Activist Ja’Mal Green is latest to challenge Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s reelection hopes: ‘We must get people reengaged’

Activist Ja’Mal Green will run to unseat Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot, he announced Tuesday.

In an interview, Green said his range of life experiences makes him a strong candidate for mayor of the nation’s third-largest city. He noted he has lived on the South and West sides, witnessed gun violence and been kicked out of schools, while highlighting that he is an entrepreneur and activist.

“On every side, I feel that I understand the issues more than a lot of the other candidates, and we need a mayor to do that so we can change the tide on what’s going on in our city,” Green told the Tribune.

But the 26-year old activist faces a steep challenge connecting with voters and donors due to his age and lack of government experience. His previous run for mayor in 2019 failed after he withdrew from the ballot amid a challenge to his signatures from businessman Willie Wilson.

Other challengers to Lightfoot so far include South Side Ald. Roderick Sawyer, son of a former mayor; former Chicago Public School CEO Paul Vallas; Illinois state Rep. Kam Buckner; Southwest Side Ald. Raymond Lopez; and Wilson, who is running for the third time. Vallas finished 9th in 2019 while Wilson won most of Chicago’s Black wards before endorsing Lightfoot in the runoff.

This time, Green said, his campaign will be more successful because he expects to have more money and is better known with the public, but he also wants to reenergize the city’s voters.

“This is not about Lori Lightfoot. Seventy percent plus people do not vote in this city. This is a larger conversation we must have and we must get people reengaged with the political process,” Green said. “That means we must give them hope that there is someone who fights on behalf of the people.”

In 2020, Green led a campaign against Chase Bank, asking them to increase lending to Black communities, which first got him banned from the bank’s locations, but the lender later promised to increase mortgage lending to Black and Latino families by $600 million over five years. A Chase official credited Green with bringing the issue to their attention.

Like Wilson, Green supported Lightfoot an her 2019 runoff against Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle, but he and the mayor have had a falling out. He has criticized Lightfoot for not supporting a community center he wants to build in Auburn Gresham on the South Side. In 2021, Green posted — and then deleted — a tweet saying Lightfoot was going to resign amid unsubstantiated social media chatter that the mayor said were “homophobic, racist and misogynistic rumors.”

Green said he’s disappointed in the mayor for hiring non-Chicago residents to prominent posts, which he says hurts the city’s service.

“The disappointing factor as she came into office is her hiring from outside the city, folks that don’t understand Chicago, and the disconnectedness of City Hall from these neighborhoods is alarming,” Green said.