document: Two days of racially charged hearings on police brutality and a report detailing widespread segregation in the nation 's third-largest city show the new mayor must still heal some old wounds . Richard M. Daley was elected mayor April 4 amid fears by black activists that he would bring back the machine politics of his late father , Richard J. Daley , who was mayor for more than 20 years before his death in 1976 . The younger Daley emphasized empowerment of minorities in his spring campaign , and after defeating black challengers in the primary and general election , he named minorities to 11 of his 21 Cabinet positions . But now Daley finds himself on the defensive . Some black politicians say the mayor is indirectly sanctioning racism by not doing enough to stop it . The racial issue resurfaced last week in two days of special hearings called by a City Council committee to look into allegations of police brutality against blacks . `` There 's been no demonstrable change on the part of white leadership in this city to end racism , '' said Bob Starks , associate professor of inner city studies at Northeastern Illinois University . `` It 's the same stuff , and it 's seemingly getting worse . '' But Daley maintains that what 's getting worse is `` irresponsible political rhetoric '' from black politicians who are looking ahead to the 1991 mayoral election . Daley is filling the remaining two years of the term of the late Harold Washington , the city 's first black mayor who was just a few months into his second term when he died in November 1987 . Daley has denounced the alleged police brutality . `` I will not ever tolerate police brutality , bias or bigotry in the city of Chicago , '' Daley said . `` Everyone should join together ... to help alleviate this problem . '' Also last week , a human relations task force made up of business and civic leaders released a report saying racism in Chicago was fueled by `` a shocking lack of contact '' between the city 's ethnic groups . The report , based on a 15-month investigation of the city 's race relations , concluded that racial divisions `` threaten to make Chicago an increasingly unpleasant place to live and are antithetical to the city 's economic growth and prosperity . '' At the City Council hearings Thursday and Friday , blacks who alleged they were the victims of police brutality accused officers _ most of them white _ of unprovoked beatings , false arrests , intimidation and insulting them with racial slurs . Among them was a 55-year-old grandmother , Callie Bryant , who testified that she and her daughter were beaten up in 1987 by seven white police officers who gave her `` the sign of the Ku Klux Klan . '' Two teen-age boys testified that in August they were picked up by white officers , roughed up , and then dropped off in a white neighborhood where they were attacked by white youths . The poice department 's record was defended by Police Superintendent LeRoy Martin , a black appointee of Washington . `` I 'm the head of this police department , and if this police department is bad , it 's because I 'm bad as superintendent , '' Martin said . `` When this police department is attacked , I must defend it . When it 's wrong , I must correct it . ''
extractive_keyphrases: police brutality racism race relations chicago racial issue blacks new mayor