Black Voters Reshape Chicago Politics, Laying Groundwork for De Priest Election

Through the early and mid-1920s, the concentration of Black voters in Chicago's South Side—the result of the Great Migration—increasingly influenced Republican Party politics in Illinois. Oscar De Priest built his political career through the Republican machine, serving as alderman and organizing Black voters into a constituency that could not be ignored. This grassroots political infrastructure culminated in his 1928 congressional election and prefigured the major shift of Black voters to the Democratic Party in the 1930s.