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Over 100 People Were Shot in Chicago Last Weekend. Guess Who the Mayor Blamed.

Madeline Leesman
Madeline Leesman  |  July 09, 2024 11:00 AM

This week, Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson (D) blamed late President Richard Nixon (R) for rampant violence in his city. Nixon died in 1994.

Over Independence Day weekend, over 100 people were shot in the Windy City. Nineteen of these shootings were fatal, according to multiple reports. Johnson’s response to that was to blame a former president instead of acknowledging that the city’s soft-on-crime policies, among other things, contributed to the fatal shootings. 

“Black death has been unfortunately accepted in this country for a very long time. We had a chance 60 years ago to get at the root causes and people mocked President Johnson. And we ended up with Richard Nixon. I’m going to work hard everyday to transform this city,” Johnson said in remarks. 

Once Johnson’s remarks circulated, the Richard Nixon Foundation responded. 

“Mayor Johnson’s reference to President Nixon is gratuitous and the facts are not on his side in his characterization,” the foundation said at the beginning of a lengthy X thread. 

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The Nixon Foundation explained how Nixon’s administration worked to desegregate all schools after the Supreme Court handed down its landmark Brown v. Board of Education decision. Over the course of Nixon’s tenure as president, schools were “effectively and peacefully” desegregated. In addition, funding for civil rights programs expanded. 

The Foundation noted that Nixon allocated $12 million for research on sickle-cell anemia, which impacts one out of every 500 black children. And, Nixon’s administration increased the government’s federal purchases from black-owned businesses.

Additionally, Nixon more than doubled federal funding to predominantly black colleges and issued an executive order creating an Office of Minority Business Enterprise in the Department of Commerce.