Illinois's first congressional district is a congressional district in the U.S. state of Illinois. Based in Cook County, the district includes much of the South Side of Chicago and continues southwest to Joliet.

From 2003 to early 2013 it extended into the city's southwest suburbs until reaching the border of Will County, and covered 97.84 square miles (253.4 km²), making it one of the 40 smallest districts in the U.S. (although there are four smaller districts in Illinois). The district had a population that was 65% African American, the highest percentage of any congressional district in the nation, but with redistricting that percentage has now declined to 52%. It includes the home of former President Barack Obama.

The 1st is a majority-minority district, and has been since at least the 1920s. In 1929, it became the first district in the 20th century to send an African American to Congress when Republican Oscar Stanton De Priest was elected to represent the district. The 1st has been represented by an African American Member of Congress ever since, the longest ongoing stretch of black representation for any seat in the House of Representatives. It has been held by a Democrat since 1935 when Arthur Mitchell, the first African American Democrat elected to Congress, took the seat as part of the New Deal Coalition. In 1949, district representative William Dawson became the first African American to chair a congressional committee. Since redistricting by the state legislature after the 2010 census, it is 51.3% black, 40.6% white, and 9.8% Hispanic in population.

The district is currently represented by Jonathan Jackson who was elected to succeed longtime incumbent Bobby Rush in 2022.^[3]

The district was adjacent to the 2nd district to the east and south, the 7th district to the north, and the 3rd and 13th districts to the west, and also bordered the 11th district at its southwest corner. The district's northeast border followed Lake Michigan's shoreline for almost a mile.

The district was created following the 1830 U.S. census and came into existence in 1833, five months before Chicago was organized as a town; the state was previously represented in the U.S. House of Representatives with representative elected on an at-large basis. The district included Southwestern Illinois until 1853.^[4][5] It included the state's northern edge until 1863.^[6] Since that time, the district has included all or part of Cook County; since 1883 the population of the district has been primarily residing on Chicago's South Side. Historical populations reflected waves of immigration into the area: previous majority populations were ethnic Irish, German, and east European. Beginning in the mid-19th century, the Irish were the first to establish their physical and political control of the area within the city's South Side.

The current 1st district has a minority-majority population: 51.3% of the residents are African-American.^[7] It has been represented in Congress by African Americans since 1929. Tens of thousands of African Americans moved to Chicago from the rural South in the Great Migration. They were confined by discrimination to the South Side of Chicago and gradually replaced ethnic whites who moved out to suburbs. At one point during the 1980s, more than 90% of the district's residents were black.^[8]

While successive redistrictings have given the district a larger percentage of white voters, it is still one of the most reliably Democratic districts in the country; with a Cook Partisan Voting Index of D+28, it is the fourth most Democratic district of the eight that divide Chicago. The district has not sent a Republican to the U.S. House of Representatives since 1935. After the civil rights movement gained support from national Democratic Party for major legislation to restore constitutional rights, including the franchise in the South, most African Americans shifted to support the Democratic Party. Democratic congressional candidates routinely receive over 80% of the vote here. The Democratic trend runs right through to the national level; since the 1950s, Democratic presidential candidates have usually carry the district with well over 70 percent of the vote, and have done no worse than 64 percent/

This table indicates how the district has voted in U.S. presidential elections; election results reflect voting in the district as it was configured at the time of the election, not as it is configured today. The candidate who received the most votes in the district is listed first; the candidate who won the election nationally is in CAPS, and the candidate who won the state of Illinois is indicated with a †.

This table indicates how the district has voted in recent statewide elections; election results reflect voting in the district as it is currently configured, not necessarily as it was at the time of these elections.

The departure of the steel industry, along with other manufacturing jobs from the South Side in recent decades, has created economic difficulties which the area is still trying to overcome. The district's median household income as of 2000, $37,222, trailed the national average by 11.4%. The unemployment rate (7.6%) was more than double the national rate, and nearly 20% of district residents were living in poverty. These problems are more pronounced within the Chicago portion of the district – 14 of the district's 18 suburbs had median household incomes over $40,000 as of 1999, with the six most affluent grouped in the southwest corner of the district. But black middle-class Chicago neighborhoods, such as Avalon Park and Chatham, have remained more stable, along with the more upscale Hyde Park-Kenwood area. Health care and higher education now constitute major economic sectors in the region.

Hospitals in the district include Oak Forest Hospital in Oak Forest and Provident Hospital of Cook County in Grand Boulevard, both part of the Cook County Bureau of Health Services; as well as the University of Chicago Hospitals in Hyde Park, Little Company of Mary Hospital in Evergreen Park, Holy Cross Hospital in Chicago Lawn, St. Francis Hospital in Blue Island, Jackson Park Hospital in South Shore and St. Bernard Hospital in Englewood.

Local educational institutions include the University of Chicago in Hyde Park, Illinois Institute of Technology (IIT) in Douglas, Trinity Christian College in Palos Heights and Kennedy-King College, a Chicago city college, in Englewood, and Chicago State University in Roseland is located directly outside the district at its southern edge; in addition, there are five seminaries in Hyde Park: Catholic Theological Union, Chicago Theological Seminary, Lutheran School of Theology, McCormick Theological Seminary and Meadville Lombard Theological School.

U.S. Cellular Field, home of the Chicago White Sox, is less than 1,000 feet (300 m) west of the district's northwestern border. Other area cultural and entertainment attractions include the DuSable Museum of African American History in Chicago's Washington Park, and First Midwest Bank Amphitheatre in Tinley Park; several square miles of Cook County Forest Preserves can be found on three sides of Oak Forest, and Oak Forest's Chicago Gaelic Park is home to Irish Fest, held annually on Memorial Day weekend. Business and industrial presences in the district include Panduit Corporation , an electrical manufacturer in Tinley Park; Parco Foods , a cookie manufacturer in Blue Island; and Midwest Suburban Publishing, publisher of the SouthtownStar, in Tinley Park.

In addition to Washington Park and those sites associated with the University of Chicago and IIT, district locations on the National Register of Historic Places include:

Democrats routinely dominate politics in the district, with the main focus of competition being the party primary. Only twice since 1966 has a Republican candidate for Congress received over 20% of the vote,^[29] and the Democratic nominee has topped 80% in every presidential race during that time. The district's expansion into the suburbs in the 1990s has incorporated a population that has voted Republican more often; Republican support has passed the 10% mark, and George W. Bush received 17% of the vote here in 2004. His was the best showing by a Republican presidential candidate in the district in over 40 years.

The district has since the early 1970s elected representatives who dissented from the city's Democratic establishment. William L. Dawson, U.S. Representative from 1943 to 1970, maintained the district's loyalty to Mayor Richard J. Daley. His successor Ralph Metcalfe initially continued that stance but publicly broke with Daley over an incident of police brutality in 1972, establishing a rift that persists. When Metcalfe died less than one month before the election in 1978, Democratic party officials named loyalist Bennett M. Stewart to take his place on the ballot, and Republicans replaced their candidate with A.A. "Sammy" Rayner, a former Democratic alderman. Despite the campaign support of Jackson for Rayner, Stewart won the election, although Rayner did get over 40% of the vote.^[30][31]

Stewart served only one term and lost the 1980 Democratic primary to reform candidate Harold Washington. He left Congress in 1983 upon being elected mayor, after winning a contentious three-way primary with 37% of the vote. His successor in Congress was union organizer Charles Hayes. Hayes lost the 1992 primary to Bobby Rush by a 42–39% margin following the House banking scandal, in which it was revealed that Hayes had 716 overdrafts on his congressional checking account.^[32] Rush had previously lost the 1988 and 1990 primaries to Hayes.

Rush was a co-founder of the Illinois Black Panthers in 1968, establishing a program for free breakfasts for poor children and a clinic for sickle cell anemia screenings.^[33] He served as a Chicago alderman from 1983 until his election to Congress in 1993, and he was an ally of Mayor Washington in the Council Wars of the 1980s. While in Congress, Rush consistently voted with the Democratic position over 90% of the time. When he did break from the party, he usually took positions more liberal than other Democrats, rather than taking positions held by Republicans.^[34] Rush ran against incumbent Richard M. Daley in the 1999 election for Mayor of Chicago. Despite the support of fellow congressmen Jesse Jackson Jr. and Danny Davis, he was backed by only three out of 50 aldermen and lost the election by a margin of 72–28%. He had a 55–45% advantage among black voters. In the 2000 congressional primary Rush emerged with a 61–30% win over challenger Barack Obama resulting in Obama's only electoral defeat.^[35]

In Congress, Rush focused on urban revitalization issues, and he was a staunch supporter of gun control efforts before his adult son Huey (named for Black Panther leader Huey Newton) was killed in a 1999 mugging. Following his son's murder, Rush remained a strong supporter of gun control.^[33] During his congressional tenure, Rush generally received perfect ratings of 100 from labor groups including the AFL-CIO and AFSCME, and occasionally also from Americans for Democratic Action, the ACLU and the National Abortion Rights Action League. His lifetime rating from the American Conservative Union is 3.93 on a 0 to 100 scale.^{[28][36][37][38]}

• Illinois's congressional districts
• List of United States congressional districts