Weekend Recap: Mayor Brandon Johnson Attends South Side Town Hall, Meets With Baltimore Mayor To Discuss Community Safety Strategies, Goes Viral Again

CHICAGO - This weekend, Mayor Brandon Johnson attended Ald. Ronnie Mosley's (21st Ward) Town Hall to garner constituent feedback on the Protecting Chicago Budget, went viral online again for his response to a question at a press conference on Friday, and traveled to Baltimore to meet with Mayor Brandon Scott's community safety team to discuss effective strategies to drive down crime and violence.

On Saturday morning, Mayor Johnson visited Washington Heights, where he met with the Far South Side community at Ald. Mosley's Monthly Town Hall. Mayor Johnson spoke about the Protecting Chicago Budget before answering attendees' questions on the budget proposal. This visit is part of the Mayor's ongoing Protecting Chicago Budget Tour, an effort to take the budget proposal directly to the people of Chicago.

"When it comes to the various services that we rely upon, I'm going to pass a budget to ensure that we're not balancing it on the backs of working people," said Mayor Brandon Johnson during the town hall. "This is the culmination of multiple conversations. I've had roundtable discussions with young people, folks on the North Side, South Side, Northeast, Southeast, West Side, to put together a budget that respects our values."

Photos from the Town Hall are available here.

Following the town hall event, Mayor Johnson stopped by Cynthia's Gumbo Express Inc., a locally owned business which previously received a $32,000 Community Development Grant from the City of Chicago. Speaking with the owners, the Mayor discussed the challenges facing small businesses as a result of federal overreach and Trump's tariff taxes. Photos from the Mayor's visit can be viewed here.

Mayor Johnson traveled to Baltimore, where he joined Mayor Brandon Scott for a roundtable discussion analyzing the successes of Baltimore's violence reduction plan. Just as in Chicago, critical investments in community violence intervention (CVI) programs and direct support for families who've been impacted by violence have driven historic declines in violent crime in Baltimore.

The two leaders also engaged in candid conversation regarding ways these programs can be improved to more effectively drive down crime and better serve communities in Chicago, Baltimore, and cities across the United States.

"What we are demonstrating is there is an approach to public safety that doesn't involve armed, masked men sticking long guns in the faces of poor people and sending Black Hawk helicopters into the night to terrorize communities," said Mayor Brandon Johnson during the discussion. "The big difference is not amongst us. It's, unfortunately, the lack of support we are getting from the federal government."

CBS News Baltimore has more on Mayor Johnson's visit here.

On Friday evening, Mayor Johnson took part in the Chicago International Film Festival's event honoring academy-award winning director Spike Lee with the festival's lifetime achievement award. The Mayor opened the event by highlighting the impact Lee's exploration of the Black experience through film has had within communities in Chicago.

Mayor Johnson's full remarks from the event are available here.

Also, this weekend, a short clip of Mayor Johnson pushing back against the language used in a question to describe undocumented immigrants went viral on Instagram, X, and TikTok, amassing over 20M views across platforms over the weekend.

"Let's just get the language right, we're talking about undocumented individuals who are human beings," said Mayor Johnson in the viral clip. "The last thing I'm going to do is accept that type of racist, nasty language to describe human beings."

Over the past two months, clips of Mayor Johnson's speeches and responses to questions at press conferences have garnered over 40 million views on Instagram alone, netting 212,167 new followers over the same period, making @chicagosmayor the second most followed mayoral Instagram account in the country.

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