Page 31 - March 2022

Then, when Bobby Rush decided to not run for reelection to Congress, a message came through a group text she was on, suggesting Crump think again about politics. The entire group hit “Like” at the same time.
She was sitting at home that night, stunned, when Lodge 7 President John Catanzara happened to call.
“I don’t know if one of my friends contacted him, but he said ‘Carolynn do you want to consider running for office?’” she related. “He asked who my state rep was. I didn’t know. So I looked up this person, and I realized I had never seen this per- son in my life. I found out she had been in office since 2015, and I know we have not seen any change since then.”
The rep is Sonya Harper. She is part of the General Assem- bly Black Caucus and was a proponent of HB3653, the police reform bill.
The more research Crump pursued, the more she realized that Harper was part of a system that had not done anything to improve the neighborhood. No business development and too many abandoned buildings in the district offered evidence to support her findings.
And Harper’s leadership suggested another problem plagu- ing the neighborhood.
“What the politicians do is fail to allow the police to incor- porate change on what the police should do,” Crump rea- soned. “She was involved in the movement that led to the riots and the movement that really defunded the police.”
Still, Crump was a bit hesitant. She knew that a political
campaign requires financial support and boots on the ground. She had been drafted as a member of the Lodge 7 Political Ac- tion Committee and saw how an organizational plan had been well-developed to get behind candidates. So when the FOP PAC attack stepped up with support, a candidate was born.
In addition to doing the door-to-door, Crump has begun to develop a business plan with goals and objectives that incor- porate community concerns. She is building a platform based on ideas from the community to solve problems and work with residents as a team to make the change.
And what makes Crump a consummate candidate and rep- resentative of the Lodge 7 political action to remake the gen- eral assembly with a pro-police posture, is that she never does anything halfway or half-assed.
“I’m going to put my heart and soul into bringing solutions to these problems,” Crump emphasized. “It won’t be easy, but I need to cultivate a team to help me incorporate change with- in the area and to communicate with these other politicians. I’ve noticed there are a lot of conflicts. They’re not communi- cating with each other. They have their own agendas.”
Crump has a better agenda that residents are already re- sponding to.
“I’m a team player. I like to work with people,” she added. “So let’s work together so we can cultivate a plan that is going to be effective and get some of these problems and issues re- solved together.”
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