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July 14, 2005

Jeremy Schwab

As the races for city office heat up this summer, a packed field of contenders are vying for four at-large city council seats, Maura Hennigan and incumbent Mayor Thomas Menino are engaged in a lopsided duel for the keys to City Hall and a handful of district councilors face serious challengers.

Observers in the black community, meanwhile, are left scratching their heads as they scan the political landscape in vain for signs of viable black challengers.

Of the three blacks to run citywide, former City Councilor Gareth Saunders failed to collect enough signatures to get on the ballot for mayor and perennial candidates Althea Garrison and Roy Owens are not taken seriously in their runs for at-large councilor.

Why the absence of candidates with competitive field operations and fundraising apparatuses?

Money. Community organizers or others from the black community who might run are dissuaded by the daunting challenge of raising enough cash to be competitive, say observers.

“Probably the lowest amount a [citywide council candidate] needs to finance a campaign is in the range of $200,000,” said District 7 City Councilor Chuck Turner. “So I think it is intimidating to activists who work hard in the community but who don’t have access to the resources the business and development communities put into councilors who are going to lobby for their interests.”

Garrison has not even tried to raise money for her campaign, which will be at least her fifteenth run for elected office. She has spent some of her own money on newspaper advertising.

Despite this dearth of funds, she says she has an “excellent” chance of winning one of the four seats. Owens, meanwhile, did not return a call for comment before the Banner went to press.

The two candidates of color for at-large councilor whose campaigns are considered viable — Felix Arroyo and Sam Yoon — have demonstrated fundraising prowess. Arroyo, one of three incumbents fighting to keep their seats, raised enough money in 2003 to place second in the balloting. Yoon is in his first race for political office, but had already raised over $30,000 from in-state donors and out-of-state contributors by the end of last year.

Other factors besides money may play a role in keeping people of color, particularly blacks, from running citywide.

“There’s obviously the money aspect, but also communities that feel alienated or don’t feel they are listened to or have a say aren’t running for office,” said Horace Small, who heads the Union of Minority Neighborhoods. “They aren’t participating. Most feel very hostile toward the process.”

Turner said racism is a barrier to launching a citywide campaign.

“I think there has been a concern that elected officials of color at the city level have had in terms of whether it is possible for black candidates in particular to get a large enough percentage of the white electorate to vote for them due to the fact that people tend to elect people who they see as being like themselves,” he said.

The problem of a lack of viable black citywide candidates is not new. No black has won an at-large council seat since Bruce Bolling and no black has ever been elected mayor.

But this is supposed to be the new Boston, where qualified candidates of color can win citywide. Arroyo recently became the first Latino to win at-large and Andrea Cabral, who is black, trounced Irish American challenger Stephen Murphy in last year’s Suffolk County sheriff race.

This year’s at-large council and mayoral races, however, resemble the old Boston, with two white candidates for mayor and at least nine Irish American candidates in an at-large field of 15 who collected enough signatures to get their names on the ballot.

While the citywide races feature no viable black candidates, district council races are also short on viable challengers in communities of color.

Gibran Rivera is launching what observers consider a significant challenge to incumbent John Tobin in District 6, but the only challenger for a district seat from within the black community is J.R. Rucker, who is challenging incumbent Charles Yancey in District 4.

Rucker, too, is a frequent candidate who has run for state representative and district city council. Rucker could not be reached for comment before the Banner’s press deadline.

Black elected officials, like white elected officials in Boston, are difficult to dislodge once they are in office. Boston’s black political leadership is aging, and observers say it is time to cull new leadership.

“We have exceptional activists at the grass roots level, some of whom would make very good elected officials, but there has been no solicitation of them to run for political office,” said Mukiya Baker-Gomez, perhaps the most successful campaign manager in the black community.

Small, whose organization trains young activists of color, said that the black community needs to create more avenues for talented young blacks to participate in civic leadership.

“We have to have something for them to participate in,” he said. “The Democratic Party in Massachusetts doesn’t have young Democrats running around in the neighborhoods. And the ward structure’s pretty iffy at best.

“At some point, the leadership of the black community has to sit down and start talking about succession and internships,” he continued.

Some organizers like Small are working to cultivate the next generation of political leaders. For instance, community activist Sarah Ann Shaw, Rep. Byron Rushing and others are working on an initiative out of Northeastern University to train people to run for office.

But this year’s crop of candidates demonstrates that blacks have a long way to go to achieving major political clout, say observers.

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