Sophia King

King was born in Colorado and later raised in Evanston, Illinois.[3] She earned a bachelor's from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and a master's in education and social policy from Northwestern University.[4] In the late 1980s, King moved to Kenwood in a house she built with her husband Alan.[1][5] Her husband studied for the bar with Michelle Obama and they are friends of the Obama family.[1]

In 1996, King helped to establish Ariel Community Academy, a K-8 school, with Ariel Investments C.E.O. Mellody Hobson.[1] She was involved in 2007–2008 with Obama's primary campaign and general election campaign.[1]

Prior to her appointment to City Council, she was President of Harriet's Daughters, a non-profit organization dedicated to employment and wealth creation opportunities for African-American neighborhoods.[3]

In April 2016, King was appointed by Mayor Rahm Emanuel to replace outgoing 4th ward alderman Will Burns, who had resigned to become Vice President of Governmental Affairs with AirBnB.[4]

King was sworn in to the City Council on April 13, 2016.

In anticipation of running for the seat in the 2017 special election, King created a political action committee on March 9, 2016.[6] King was appointed from a field of three finalists and eighteen initial applicants.[4] She won outright election in a 2017 special election, receiving 63.77% of the vote against four opponents.[7] She had run with the endorsement by President Barack Obama, with whom she has long been friends.[8]

She is a member of the following committees; Committees, Rules and Ethics, Health and Environmental Protection, Housing and Real Estate, Pedestrian and Traffic Safety, Transportation and Public Way and Workforce Development and Audit.[9]

King is chair of the Chicago City Council Progressive Reform Caucus.[10]

In the 2019 Chicago mayoral election, King endorsed Toni Preckwinkle, declaring her support for her in advance of the first round of the election upon Preckwinkle's entrance into the mayoral race.[11]

King was involved in the creation of the Civilian Office of Police Accountability.[10] She was also involved with the successful push to rename Congress Parkway for Ida B. Wells.[8] She was also involved in the successful push to rename Lake Shore Drive for Jean Baptiste Point du Sable.[12]

In August 2022, King announced that she would be running in the 2023 Chicago mayoral election,[13] providing incumbent mayor Lori Lightfoot with a female challenger in a race that had previously seen only male challengers to Lightfoot, the city's second female mayor.[8] As a result, she did not seek reelection to the City Council.[14]

As a mayoral candidate, King proposed expanding the size of the Chicago police force by filling 1,600 vacancies and returning 1,000 retired officers to the force to investigate non-violent crimes.[10]

In the initial round of the election, King was defeated, placing eighth of nine candidates with less than 7,200 votes (1.27% of the election's overall vote), a number of votes which was even less than her vote total had been in her previous 2019 aldermanic reelection.

King endorsed Paul Vallas's candidacy in the runoff election.[15]

• Official Chicago City Council listing for Sophia King