In the min­utes after Chica­go media out­lets called the Cook Coun­ty State’s Attorney’s race for Kim Foxx on Tues­day night, a young African-Amer­i­can man wear­ing a t‑shirt read­ing ​“Adiós Ani­ta” took the stage at her vic­to­ry par­ty, beam­ing, chant­i­ng out to the exu­ber­ant crowd ​“two down, one to go!” — a ref­er­ence to the fir­ing of for­mer police chief Gar­ry McCarthy as well as Foxx’s oust­ing of Ani­ta Alvarez, both com­ing in the wake of the video release of Laquan McDonald’s killing by Chica­go police offi­cer Jason Van Dyke.

By organizing youth of color in the city around a transformational racial justice program, and by relentlessly participating in actions highlighting what they see as a broken criminal justice system led by Alvarez, these groups helped create the political space for Foxx’s campaign to grow into a city-wide movement to unseat an incumbent prosecutor in a primary—a remarkably unusual feat.

And much of the crowd at Foxx’s cel­e­bra­tion joined in, chant­i­ng right along.

It was a fit­ting moment for a cam­paign that ben­e­fit­ed enor­mous­ly from the orga­niz­ing work of African-Amer­i­can youth and racial jus­tice groups in the city, who made remov­ing Alvarez from office a key goal in the lead up to Tuesday’s Demo­c­ra­t­ic pri­ma­ry, in which Foxx won 58 per­cent of the vote to Alvarez’s 29 per­cent. (A third can­di­date, Don­na More, took 13 per­cent.) Foxx now looks ahead to an almost cer­tain win in the fall gen­er­al elec­tion against a Repub­li­can nominee.

Alvarez came under fire fol­low­ing the dis­clo­sure of the McDon­ald video, which the city held onto for over a year until a judge ordered it released to the pub­lic. It wasn’t until the court order that Alvarez chose to final­ly charge Van Dyke for McDonald’s mur­der — a full 13 months after he shot the unarmed 17-year-old African Amer­i­can 16 times.

The video, released last Decem­ber, led to weeks of street protests, block­ing traf­fic, dis­rupt­ing com­merce in some of the busiest com­mer­cial areas in the city and putting Chica­go in the nation­al spot­light in the grow­ing debate over police vio­lence and crim­i­nal justice.

One of the pri­ma­ry demands voiced at the protests was the removal from office of McCarthy, Alvarez and May­or Rahm Emanuel — all accused of par­tic­i­pat­ing in a cov­er-up to con­ceal the McDon­ald video to avoid the kind of uproar that hap­pened in places like Fer­gu­son and Bal­ti­more fol­low­ing sim­i­lar police killings of unarmed African Americans.

Most of these protests were led by groups of young African-Amer­i­can activists and orga­niz­ers, such as Black Youth Project 100, Assata’s Daugh­ters and We Charge Geno­cide.

These groups and many of their mem­bers had pre­vi­ous­ly helped achieve major vic­to­ries for racial jus­tice in Chica­go, includ­ing the pas­sage of a bill pro­vid­ing repa­ra­tions for vic­tims of police tor­ture and, most recent­ly, the planned con­struc­tion of a Lev­el I trau­ma cen­ter on the city’s south side Hyde Park neigh­bor­hood to pro­vide emer­gency care for vic­tims of gun­shot wounds and oth­er life-threat­en­ing conditions.

Both of those vic­to­ries were the result of mul­ti-year cam­paigns and required dogged deter­mi­na­tion. Foxx’s win is yet anoth­er vic­to­ry for which these groups can right­ly claim much credit.

Of course, Foxx also owes much of her vic­to­ry to the hard work of her team of staff and vol­un­teers — dubbed ​“Team Foxx” — as well as the sup­port of Cook Coun­ty Board Pres­i­dent Toni Preck­win­kle, pro­gres­sive groups like Grass­roots Col­lab­o­ra­tive and Unit­ed Work­ing Familes, and major endorse­ments rang­ing from the Chica­go Tri­bune and Sun-Times to Sen. Dick Durbin.

But by orga­niz­ing youth of col­or in the city around a trans­for­ma­tion­al racial jus­tice pro­gram, and by relent­less­ly par­tic­i­pat­ing in actions high­light­ing what they see as a bro­ken crim­i­nal jus­tice sys­tem led by Alvarez, these groups helped cre­ate the polit­i­cal space for Foxx’s cam­paign to grow into a city-wide move­ment to unseat an incum­bent pros­e­cu­tor in a pri­ma­ry — a remark­ably unusu­al feat.

And they helped lead a savvy social media cam­paign using the hash­tag #ByeAni­ta to draw atten­tion to Alvarez’s long his­to­ry of alleged­ly pro­tect­ing police offi­cers accused of mis­con­duct and rou­tine­ly vio­lat­ing the rights of African Amer­i­cans in the crim­i­nal jus­tice system.

While none of these groups explic­it­ly endorsed Foxx, they did work dili­gent­ly to make sure Chicagoans did not vote for Alvarez. Bren­na Cham­pi­on, an orga­niz­er with BYP100, said that the group can­vassed, knocked on doors through­out the city with their anti-Alvarez mes­sage and reached out to 2,500 vot­ers who planned to vote for Foxx, focus­ing on African-Amer­i­can vot­ers, large­ly on col­lege campuses.

Foxx promis­es to be a much more pro­gres­sive pros­e­cu­tor than Alvarez. As report­ed by In These Times edi­tor Mic­ah Uet­richt, she has called for an inde­pen­dent pros­e­cu­tor for every case in which a cit­i­zen is shot by a police offi­cer, cit­ing a con­flict of inter­est in the state’s attorney’s office pros­e­cut­ing Chica­go police. And she both oppos­es manda­to­ry min­i­mums for gun crimes and wants to end the ​“school-to-prison pipeline.”

Damon Williams, an orga­niz­er with BYP100, tweet­ed on Tues­day night: ​“This is a real­ly impor­tant win for Chica­go that will set a tone and shift con­ver­sa­tions through­out America…The Laquan McDon­ald con­ver­sa­tion only hap­pened because young peo­ple orga­nized. Peo­ple were moti­vat­ed to vote because peo­ple took the street.”

Indeed, as Dar­ryl Hol­l­i­day reports for Chica­go mag­a­zine, BYP100 is ​“fast emerg­ing in the wake of the McDon­ald firestorm as the most vocal and arguably most effec­tive activist group in town.”

And the group Assata’s Daugh­ters said in a state­ment: ​“Chica­go Black youth kicked Ani­ta Alvarez out of office. Just a month ago, Ani­ta Alvarez was win­ning in the polls. Com­mu­ni­ties who refuse to be killed and jailed and abused with­out any chance at jus­tice refused to allow that to hap­pen. We did this for Rekia. We did this for Laquan. We won’t stop until we’re free and Kim Foxx should know that well.”

The state­ment makes clear that they plan to keep the heat on Foxx, and any elect­ed offi­cial, who is in a posi­tion to dole out jus­tice. And while two are now down — McCarthy and Alvarez — there is one major tar­get left: Rahm Emanuel.

Chicago’s may­or appears a much more dif­fi­cult offi­cial to unseat. But judg­ing by this movement’s recent suc­cess­es, it should­n’t be count­ed out.