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About the Candidate

Name: Anthony Clark
Occupation: Teacher
Website: Voteanthonyclark.com
Twitter: @anthonyvclark20

Candidate Statement

We can no longer meet our communities or the Democratic Party where they are. We need leaders & fighters ready to take both community & party to where they need to be for the people! In the wealthiest & most advanced country in the world, people should not be too poor to live.

Income inequality in the United States is the highest it’s ever been. Working class people are facing an economic crisis & class struggle. The 1% continue to get richer, while the people experience impoverishment due to educational & medical debt, unemployment, lack of livable wages, housing insecurity, school closures, gun violence, food deserts, as well as environmental & criminal injustice!

Yes, we are struggling, but when we dare to struggle, we dare to win. Now is the moment to unite as working class people & realize that through medicare 4 all as a human right, while supporting women’s rights to choose, a green new deal, homes guarantee, a federal jobs guarantee, an end to war, a livable wage, being union strong, clear paths to citizenship while abolishing ICE, & addressing white supremacy, we can win this class war & realize a society where those of us who fought to survive, can live!

I am Anthony Clark, a teacher, & I will be your next representative for IL 7. All Power to the People!

Candidate Q&A

Why are you running?

I decided to run for congress because I know the systemic issues plaguing my district are deeply rooted in economic inequality & must be addressed at a national level. Communities within the 7th Congressional District of Illinois have experienced decades of divestment. Such disparities have led to vast gaps in opportunity, in which an individual can literally cross a street & access to opportunity changes.

Constituents in the 7th are clamoring for change. What they want is a candidate who has real plans for job creation, criminal justice reform, gun reform, as well as investment in education & infrastructure.

In the 7th Congressional District & beyond, no one should be too poor to live. I am running not to meet the district where it is, but to fight, collaborate, & educate, to take the district to where it needs to be.

In my role as a teacher, I have lost 12 students to gun violence. In my role as a nonprofit director, I have helped to feed thousands of the homeless. I no longer want to respond to gun violence, I want to help provide the opportunities that help end it. I no longer want to feed the homeless, I want to work to help end homelessness.

There is a difference between responding to symptoms & proactively addressing root causes. I am part of a movement that is bigger than one candidate & one race. I am running, because this movement will bring life & prosperity back to a dying district.

What is your vision for this office?

We need Democratic representatives that can speak truth to power & be unafraid to say that the Democratic party has played a role in the oppression of working class people. Racism & all oppressive 'isms are directly tied to economic inequality.

We need representatives that bring a revolutionary mindset to government. I want to collaborate with the people of the 7th Congressional District to provoke change & nurture the next generation of leaders. This takes a representative invested in educating our communities on a daily basis, helping them understand that we must free ourselves from economic bondage.

True representation of the working class within the political scene is scarce due to current representatives that place party & profit before the people that they serve. The people require a government that works for & represents them. As a representative, I am not interested in compromising with those who don't share the values that all human beings deserve opportunity & rights.

We must build coalitions & utilize the seat as a vehicle in the continued fight to empower the working class, which directly leads to the empowerment of the oppressed. When we win, it will not be Anthony Clark in the seat, but Black residents, Brown residents, Native residents, Asian residents, immigrants, people with disabilities, muslims, jews, women, lgbtqia+, the homeless, the unemployed, the underemployed, & working class families in that seat making decisions.

What do you think is the most pressing issue facing your constituents and how do you plan on addressing it?

All issues are interconnected. Economic inequality is the most pressing issue, because the symptoms of economic inequality is what plagues the 7th congressional district. Within the district, we have vast wealth disparities, militarized police forces, food deserts, public school closures, a push for privatization, a broken criminal justice system, pervasive gun violence, lack of rent control, red lining, predatory lending, pervasive gun violence, lack of infrastructure investment, a racist war on drugs, high levels of pollution disproportionately targeting minority communities, white supremacy, lack of livable wage, lack of job opportunities, homelessness, rape culture, & various forms of oppression. All these issues mentioned are interconnected symptoms that fall under the root cause of capitalistic economic inequality.
The wealth gap that we face, that leads to individuals being too poor to live & military poverty drafts is by design.

We address this planned oppression through class warfare, as we recognize that the greatest barrier to equality is economic inequality. We must come together as the oppressed & fight back. As Martin Luther King Jr. once famously said, "We may have all come here on different ships, but we are on the same boat now!" The boat that we are on as the working class is sailing towards Medicare 4 All (human right), a Green New Deal, Homes Guarantee, Federal Jobs Guarantee, Free College & Trade with student loan forgiveness, an end to the racist war on drugs, federal legalization of cannabis with a focus on racial justice, an end to all wars & the military industrial complex, taxing the rich & ensuring that corporations pay their share, supporting unions,& so much more. The issues are interconnected & require interconnected solutions.