Power failure

"The state of black politics is dismal," says Hubie Jones, former dean of the Boston University School of Social Work. "We have no black congressman, we have no black at-large city councilor. We have no black mayor, [and] we're not in shouting distance of getting one in the near future."

In a city with a history as notorious as Boston's on matters of race, it's hard not to think that white resistance to sharing the spoils of political power is what's holding blacks back. Such suspicions underlie a lawsuit, now awaiting a ruling in US District Court, challenging the 2001 legislative redistricting as purposefully diluting minority voting strength. But some of the trouble is a function of what black politicos have done with the chances they've had.

Many black officials in lower-tier state and local offices remain fixed in place, neither climbing to higher posts nor moving out of the way to make room for a new generation of leaders. In Boston itself, few black candidates of stature have bothered to test the citywide political waters. And for all the complaints about disadvantageous districts, huge opportunities created by newly drawn lines have come and gone without credible black candidates taking advantage of them. Thus, in today's Boston, which is now more than 50 percent nonwhite, black politicians remain at the margins. Though it is the growth in recent years of other minority groups -- notably Hispanics and Asians -- that has transformed Boston into a "majority-minority" city, blacks, who account for about one-quarter of the city's population, are by far the city's largest and most established minority group.

In the 1983 election, Raymond Flynn defeated Mel King by a margin of 65 to 35 percent. The immediate aftermath of King's candidacy was not further advancement into the Boston power structure, but a series of retreats. Twice in the 1980s, black activists sought to carve a separate municipality out of the city's predominantly black neighborhoods, effectively trying to secede from Boston. They were defeated in advisory referenda. Not long after, blacks lost an important political stepping stone when Mayor Flynn dissolved the elected school committee, which at the time included four minority members, and replaced it with an appointed body. Increasingly, the influence blacks exerted on City Hall came from the clergy, with Flynn -- and, following him, Mayor Menino -- looking to black ministers, rather than black officials, as allies.

"It's clear the mayor has made political alliance with the ministers, and I think part of that is to have a base of power independent of the black leadership," says City Councilor Chuck Turner of Roxbury.

But any such shunning of the black political class has been possible only because black leaders missed opportunities to become forces to be reckoned with. The most notable of these came in 1998, when Joseph Kennedy gave up the congressional seat covering a big chunk of Boston along with Belmont, Cambridge, Chelsea, Somerville, and Watertown he'd won 12 years earlier. As a result of redistricting in 1992, minorities accounted for nearly 40 percent of the total population of the 8th Congressional District. Ten candidates competed for the Democratic nomination to succeed Kennedy, a prize tantamount to election in the overwhelmingly Democratic district. But the one would-be contender from the black community with the star power to have a legitimate chance at victory, state Senator Dianne Wilkerson had recently pleaded guilty to federal charges related to failure to file income tax returns. Wilkerson had to watch from the sidelines as Somerville mayor Michael E. Capuano rode to victory with just 23 percent of the primary vote.

A similar opening was missed last year, when no black candidate of stature ran in the newly redrawn "majority-minority" state Senate district that joined South Boston with most of Dorchester and Mattapan.

The dearth of top-shelf candidates may have to do not only with the state of black politics here but also with the state of black opportunities. "We're producing impressive numbers of African-American professionals in law, medicine, business, and education who, for the first time, are thinking of making their careers in Boston, rather than returning to New York or North Carolina or California or Illinois," says Harvard law professor Charles Ogletree.

And if going into politics is not at the top of their career agenda, that makes ambitious young blacks no different than their white peers. "You've got a phenomenon here where smart, young, effective people don't see the political system as a way to really get things done," says Jones.

"You have the private sector actively recruiting talented young black students," says Larry Harris, a 25-year-old black Tufts graduate who cofounded United Leaders, a nonprofit group trying to channel the volunteerism of college students into political action. "The public sector doesn't really have a mechanism to regenerate itself."

It also doesn't help to treat young political aspirants like upstarts. Ego Ezedi, a 30-year-old newcomer to city politics, challenged veteran black City Councilor Charles C. Yancey, who represents sections of Dorchester and Mattapan, in last month's election, only to find himself up against not only a 20-year incumbent but a nearly united front of the city's black political leaders. Closing ranks behind Yancey, these black officials spread the claim that the young black challenger was a puppet of white politicians.

The next test of black political strength comes next year, when Suffolk County Sheriff Andrea J. Cabral, appointed by Jane Swift last year to fill a vacancy, must secure her position by winning election to the post. This was a winning formula for Ralph C. Martin II, the state's first African-American district attorney, who converted an appointment by William Weld into two elected terms, not to mention constant speculation about his potential for higher office. But Martin walked away, opting for a law-firm partnership over political advancement.

Meanwhile, civil rights and voter-mobilization groups eagerly await a decision in federal court on their claim that a 2001 redistricting plan cheated minority voters of their rightful clout in several state House of Representative districts in Boston and Chelsea. One of the seats in question is House Speaker Thomas M. Finneran's own Mattapan-based district, which gained several largely white precincts in Dorchester and Milton. Testimony in that court case included the unlikely spectacle of the always-in-command Finneran -- who disavowed any role in the redistricting exercise -- claiming he didn't even know the name of the district he represents (the 12th Suffolk).

But the question never raised was why, in a district that has been "majority-minority" and presumably amenable to a credible black candidate for more than a decade, Finneran has not had an opponent since 1992. Solving that riddle would do more for the cause of black political advancement than any legal remedy the court could hand down.

Michael Jonas is an associate editor of CommonWealth, a quarterly journal published by MassINC, a nonpartisan think tank in Boston. This topic is covered in more detail in CommonWealth's fall issue, available online at www.massinc.org/commonwealth.