After stalling for nearly a week, Acting Mayor of Chicago Eugene Sawyer last Thursday discharged one of his aides, Steve Cokely, for delivering a series of speeches attacking whites, primarily Jews.
One of the lectures, called “Compulsory Education is Mandatory Strangulation,” was delivered at the Nation of Islam’s Final Call Building, last Nov. 18, and recently replayed for the news media at the offices of the Anti-Defamation League of B’nai B’rith here.
Local newspapers last week also published parts of the 37-year-old aide’s speeches to Nation of Islam followers of Louis Farrakhan, causing a furor, especially among religious leaders outraged at Sawyer’s delay in action.
Comments in the lectures included a warning that Jews were conspiring to rule the world as well as plotting to infect black babies with the virus that causes AIDS.
Cokely, a $35,000-a-year special projects coordinator for the acting mayor, also attacked the crucifix as a symbol of white supremacy. He called Chicago’s previous mayor, Harold Washington, “a captive of the Hyde Park Jews” and criticized the Rev. Jesse Jackson for employing Jews on his presidential campaign staff.
“This lecture demonstrates that Mr. Cokely has been guilty of more than more ‘slurs’ or ‘slips of the tongue,” Michael Kotzin, ADL regional director here, said of the tape.
“In 90 minutes, he presents an ideology characterized by a paranoid style and expressions of bigotry, targeting whites, Jews Catholics, and prominent blacks who are criticized for their relationships with the white community,” Kotzin added.
Representatives of the ADL had called the content of Cokely’s speeches to the mayor’s attention in early April.
Sawyer, who became acting mayor after the death of Mayor Washington, and who plans to run next term, has drawn criticism also from blacks. They have accused him of abandoning a loyal aide under pressure from disgruntled whites, according to reports in The New York Times.
Other black leaders accused Sawyer of fearing political backlash if he dismissed Cokely, thus insulting the city’s blacks by assuming widespread anti-Jewish sentiments among them.
Sawyer, in announcing Cokely’s removal, acknowledged that the incident had fostered “serious racial disharmony” in the city.
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