Participating mayoral hopefuls were also asked about their plans to address lead pipes and the concentration of red light cameras in Black and Brown neighborhoods.

“I call Chicago the city of lobsters because like lobsters the people here sit in a pot as the water slowly comes to a boil…The lobsters watch as businesses leave, people tired of crime, taxes and corruption flee to other states…They are obsessed with electing someone who looks like them, talks like them, and thinks like them.”

The group wants something similar to Chicago’s agreement with the Obama Presidential Center. “If Northwestern is claiming that it’s going to provide all these benefits to Evanston, we should get that in writing, in terms of the number of jobs for Evanston residents and jobs for African American and Latinx residents,” alliance President Lesley Williams said.

Postal inspectors and Chicago police arrested Patrick Slagel, 44, Friday after he went to court for a routine hearing in another mail theft case, for which he is on probation. He allegedly admitted to being a “jogger,” the slang term for people who collect bulk mail in theft scams, and to using postal service master keys that were either provided by relatives of USPS employees or were bought or stolen.

Chicago has long prided itself as the city that works, and that ethos is underscored by what has historically been a robust transit system. But that, along with increasing changes in the ways people live and commute, threaten the future of transit in Chicago. Whoever becomes the city’s next mayor will contend with a CTA that is facing steep staffing shortages and a looming financial shortfall, and is struggling to address complaints about violent crime.

Though some protesters and other Woodlawn residents have repeatedly said the pushback is not based on the migrants’ places of origin, the shelter’s opening has nevertheless exposed racial and ethnic tensions in the community.

Dixon Romeo, an organizer with Not Me We, said the Obama Presidential Center creates a “speculative force” that allows property management companies to look at tenants and try and figure out ways to cut costs to “maximize profits later” because new people are moving to the neighborhood.

The tensions unfolding in the Woodlawn neighborhood, whose population is more than 80% Black, underscore the sensitive politics that cities such as Chicago and New York are having to navigate as they work to deal with an influx of migrants, many bused north by Texas Gov. Greg Abbott.