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Madame President, as Preckwinkle is respectfully referred to, shared her journey and the foundation upon which she stands today in a wide-ranging interview with Chicago News Weekly.
“I got involved in political campaigns because my social studies teacher, Richard Harman, invited me to work for Katie McWatt, the first African American woman to run for city council in St. Paul, Minnesota, where I grew up,” she explained.
At 16, she joined McWatt’s campaign team, helping with yard signs, envelopes, and phone calls.
“That experience awakened my interest in politics, even though she didn’t win," she said. "I’ve worked on campaigns since before I had a real job.”
Preckwinkle recalled entering an annual contest sponsored by the Minneapolis Star and Tribune to test high schoolers’ knowledge of current events.
“I never won, but it reflected my interests," she said. "I was also president of two clubs—the World Affairs Club and the Girls Athletic Association—because I played basketball, volleyball, softball, and was a long jumper.”
Growing up in St. Paul shaped Preckwinkle's love for nature.
“There’s more focus on outdoor activities there because of the 10,000 lakes—fishing, water skiing, rowing, and more,” she said.
Her fondest memories are of family camping trips.
“My father loved the outdoors—hiking, camping, hunting. As a family, we’d go tent camping in the summer. It was a cheap way to take a vacation, and I spent a lot of time outdoors,” she said.
This lifelong connection to nature aligns with her role as President of the Forest Preserves of Cook County, one of the oldest and largest such districts in the United States.
Preckwinkle also reflected on her family’s history.
“Both of my grandmother’s sons were army soldiers during World War II," she said. "So, my paternal grandmother worked in a munitions factory to support the war effort. After the war, my grandparents bought land in northern Minnesota and built a small cabin in 1947, the year I was born. We spent every summer there as a family, enjoying outdoor activities.”
Madame President’s college education didn’t initially set her on a political path.
“I always say I have a dilettante degree—general studies in the social sciences, with history, political science, and economics," she said. "I later earned a master of arts in teaching in history.”
Politics, however, was never far from her life.
“I worked on campaigns before I ever had a real job,” Preckwinkle said.
In 1979, she served as the field coordinator for Larry Bloom’s campaign for Fifth Ward Alderman. Bloom’s wife, Ruth, had been a college classmate.
Preckwinkle spent 10 years as a classroom teacher at several Chicago-area high schools before pursuing other opportunities after her son was born. She worked at the Hyde Park Neighborhood Club, served as President of Disabled Adult Residential Enterprises (DARE), and held leadership roles in community organizations like the Illinois Council Against Handgun Violence and Independent Voters of Illinois (IVI-IPO).
“Teaching is great preparation for public life," she said. "You engage young people, their parents, colleagues, administrators, and the broader community—different constituencies, much like in politics.”
To inspire her history students, she started with family stories.
“I asked them to interview the eldest member of their family for an hour to show that history is living, breathing, and all around us—not just dusty books about the distant past.”
In 1983, she ran for 4th Ward Alderman after a redistricting but lost in a runoff. By 1987, after her second campaign loss, she worked as a planner for the Bureau of Economic Development under the Harold Washington administration.
In 1990, she became executive director of the Chicago Jobs Council. The next year, she ran for alderman a third time—and won the district, which centers on Hyde Park.
“In 1991 I ran for alderman for the third and final time, and I won.” As victor, she won by 109 votes out of more than 11,000 cast. “She divulged, “I ran after two losses because I knew that I could do a better job than the incumbent.”
Reflecting on her victory, she shared her strategy: “I talked to constituents about rebuilding the northern and western parts of the ward."
"I also promised them I would be a full-time alderman," she continued
When Preckwinkle began her tenure as alderman, she focused on rebuilding divided communities within her ward, particularly in Kenwood. “As I campaigned, I told people I would concentrate on rebuilding neglected areas of the ward,” she said.
Kenwood, she explained, was split by 47th Street—wealthier South Kenwood on one side and struggling North Kenwood on the other. Preckwinkle began her efforts in North Kenwood with strong community partnerships.
“Shirley Newsome, the head of the neighborhood planning body, the conservation community council, was instrumental in this work. The council existed before I was elected, but I supported and used it as a community forum to guide decisions,” she said.
Preckwinkle emphasized the collaborative nature of her approach. “That partnership filtered and focused community sentiment and acted as a buffer for me. Decisions weren’t seen as mine alone but as something emerging from the community.”
She also highlighted leadership within public housing, singling out Zora Davis from Washington Park Lakefront Properties for her role in transforming the area.
A strong advocate for mixed-income communities, Preckwinkle believed such integration made neighborhoods healthier and more resilient.
“When people of all income levels lived side by side—professionals, working-class families, and those just getting by—the whole community was richer for it,” she said.
“If I had to explain, as segregation eased, Black folks segregated themselves by class, much like white people," she said. "That left many people behind. My goal was to rebuild communities as mixed spaces—places for everyone. That’s healthier for everyone involved.”
Toni Preckwinkle’s early efforts as alderman focused on rebuilding the housing landscape in her ward, which had suffered from decades of neglect. Her priority was reintroducing market-rate housing—a type of development that had been absent since before the Great Depression.
“There hadn’t been much residential construction after the 1920s crash,” Preckwinkle explained. “The ’30s brought the Depression, the ’40s were dominated by the war, and by the ’50s, communities saw a massive influx of new arrivals from the South. But there wasn’t balanced housing construction, and that created overcrowding and other challenges.”
The lack of investment transformed the ward’s once-grand housing stock. Mansions were converted into multifamily units, and apartment buildings became overcrowded, often housing multiple families in spaces designed for far fewer.
“The perception developed that these communities were slums,” Preckwinkle said.
Large-scale projects like Lake Meadows, Prairie Shores, and public housing developments were built to address the issue. But over time, underinvestment and a lack of services turned these areas into difficult places for residents. “Without proper police protection, crime took over,” she added.
To reverse this cycle, Preckwinkle sought to create a plan that balanced homeownership and rental options. Her strategy began with attracting market-rate homeowners back to the community. In 1994, she launched the first Parade of Homes, a program encouraging residential developers to build market-rate housing on discounted, city-owned land. A second Parade of Homes followed in 1996, furthering her push to stabilize the neighborhood and increase homeownership.
Preckwinkle’s goal, she explained, was to build mixed-income communities where long-term residents, public housing tenants, and modest-income families could live alongside new market-rate homeowners.
However, her vision faced challenges as demographics shifted. Contentious meetings arose with new arrivals who opposed affordable housing or developments that included CHA (Chicago Housing Authority) residents.
Unfortunately, the original idea shifted to the other end of the spectrum. She says, “We started out working to persuade people that market-rate housing would help stabilize our neighborhoods, and we ended up trying to persuade some of those new residents that there had to be room for everybody in the community.
Her work underscored a difficult balance: revitalizing neighborhoods without excluding the people who had long called them home.
The Department of Demolition
By the end of 2018, Preckwinkle released the Policy Roadmap, a comprehensive framework that reflected years of conversations with county staff, community-based organizations, and justice advocates. The plan’s central focus was clear: advancing racial equity.
“Government has been either complicit in or the agent of destructive policies toward our communities,” Preckwinkle said. One glaring example, she noted, was the loss of housing in African American neighborhoods across the South Side.
“You can walk down the block in many of these communities and see only one or two buildings still standing. That’s no accident—it’s a result of government policy. The City of Chicago destroyed our neighborhoods,” Preckwinkle stated bluntly.
She pointed to a longstanding city practice: demolishing abandoned homes instead of working to save them.
“When people couldn’t pay their taxes and walked away, the city’s solution was to tear the homes down,” she said.
Many of these homes, she emphasized, were well-constructed brick and limestone buildings—not shacks. But demolition was the cheaper option, costing as little as $10,000 to $15,000, compared to the complex work of finding developers or receivers to restore the properties and return them to the tax rolls.
“The city’s Department of Buildings—I always said it should be called the Department of Demolition—was relentless,” Preckwinkle continued.
As an alderman, she sent staff to housing court to fight the city’s efforts to raze buildings in her ward. She partnered with small developers and pushed for receiverships to revitalize properties. But the broader policy persisted.
“For years, the city tore down more units than it built. They had programs like New Homes for Chicago and affordable housing initiatives, but the math never added up,” Preckwinkle said. “It’s disgraceful if that’s still happening today.”
Reflecting on her time as alderman, Preckwinkle acknowledged the limits of her efforts.
“What I did—sending my staff to court to save buildings—was the right thing to do," she said. "But it wasn’t sufficient. In hindsight, I should have organized people across the city to demand answers: Why was the building department demolishing our housing stock? Why do we tear down more homes than we build every year?”
Her criticism extended to a broader failure of leadership.
“Our neighborhoods were destroyed by the very government meant to serve us," she said. "The public schools were chronically underfunded because political and business leaders didn’t care—they sent their kids to private or Catholic schools. Our housing stock was wiped out. And the police department? It beat us, tortured us, and shot us down in the streets without consequence.”
Preckwinkle cited the case of Jason Van Dyke, the Chicago police officer convicted in the 2014 killing of Laquan McDonald.
“He served less time than some people who were caught with modest amounts of drugs," she pointed out. "And let’s be clear—he was the first officer in over 30 years to be charged with murdering one of us. Do we really believe he was the only one? The only reason he was held accountable this time was because there were cameras. Before that, it was our word against the police, and who was going to be believed?”
For Preckwinkle, the solution lies in civic engagement and leadership.
“When I was alderman, people from across the city came to me, frustrated by what was happening in their neighborhoods," she said. "I told them, ‘If you don’t like what’s going on, find someone good to run for alderman—or run yourself.’ Change starts with us. We can’t wait for someone else to save us.”
Her message is clear: rebuilding neighborhoods requires more than policy—it demands collective action.
“We have to get engaged, organize, and push for the change we need," she said. "That’s the only way we’ll undo the damage.”
Since taking office as President of the Cook County Board of Commissioners in 2010, Preckwinkle has transformed the county's finances, championed criminal justice reform, and led an unprecedented response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Her leadership has been characterized by fiscal discipline, a focus on equity, and a commitment to community well-being, earning her respect as one of the region's most influential public servants.
One of Preckwinkle’s proudest accomplishments has been stabilizing the county's finances. When she took office, Cook County faced a $487 million budget gap—15% of its overall budget. Preckwinkle tackled this challenge head-on, working with elected officials across the county to implement necessary budget cuts.
“When I came in, we had a $487 million gap to close,” she recalled. “I sat down with all the separately elected officials and told them, ‘You’re going to have to cut your budgets by 15%.’ And they just sort of shrugged and laughed at me. But I told them, ‘We don’t have the money, so you’re going to have to figure out how to work with us and cut the budget.’” The process was brutal, and it meant layoffs for county employees. “People lost their jobs at holiday time. It was terrible,” she said, acknowledging the personal toll the decisions took.
Through tough fiscal discipline and strategic debt refinancing, Preckwinkle and her team gradually restored financial stability.
“It wasn’t easy, but we made it through,” she said. “That financial stability has enabled us to tackle bigger issues, like criminal justice reform.”
Today, the county’s pension funding sits at 69%, better than both the state and city. Over the last three years, Cook County has also received three bond upgrades, a testament to its improved financial health. Preckwinkle also celebrated the passage of the Forest Preserve referendum, which garnered 67% voter approval, demonstrating the public's willingness to invest in environmental preservation.
“People voted to raise their taxes to support our forest preserves,” she said proudly. “I’m incredibly proud of that.”
Another cornerstone of Preckwinkle’s legacy is her leadership in criminal justice reform. She has been a vocal advocate for eliminating cash bail, arguing that liberty should not depend on a person's ability to pay.
“We had people in jail who couldn’t pay a modest bond for shoplifting, while wealthy individuals accused of serious crimes could pay their way out,” she said. “That’s not justice. It’s an affront to our values.”
Under her leadership, Cook County reduced its jail population by making liberty the default, not detention, with no increase in crime.
“Our reforms didn’t lead to more crime,” Preckwinkle remarked. “In fact, it was the opposite. Research from Loyola University confirmed that our efforts have resulted in a safer, fairer system.”
Preckwinkle’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic further solidified her reputation as a decisive and compassionate leader. Drawing on lessons from past global health crises, she emphasized the importance of listening to public health experts.
“I remember reading about the 1918 flu pandemic and how St. Louis did everything they could to prevent the spread of the disease, while Philadelphia held massive celebrations,” she recalled. “Philadelphia paid a heavy price, while St. Louis kept its people safer. It was a lesson in listening to the experts.”
In early 2020, as the pandemic rapidly escalated, Preckwinkle shifted the county's focus entirely to pandemic response.
“We put aside everything else we were doing,” she said. “The only thing that mattered was how we could contribute to the pandemic response.”
Under her leadership, Cook County set up mass vaccination sites, administered over a million shots, and partnered with federally qualified health centers to deliver another million.
“We couldn’t have done it without the incredible work of our health and hospital team and our partners,” she said. “But it wasn’t just about vaccines. We had to help our small businesses too. We created new programs to ensure they had the support they needed to survive.”
Preckwinkle credits her team’s tireless efforts during this time as one of her proudest achievements.
“It was an extraordinarily stressful time to be in government,” she admitted. “But the collective effort to support our community was awe-inspiring. I’m incredibly proud of the work that got done.”
As Cook County moves toward recovery, Preckwinkle is focused on using resources from the American Rescue Plan Act to rebuild and strengthen the county’s future.
“We have a responsibility to invest in the recovery and rebuilding of Cook County,” she said. “The pandemic has been a setback, but it’s also an opportunity to rebuild stronger and more resilient.”
Looking toward the future, Preckwinkle has not yet decided whether she will seek re-election in 2026.
"I’ll decide over the holidays whether I’m going to run for re-election," she said. "I’ll announce that in January."
For now, she remains focused on the work at hand, determined to leave Cook County in a stronger position than she found it.
In the end, Preckwinkle sees her legacy as one of confronting the county’s toughest challenges—financial stability, criminal justice reform, and a pandemic response that prioritized the well-being of residents. Through it all, she remains deeply committed to the people of Cook County.
“It’s all about the people,” Preckwinkle said. “I’ve always said, you can’t talk about public safety or criminal justice reform until you get the finances in order. That’s been our focus, and I’m proud of what we’ve accomplished.”
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Visionary Kai EL´ Zabar has worked as CEO of arts organizations and as editor, writer and multimedia consultant accumulating a significant number of years in experience as an executive, journalist,publisher, public relations, media training, marketing, internal and external communications. Kai currently continues her life’s work as Editor-in-Chief Of Chicago News Weekly where she has resumed her column, “E NOTES.” She is ecstatic to be in the position to grace Chicago and the world with a publication that articulates the Black voice.