ARCHIVES OF LEAD STORIES
December 30, 2004
Community saw growth, setbacks
in year 2004
Yawu Miller
The year 2004 blew in on a cold, blustery January
night holding much promise for Boston — the Democratic National
Convention, a presidential race with a home-grown candidate, and
a heated redistricting lawsuit that promised to shake up the way
the city’s people of color are represented in the State
House.
For all its promise, 2004 dealt the city’s black community
a mixed bag of wins and losses proving that nothing comes easy
in Boston’s scrappy political arena.
Perhaps the single greatest victory in 2004 was Suffolk County
Sheriff Andrea Cabral’s stunning win over challenger at-large
City Councilor Stephen Murphy. Defying political pundits, Cabral
relied on a strong base of voters of color and cross-over votes
from the predominantly white parts of the city to edge out Murphy
and become the first black female elected to city-wide office.
If Felix Arroyo’s 2003 victory in the at-large city council
race signalled a new beginning for voters and candidates of color,
Cabral’s win was confirmation that politics-as-usual in
Boston no longer means an Irish ethnic identity is a guarantee
of electability.
In place to capitalize on the new atmosphere of empowerment in
the city’s communities of color, activists launched the
New Majority Coalition, a group of African American, Latino, Asian
and Cape Verdean activists aimed at opening up the city’s
corridors of power to people of color.
The euphoria in communities of color generated by Cabral’s
win in the September primary contrasted sharply with the victory
of President George W. Bush over Massachusetts Senator John Kerry.
While Massachusetts and other left-leaning northern states voted
democratic, 51 percent of US voters chose to re-elect the right-wing
president.
While Massachusetts has long been a solidly Democratic-leaning
state, Boston’s hosting of the Democratic National Convention
in July helped spur efforts to boost voter turnout here. Organizers
of a July Hip Hop Summit, held at the Reggie Lewis Track facility
by rap mogul Russell Simmons, claimed to have registered just
shy of 10,000 new voters.
Although new voters of color may have helped Cabral, they did
nothing for Kerry, who directed his efforts at the nation’s
swing states where Electoral College votes were up for grabs.
One of the biggest political struggles this year came not between
Republicans and Democrats, but rather between people of color
and the state’s Democratic leaders.
The redistricting lawsuit, filed in 2003, captivated the attention
of political activists as a coalition of civil rights activists
brought one of the state’s most powerful politicians to
heel in federal court. Former House Speaker Thomas Finneran was
as much on trial as was the re-drawn districting map he claimed
no knowledge of.
While a federal court panel handed the plaintiffs a victory in
their suit — adding people of color to the districts of
Finneran and state Rep. Liz Malia — the incumbents fended
off challengers.
Ironically, while Malia faced a nominal challenge from a third-party
candidate, it was Finneran who ultimately went down in the aftermath
of the redistricting battle, resigning his position as speaker
after federal officials begin probing his testimony in the redistricting
case. Three candidates of color and at least twice as many white
candidates are currently vying for Finneran’s seat, to be
filled by special election early in 2005.
Finneran’s defeat may pave the way for representatives of
color in the House — many of whom had contentious relations
with the conservative speaker — to obtain better committee
assignments and consolidate the little bit of power they now have.
At the city level, the year began with as much contention as any
other. Councilor Felix Arroyo made an unsuccessful bid for the
presidency of the council, drawing the votes of councilors Chuck
Turner and Charles Yancey while council President Michael Flaherty
handily won re-election.
Turner began the year with an unsuccessful attempt to check Flaherty’s
power, calling for an amendment to Rule 19 — which gives
the council president the power to squelch debate on issues deemed
not relevant to council business.
Those two defeats set the tone for the year in the council, with
the three councilors of color frequently clashing with Flaherty
and rarely mustering the votes to check his power.
A case in point was December’s vote on the Community Stabilization
Act, an ordinance that would have introduced a limited form of
rent control in Boston. In the final vote, Arroyo, Turner and
Yancey stood with councilors Hennigan and Ross in favor of the
ordinance while Flaherty and the majority of the council were
against it.
While politicians struggled for inclusion in 2004, several developers
of color saw their struggles come to fruition. One Lincoln Plaza
opened its doors, bringing in State Street Bank as its anchor
tenant. The $705 million sale of the building, which was developed
by a team of black, Chinese and Latino developers, brought new
wealth to the minority community.
The opening of the Hampton Inn at the Crosstown development also
signaled a major milestone for the city’s business community
— the city’s first black-owned hotel.
While the black community enjoyed many hard-fought successes,
it also mourned the loss of some of its luminaries including Elma
Lewis, who founded the Museum of the National Center for African
American Artists and brought to the community institutions including
the annual Black Nativity Play.
The city’s jazz community mourned the loss of James Williams,
a former Berklee College of Music professor and mentor to many
in the local jazz scene in the ’70s and ’80s.
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