This week, Illinois might elect a Black man as lieutenant governor for the first time in the state’s history. Christian Mitchell, a former deputy governor under Gov. JB Pritzker, is Pritzker’s running mate as the governor seeks reelection. Mitchell, who lives on Chicago’s South Side and grew up in the city’s suburbs, spoke exclusively to Blavity about his story and his goals for Illinois.
Mitchell draws on his upbringing and activist roots
“We say often this is the most important election of our lifetimes, but really this is the most important midterm of our lifetimes,” Mitchell explained concerning the stakes of this election for the people of Illinois, pointing to how billions of dollars in Medicaid cuts could endanger hospitals in the state, the impact of the Trump administration’s anti-DEI policies and other important policy outcomes. Mitchell, who previously served as deputy governor for public safety, energy and infrastructure, touted the jobs created in the state through state government initiatives in these sectors. He also pointed to the administration’s accomplishments such as eliminating the state’s grocery tax, implementing a new child tax credit and doubling the minimum wage, while stating goals for the future, including lowering health care costs and building new housing. Mitchell summed up his pitch for voters, “We’re doing the work, we want to keep doing the work and doing it well for you, but we also need your help to go fight back against, you know, the kind of evil empire we’re seeing in Washington.”
Mitchell, who has previously described himself as “that Black guy from the South Side of Chicago,” grew up in the Chicago suburbs, including the predominantly Black Maywood and the mostly white Westchester, as the only child of a single mother. He went on to attend the University of Chicago and then law school. It was during his time at UChicago that he took up activism and met mentors such as John Easton.
“I learned how to question everything, I learned how to think about the world, and really to be able to have difficult discussions with people with whom I disagree, and I think that’s served me really well in politics,” he said.
Mitchell went into community organizing on Chicago’s South Side, as Barack Obama once did. “President Obama’s my Michael Jordan,” Mitchell said of following Obama’s path. He said organizing through groups like Southsiders Organized for Unity and Liberation (SOUL) has informed his approach to politics.
“The good thing about starting as an organizer is you start outside the system,” Mitchell said. “You start outside of power. You start at a place where you have to organize people and organize resources to even get yourself to the table where you’ve so often been on the menu.”
Mitchell on Black politics in Illinois and the Trump administration
When asked what he was most proud of accomplishing within the Pritzker administration, Mitchell pointed to both a policy and a person. He described the Climate Equitable Jobs Act (CEJA) as “the hardest thing I ever did during my time as deputy governor and certainly as a legislator as well.” Mitchell said he worked with Pritzker to save the state’s nuclear plants, incorporate renewable energy sources, manage declines in fossil fuel plants and include voices that had been excluded from these types of conversations.
“When I look up and I see that the Deputy Governor in my place now, Bria Scudder, Black woman, also from the South Side of Chicago, is not only doing that job, is excelling at that job…when I see somebody like that not just come up after me but go further than I have, that is the dream,” he said.
Mitchell also acknowledged Illinois’ long history in Black politics, pointing not only to Obama but to Harold Washington and Jesse Jackson and noting that Illinois has sent more Black people to Congress than any other state.
“We don’t bow down before wannabe dictators in the state of Illinois,” Mitchell said about his approach to the Trump administration, which has frequently clashed with Pritzker. He said Pritzker tried to cooperate with Trump during the COVID-19 pandemic, but the White House shortchanged the state on masks and ventilators.
“We didn’t get everything we were promised, and what we did get was broken and did not work,” he said, adding that the experience taught the Pritzker administration that Trump was not someone to engage through negotiation.
“He is a bully, and the only way that we deal with bullies in the state of Illinois is we stand up to them, we punch them in the mouth,” Mitchell said.
Speaking to potential shortcomings in the Democratic Party, Mitchell acknowledged frustration among Black voters who feel taken for granted by the party. He contrasted that with Pritzker’s administration, which he said has put “qualified people of color” in key decision-making positions. Mitchell dismissed divisions between moderates and progressives as reasonable disagreements between people with the same goals, arguing that Democrats are united around the rule of law, inclusiveness and making ordinary people’s lives better, while the Republican Party opposes these things.
“In terms of how we are going to deliver to people, I feel good about where Democrats are,” he said.
The people of Illinois will soon decide whether they will return Pritzker to office and choose Mitchell as the second Black person and first Black man to serve as lieutenant governor of the state. If they do, Mitchell has pledged to work to make life better and more affordable in Illinois and to fight on the state’s behalf against the current presidential administration.