Chicago City Wire

Chicago's largest union for firemen has rescinded its endorsement of U.S. Rep. Jonathan Jackson (D-Chicago), after Jackson was recorded saying they were racist.

The Executive Board of Chicago Firefighters Union Local 2 issued the statement Monday.

"The Executive Board of Local 2 is shocked, disheartened, angered, and disappointed to see the statements made about the members of Local 2 by Congressman Jonathan Jackson while addressing his constituents at a speaking event," the statement said. "These comments propagated on social media are not only patently false and maliciously divisive-they are dangerous to our membership. The Executive Board of Local 2 would like to assure our membership that we are working diligently to address this issue."

"Local 2 and the AFFI have officially and immediately revoked political endorsement of Congressman Jonathan Jackson. Additionally, Local 2 firmly demands Congressman Jackson publicly renounce his comments and issue our membership an apology," it said. "Local 2 has been in contact with (Chicago Fire) Commissioner (Annette) Holt, and we await her response denouncing this hateful rhetoric and unwarranted attack on the Firefighters and Paramedics in which she leads. Additionally, we expect she will properly address those propagating these false statements as facts about the Chicago Fire Department and its members."

At a campaign event captured on video and distributed on Twitter, Jackson attacked the fire department as content to let South Side buildings in black neighborhoods burn.

"Firefighters have watched so many buildings in our neighborhood that are boarded up," Jackson said. "Some people working in these battalions and in these fire houses used to live in these neighborhoods and they are so angry they had to leave— and they left when we (black residents) came— that when there is a fire, and they go there, they watch the building burn."

"Go to the North Side. If you see 16 units or 25 units in a single building, they put out the fire in a single unit. If we have a fire in one unit, and the whole building gets evacuated," he said. "Because we didn’t have people who live in the community, that care about the community, that wanted to put the fire out. They had so much contempt, they let the building burn. We need more black first responders, more black fire fighters."

Jackson, 58, was first elected to represent Illinois' First Congressional District in 2023. He replaced longtime U.S. Rep. Bobby Rush (D-Chicago), who held the seat from 1992 through 2022.

Jackson is the son of political activist and 1988 U.S. Presidential Candidate Jesse Jackson Sr., and the brother of former U.S. Rep. Jesse Jackson, Jr. (D-Chicago), who served two years in federal prison for misusing campaign funds.

Jonathan Jackson formerly ran the Budweiser beer distributorship for Chicago's North Side, and was dubbed "the King of Beers" by former Chicago Tribune columnist John Kass after it was revealed that his father secured the business by launching a national boycott of the beer brand in the 1980s.

“'August Busch has become to the economic reciprocity movement what Bull Connor and Jim Clark were to the civil and political reciprocity movement–an obstruction in the doorway blocking black economic progress,” Jackson said back then, comparing Busch to white Southern sheriffs who sicced police dogs and cops on civil-rights marchers,'" Kass wrote.

The president of Chicago Firefighters Union Local 2 is Patrick Cleary, elected in Aug. 2023.