Electing Black Mayors
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Electing Black Mayors Political Action in the Black Community William E. Nelson, Jr. and Philip J. Meranto $20.00 ELECTING BLACK MAYORS Political Action in the Black Community By William E. Nelson, Jr., and Philip J. Meranto As the black protest movement swept north in the middle years of the 1960s, a major shift was to take place in its basic theme and fundamental direction that transferred emphasis from the familiar exhortation to demand "freedom now" to an equally urgent summons to marshal the formidable, if un tapped, resources of "black power" in the struggle for liberation. This alteration in both informing idea and effective method signified conclusively that blacks, grown angry and frustrated over the slow rate of their social and economic prog ress as an oppressed minority, were finally prepared to realize their potential force in order to exercise a decisive measure of po litical control over their own lives. As a call to action, black power reflected a growing sense of community among blacks, a fresh awareness of shared experience and a common heritage. More importantly, however, it was both a challenge posed by blacks to themselves to gain some increased measure of control over the institutions of that community, and an appeal for black solidarity and concerted political action as the essential means to that end. An increased concentration of blacks in the major cities of the northern and western United States had come about as the direct result of one of the most significant demographic changes to occur in the nation in the twentieth century. Blacks were rapidly coming to con stitute numerical majorities in the popula tions of the largest and most important of American cities and were in an excellent position to influence decisively the outcome (Continued on back flap) Electing Black Mayors ELECTING BLACK MAYORS Political Action in the Black Community William E. Nelson, Jr., and Philip J. Meranto Ohio State University Press: Columbus Copyright © 1977 by the Ohio State University Press All rights reserved Manufactured in the United States of America Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Nelson, William E Electing Black mayors. Includes index. 1. Afro-American mayors—Case studies. 2. Afro-Americans—Politics and suffrage—Case studies. 3. Elections—Ohio—Cleveland. 4. Elections—Illinois —East St. Louis. 5. Elections—Indiana—Gary. I. Meranto, Philip J., joint author. II. Title. JS395.N45 329'.023'730923 76-51347 Contents Introduction 3 PART I Black Political Mobilization 1. Problems of Black Political Mobilization 11 2. The Defeat of an All-Black Ticket in East Saint Louis 35 PART II Cleveland and Gary: The Ingredients of Successful Mobilization 3. Cleveland: The Economic, Social, and Political Setting 67 4. Cleveland: The 1967 Primary Election 108 5. Cleveland: The 1967 General Election 143 6. Gary: The Economic, Social, and Political Setting 166 7. Gary: The 1967 Primary Election 208 8. Gary: The 1967 General Election 270 9. A Summary View of Political Mobilization 322 PART III The Problem of Governance 10. Black Mayors: The Dilemmas of Power 335 11. Conclusions and Lessons 382 Index 395 Tables 1. Black Out-Migration from the South, 1910-1966 14 2. East Saint Louis Primary Election, 1967 42 3. East Saint Louis Primary Election, 1967: By Black and White Precincts 42 4. East Saint Louis Mayoralty Election, 1967 47 5. East Saint Louis Mayoralty Election, 1967: By Black and White Precincts 48 6. White Population Decrease and Black Population Increase in Cleveland, 1930-1966 78 7. Cleveland Mayoralty Election, 1965 102 8. Cleveland Mayoralty Election, 1965: By Race 102 9. Cleveland Democratic Primary Election, 1967 139 10. Cleveland Democratic Primary Election, 1967: By Race 140 11. Cleveland Mayoralty Election, 1967 162 12. Cleveland Mayoralty Election, 1967: By Race 162 13. Gary Democratic Mayoral Primary Election, 1967 263 14. Gary Mayoralty Election, 1967 316 Electing Black Mayors Introduction Future historians of American society will no doubt characterize the 1960s as a decade of unusual social change and dislocation. This characterization will be particularly striking if the past decade is contrasted with the 1950s, which was a decade largely devoted to celebrating the achievements and cohesiveness of America. If compared, it is apparent that the intensive turmoil and strife that emerged during the 1960s completely shattered the complacency and smugness of the 1950s. Those social commentators who main tained that America's most pressing problem in an age of non- ideological conflict was the management of affluence found their interpretations rudely undermined by the unprecedented conflict surrounding black liberation, women's liberation, the persistence of American poverty, the operation of American universities, the waging of the Vietnam War, and American foreign policy in gen eral. The eruption of widespread civil disorder in black ghettos and on university campuses plus the outbreak of urban guerrilla terrorism made it abundantly clear that America is not a society that has reached consensus on the major issues of human life. There are, of course, many complicated factors that have con tributed to these developments. Included in virtually all explana tions, however, is the spector of the world's most materially afflu ent nation utilizing its abundant resources to heap violence on a small country halfway around the earth and to send men to the 4 / Electing Black Mayors moon while between one-fourth and one-fifth of its own people are condemned to a life of hopeless poverty. How and why the Amer ican political system produces such results is one of the most fun damental issues that has emerged in recent times. Among the major contributing factors to the tension and con flict pervading contemporary American society has been the quest of black Americans, who constitute a large segment of the poverty stricken, to break the chains of economic, social, and political pov erty. During the 1960s this quest was articulated through a revital ized civil rights movement that mobilized thousands of protest actions to secure "freedom now" for black Americans; however, by the mid-1960s, it became apparent to many civil rights activists that despite their efforts the goals of integration and equality re mained extremely elusive for the overwhelming bulk of black peo ple. As a result of this frustration and a growing understanding of power relationships in American society, a new dimension of black struggle emerged in the summer of 1966. During a civil rights march across Mississippi a young black leader of the Stu dent Non-violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), Stokely Car michael, urged that blacks shift from an emphasis on civil rights to "black power." What Carmichael and other SNCC members meant by the concept of black power stimulated much controver sial discussion and many interpretations among both blacks and whites. The term continues to carry a variety of interpretations; however, there are some fundamental aspects that have been widely accepted within black liberation circles. These aspects in clude: (1) the quest for a political organization that speaks direct ly for blacks and represents their needs and interests; (2) recon struction of the black community and its identity, with an emphasis on racial pride and self-esteem; (3) the development of a sense of community and group cohesion; (4) the development of black organizations controlled by blacks, before any coalitions can be formed with whites; (5) black control for full participation in the decision-making processes of institutions that shape the lives of black people; (6) the need for whites to work in their own com munities in order to fight the racism that exists there; and (7) the right to self-defense, due to the ineffectiveness of nonviolent tactics in situations where blacks are physically threatened.1 An important ingredient of this concept holds that "where black peo ple have a majority, they will attempt to use power to exercise control. That is what they seek: control."2 Introduction / 5 A year after the emergence of black power as a concept, the nation witnessed what many commentators and black citizens identified as prime examples of the notion: the election of blacks to the mayorship in two major cities of the urban North. In 1967 Richard G. Hatcher became the first black mayor of Gary, Indiana, and Carl B. Stokes became the first black mayor of Cleveland, Ohio. These black electoral victories carried a double meaning. On the one hand, they represented the end product of a major effort by blacks to gain control of the highest governmental office in a particular locale.3 These victories also signaled, in the opinion of the authors, the beginnings of a new historical era in northern urban politics. We suggest that the history of the urban North can be broadly divided into three phases: (1) occupation of high mu nicipal offices by white Anglo-Saxons; (2) the wresting away of this occupation during the 1930s by representatives of European ethnic groups; and (3) the initial ascendance of black officials in the late 1960s and the growth of black controlled offices through out the 1970s and thereafter. This study concentrates on analyzing the beginnings of the third phase. An effort is made to deal with several fundamental ques tions. First, given the harsh social, economic, and political ob stacles blacks have faced in this country, how did they overcome these obstacles and successfully mobilize for victory in Gary and Cleveland? Second, how did the white communities in these cities react to the black thrust for the mayorship? Third, what hap pened when Hatcher and Stokes took office—were they able to solve the critical problems of the black community? Fourth, how does the election of black mayors relate to the general struggle for black liberation? Finally, we seek to shed light on the crucial question of the value and role of electoral politics in the process of black liberation.