Rest is a radical idea, particularly for Black women. And now, in the aftermath of President-Elect Donald Trump’s successful campaign which saw racist rhetoric make inroads with marginalized voters, the Black electorate was asked to continue the fight. To get right back up and keep pushing.
This admonition makes sense. Historically, Black women stay at the forefront of political and social movements, organizing for collective freedom. From Facebook groups to spa trips to memes about drinking tea and calming down, many Black women are retreating into rest. Cook County State’s Attorney Kim Foxx is among them.
“I want to model rest for Black women — especially right now, especially post-election — whose hearts are broken by this country, who will do anything and everything to save this democracy and have done anything and everything,” Foxx told The TRiiBE.
The 52-year-old state’s attorney is a few days out from closing the door to her office for the last time, and she’s doing so on her own terms. Foxx decided not to run for office a third time after eight years of service. In that time, she brought a sea of criminal justice reform to a county notorious for carceral violence against Black and brown people, such as the Chicago police “black site” and the widely-publicized torture cases helmed by former Chicago police commander Jon Burge.
Coming off a number of wins such as abolishing no-cash bail, Foxx is ready to enter a chapter of rediscovery. She’s sacrificed a lot of her personal well being and family life to reform incarceration in Illinois. She wants to take time to figure out who she is as a newly-divorced woman with college-age children.
“My mother never rested,” she said. “My grandmother never rested. For a moment, [I asked myself], ‘am I being a punk that I’m this tired?’ I believe my grandmother would have wanted to rest, and my mother would have wanted to rest. So, in honor of them and the legions of Black women who are out there and deserve rest, that’s what I’m doing next.”
Raised by her mother and grandmother in the Chicago Housing Authority’s Cabrini-Green project on the Near North Side, Foxx never planned on being a politician. She didn’t trust them, she said. After graduating law school from Southern Illinois University, she took a job at the Office of the Cook County Public Guardian as an assistant public guardian. Following that she was an Assistant State’s Attorney for 12 years in Cook County. In 2013, she landed the role of deputy chief of staff for Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle’s office and was later promoted to chief of staff, staying in the role until 2016.
It was the #ByeAnita campaign that propelled Foxx into the political spotlight. In response to the Chicago police murders of 22-year-old Rekia Boyd in 2012 and of 17-year-old Laquan McDonald in 2014, young Black and queer women successfully organized and rallied voters to knock out two-term incumbent state’s attorney Anita Alvarez, who undercharged former cop Dante Servin and was complicit in a cover-up for former cop Jason Van Dyke.
Foxx knows the anti-Anita movement didn’t outright endorse her for election, given how abolition calls for divestment in the carceral system, but she gratefully recognizes that its energy and persistence led to her becoming the first Black woman to run the Cook County State’s Attorney’s Office (CCSAO.) She won 58 percent of the vote in the three-way Democratic primary, and 72 percent of the vote in the 2016 general election.
“What I loved was the energy that got me in the office. The #ByeAnita campaign was well-organized and persistent,” Foxx said. “So you got to see, particularly Black women and queer leadership, take hold in full authenticity on these issues.”
When she assumed the office, Foxx knew there were time limits to the type of work she was doing in the CCSAO. She didn’t intend to be a career politician, but knew she wanted to transform the department.
Now, she’s looking forward to her next chapter. In a 90-minute exit interview with The TRiiBE, Foxx unpacked her wins as well as the challenges she’s faced. She gave us some exclusive insight that she otherwise had only planned on writing in her upcoming book. She also talked a little about the multiple job offers she’s been receiving, including positions in academia and the entertainment industry.
This isn’t the last time people will hear from her. Foxx will continue to speak up on issues that matter to her, including incarceration, racial injustice and maternal health.
Right now, though, the main thing on her mind is healing.
“I stopped talking about what my next job is going to do and started talking about how I was going to rest, and that’s my number one priority,” Foxx said. “I knew when I came in, there was a limited shelf life for this. And so all of the stuff that has happened, [from] death threats and the divorce… it really [sent a message that] you need to heal. You have earned your rest.”
ON HOW FOXX’S WINS REIMAGINED THE POSSIBILITIES OF THE STATE’S ATTORNEY’S OFFICE
When she entered office in 2016, she hit the ground running, pushing policies that aligned with the demands of organizers on the ground. Here’s a bulleted list of some of those wins.
- Reducing the jail population: Foxx’s efforts to shrink the population at Cook County Jail began when she was chief of staff in Cook County government. In 2017, Foxx began implementing bail reform initiatives. She worked alongside groups such as the Coalition to End Money Bond to advocate for abolishing cash bail, and testified in a hearing in Springfield in favor of ending the practice. Their push led to the passage of the Safety, Accountability, Fairness and Equity-Today (SAFE-T) Act in 2021. It took effect on Sept. 18, 2023. “The movement can be extraordinarily proud that we are the first state in the country to abolish cash bond, and that has reduced the jail population in Cook County,” Foxx said.
- Holding police accountable: In 2021, Foxx propelled Illinois to become the first state to pass legislation barring police officers from lying to children during interrogations. Later in 2023, she released the “do not call list,” a first of its kind for the CCSAO, containing officers whom prosecutors will not call as witnesses because of their histories of wrongdoing.
- Freeing the people: To date, her office has overturned 250 wrongful convictions, which includes the first-ever mass exoneration in Cook County for 15 men whose convictions stemmed from former CPD sergeant Ronald Watts, who led a crew of corrupt cops in terrorizing residents of the Ida B. Wells housing project in Bronzeville. As a result of her efforts, Illinois led the nation in exonerations from 2018 to 2021.
“We’re really grateful for what she was able to do, and she could have got out a lot more if the courts hadn’t been reluctant and resistant,” said Frank Chapman, national director of the Chicago Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression.
ON HOW SHE DEMOCRATIZED THE SAO
Foxx sought to build relationships with people and organizations in oft-neglected communities. For example, CPD torture survivor and organizer Mark Clements — whose conviction was overturned in 2009 after 28 years in prison— was one of two men who weren’t allowed in the George Dunne Cook County Office Building, according to Foxx. They were placed on what was called the “do not ever let upstairs” list. No one in her office knew who created the list.
“I said, ‘I’m state’s attorney. It’s my floor. They can come up,’” she recalled.
To this day, Foxx values and welcomes feedback from Clements. She appreciates that the movement’s persistence has not slowed; in fact, she said it’s their job to “keep their foot on my neck.”
“I don’t know what it’s like to be wrongfully convicted. I don’t know what it’s like to be Mark and be a Burge torture victim,” Foxx said, adding that Clements may ruffle her feathers at times, but it’s the real-world experiences of people like him that should shape the SAO. “If we don’t have people with lived experiences sitting on this floor, unapologetic about that, there’s only so far we can go.”
ON NOT FOLDING WHEN THE HEAT GOT EVEN HOTTER
With Foxx’s election in 2016, Chicago became a model for other progressive-minded prosecutors. Philadelphia’s Larry Krasner ran as a “progressive prosecutor” and won in 2017. San Francisco’s Chesa Boudin did the same and won in 2019.
“I’m gonna claim that the progressive prosecutor movement was born out of Chicago, and the movement wasn’t the individual prosecutor; it was what was being demanded by the constituents,” Foxx said. “We beat a two-term incumbent, two to one. We saw a draw out of young people and young people of color. People wanted to replicate that. So restorative justice, mass incarceration, the language was being replicated in other places.”
However, the cost of doing what is considered radical, perceived by some as being soft on crime, came to a head as Donald Trump called for law and order during his first term in the White House.
The impetus was the case of Jussie Smollett, the Empire actor accused of staging a hate crime attack on himself in River North. Foxx received years and years of racist and misogynistic threats — not just online but also through phone calls to her office, she said. One of her receptionists quit during that time; she couldn’t handle screening the barrage of hateful messages.
“A lot of threats, racialized sexualized threats to rape me, threats to hang me from trees, shoot me in the head — not just me being called nigger,” Foxx explained. “You don’t sign up for that.”
Foxx recused herself from the case. The CCSAO dropped charges in exchange for Smollett forfeiting a return of $10,000 bail and performing community service. While the case played out publicly, Foxx privately dealt with an attempt to disbar and sanction her.
Meanwhile, Smollett was re-tried, but on Nov. 21, the Illinois Supreme Court repealed this latest conviction. The Court ruled that he should not have been retried because he reached a non-prosecution agreement with the CCSAO.
“My gut tells me that we’re going to have another series of questions of why we spent millions of dollars in five years to get the result we had in March of 2019,” Foxx said ahead of the Illinois Supreme Court’s ruling, referring to the Smollett case.
Many thought the Smollett case would impact her run for reelection in 2020. She not only won the Democratic primary by nearly 20 points over challenger Bill Conway Jr., who raised $11.9 million — most of which was donated by his father — to Foxx’s $2.8 million, but she took home 54 percent of the vote to win the general election.
ON POLICIES STAYING IN PLACE
Foxx’s successor Eileen O’Neill Burke will be sworn into office on Dec. 2. Despite the transition, Foxx isn’t concerned about some of the signature policies being unilaterally undone. Things like the legalization of marijuana and end of cash bail were passed into state law, in 2020 and 2021 respectively.
The CCSAO gun diversion program, launched at the Bridgeview courthouse in 2021 and administered by the mental health organization GRO Community, is also here to stay. In 2018, the Illinois General Assembly created the First Time Weapon Offender Program, and there’s been some overlap between the programs.
However, Foxx is concerned about the effect Trump’s second administration will have on police accountability and criminal justice reform. Trump has publicly said he wants to give immunity to police officers.
“He is probably even scarier than he was four years ago because we know who he is, and he has been vindicated in his mind,” Foxx said, referring to Trump’s 2024 win. “This is a man who has talked about giving police one good hour with criminals, and that would fix what’s happening in crime, alluding to police violence.”
Under Trump’s administration, Foxx said federal funding for violence intervention and prevention could be reduced, or scrapped altogether. There’s also the worry of an increase in hate crimes because people are becoming emboldened by Trump’s racist, misogynistic, homophobic and xenophobic rhetoric.
“From a public safety standpoint, we should be concerned,” Foxx said. “There’s a unique subset of folks in our community, particularly those who are undocumented, who are vulnerable to being preyed upon for violence.”
ON EILEEN O’NEILL BURKE
Foxx said she hopes organizers and the movement-at-large keeps applying pressure to the SAO, regardless of who’s in the seat.
“People are very concerned about what happens with the next leadership. I certainly hope y’all foot is just as heavy on the neck as it was on mine,” Foxx said. “The ability to have sustained change outside of an election year comes from that movement push.”
Foxx said she wants Chicago and Burke to succeed. Since the election, she’s met with Burke and the team at the CCSAO has also prepared binders to assist Burke and her team during the brief transition period. This is something Foxx didn’t receive at the start of her first term; Alvarez didn’t provide the same type of support. To this day, they’ve never spoken.
“What’s incredibly frustrating about the rhetoric I hear in today’s politics is how we treat our leaders. Do we want our city to succeed, or do we want to take out personalities?” Foxx asked rhetorically. “I might think very differently from Eileen O’Neill Burke. I’m not sure. I don’t know what she’s going to be. I want her to be successful in having a system that is fair, just and equitable. So I’m gonna give you everything I got.”
Foxx also wants Burke to understand that she represents all of Cook County, not just downtown. As an example, Foxx described a meeting she attended with the Magnificent Mile Association at Water Tower Place years ago during her first term. One of the attendees asked if she could stop teens, who were primarily Black and brown, from getting off the Red Line into downtown because they “had no business” there. The conversation was triggering for Foxx, who grew up in Cabrini, lived in Lincoln Park, and also hung out at the Water Tower Place as a teen with no money.
“The notion that you are actively asking me as a leader to prevent somebody like me from being in space, that tension is real, and they were so serious,” Foxx recalled. “I’ve heard conversations about restorative justice and broader reform. For whom? What are we reforming? We’re reforming a system that has historically disadvantaged Black folks.”
ON LEAVING THE STATE’S ATTORNEY’S OFFICE BETTER THAN SHE FOUND IT
Although Foxx is proud of what she’s achieved in her eight years, she can’t help but feel like it’s not enough.
“We have far too many people entangled in our justice system because of the misdemeanor system, and we didn’t get to that,” Foxx said. “We really need to have an active role in re-entry for people coming out of the prison system.”
Earlier this year, Foxx and 20 prosecutors from the CCSAO traveled to Stateville Correctional Facility in Cresthill, Ill. For some, it was their first time visiting Stateville. For others, it was the first prison visit period. During their visit, they sat with incarcerated people participating in classes offered at Stateville through North Park and Northwestern University.
Foxx said she returned from that trip feeling optimistic. Those prosecutors, who are still working within the CCSAO, are eager to engage in prison reform, she said. On the way back she recalled the head of the criminal prosecutions bureau asking, “How can we get the next group out here”?
“We send you to a cage where you may get fought, raped, no sunlight, no air, no fresh food, and then you come out, and we’re like, ‘why are you acting like that?’” said Foxx. “So we need to do a better job as prosecutors engaging in prison reform.”
ON RECLAIMING HER TIME
Today, Foxx is insistent on telling her story. She regularly attends therapy and is working on reprogramming her brain from being in flight or fight response.
She’s experiencing survivor’s remorse. She’s seen many of her Black women colleagues swallowed up by controversy and criticism. She’s talking about Marilyn Mosby, former state’s attorney for Baltimore; Rachael Rollins, former U.S. Attorney for the District of Massachusetts; Kim Gardner circuit attorney for St. Louis; and Monique Worrell, former state’s attorney for the Ninth Judicial Circuit Court of Florida.
“When it’s stripped from you, the story becomes that you lost, you resigned,” Foxx said. “It’s not lost on me that the attacks that have happened to me are not unique to me, as we’ve gained power across the country. That’s why I’m gonna take as much time as I took [with the media] to talk about this legacy, because there will be an active effort to erase what Black women are doing in this space, and you’re just not gonna do it to me.”
Foxx said she’s watched the recently released Megan Thee Stallion documentary on Netflix. She identified with the rapper who endured intense vitriol and misogynistic attacks after she was shot by fellow rapper Tory Lanez in 2020.
“I was a crying mess because I understood what it was like [with] the media and on social. I was, like, not me and Megan Thee Stallion having parallel lives; her going into places and wondering who in this room is trying to hurt me. That is not healthy,” Foxx explained.
The threats and racist attacks aren’t the reason she’s leaving the state’s attorney office, she said, “but it is certainly one of the things that I most look forward to, being able to reset my neurons to not be in fight or flight.”
She’s ready to figure out who she is outside of being someone’s wife, mother or elected official. She’s a self-proclaimed House Head who goes to the Chosen Few DJs Picnics, been serenaded by South Side native rapper Common at Grant Park, and sang along with her favorite artists at various concerts. As a Black woman leader in this work, she hopes that she modeled for future generations that it’s OK to be your authentic self.
“You can do both. You belong,” she said, speaking to Black Chicagoans. “I showed up as my authentic self. I didn’t assume an identity of assimilation and acceptance. I’m a disrupter, so if you are already uncomfortable with me being there, let me be my whole self. So I hope Black Chicago believed that I represented them as who they are and not some version that was acceptable to others.”
Asked what the community should call her after she leaves office and takes a little rest, Foxx said to drop the honorifics and go with a simple:, “Kim, please.”
“Be like people who act like we’re related: “hey, Kim! Kim!” she said.
The post Cook County State’s Attorney Kim Foxx is leaving on her own terms appeared first on The TRiiBE.
