36% disapproved. Sawyer, the city’s longest-serving black alderman, defeated Alderman Timothy Evans in a 29-19 council vote.