Change Agent

The summer and fall of last year were busy times for Jass Stewart. In July he got married, and in late September he announced he was running for mayor of Brockton. And that was a relatively quiet stretch for him. Back in 1999, Stewart bought a house, adopted a child, moved to Brockton, and started a multimedia production company there, all within several months.

A tall man with a shaven head, runner's physique, and a laidback charm, Stewart, 33, is the first aspirant to announce his candidacy for this year's mayoral race in the "City of Champions" (birthplace of boxing greats Rocky Marciano and Marvin Hagler). Mayor John Yunits, who has served since 1996, has announced that he will not seek another term, and City Council president James Harrington has said he will run. But if Stewart defies the odds-makers, the Democrat would represent two "firsts": He would be the first African-American mayor in Brockton's history and also its first openly gay mayor. But this may not be easy. Although Brockton's population is approaching 50 percent minority, it has elected one nonwhite public official in its history, and Stewart, his partner, Denzil Paul, and their 12-year-old son, Jajuan Stewart, make up a rare openly gay family in this blue-collar city of 94,000.

Stewart was attracted to Brockton because of its reputation as an ethnic and cultural melting pot. The block of modest single-family homes on the city's north side, where he lives, houses Jewish, Caribbean, Greek, and Cape Verdean families. Stewart bought his home there shortly after he adopted Jajuan. "I wanted to raise Jajuan in the diversity of the world," he says.

Brockton has a great deal of potential, in part because of its proximity to Boston, but the onetime shoe manufacturing center also faces a host of challenges: an aging infrastructure, high rates of poverty and AIDS, and an influx of immigrants who don't speak English. It took Stewart less than five years in town to decide to run for mayor. His business dealings with city officials and volunteer efforts for civic organizations convinced him there was a disconnection between Brockton's government and its residents. He's brainy, a thinker: Paul says that every time Stewart goes into the shower, he emerges with two or three new ideas. "Jass is a new breed of candidate for our city," says Dr. Gregg Miller, a Republican who serves on the City Council. "He is educated and worldly. He offers a fresh perspective."

He grew up in Dallas; his mother, a teacher, was the first in her family to go to college, and his father drove a forklift for Consolidated Freightways. He was the speaker at his high school commencement. "He was inquisitive, curious," his sixth-grade teacher Lou Propst recalls. "I'd tell him, 'I'm going to be reading about you someday.'"

Stewart arrived in Boston in 1989 to study at Boston University, earning a bachelor's degree in broadcasting and film and a master's degree in educational media and technology. He was also a senior research fellow in MIT's department of urban studies and planning. (One of Stewart's ideas as mayor would be to link each of the 28 precincts in Brockton with an urban-planning graduate student; students would live and work in Brockton a few days a week and help formulate a master plan for the city.) In the early 1990s, he interned at WGBH-TV, leading to a series of jobs at Blackside, the production company responsible for the award-winning Eyes on the Prize documentary series. Later, he started his own company, Invent Media, which develops media materials for nonprofit organizations. The company's latest effort, a website for the Veterans of Hope Project in Denver, features 50 video clips chronicling the lives of social activists around the world. Stewart has traveled widely, from Ghana and Spain to Japan.

On the afternoon following the US presidential election, Stewart is still in shock, but he's taking the dictum "Don't mourn, organize" to heart. He's a staunch believer in the power of positive thinking, peppering his conversation with phrases like "Sometimes fear means go" and "I've lived the power of dreams." So that evening, without missing a beat, he will set off to address a Brockton small business association. The candidate spent Election Day at the polls, where he and his volunteers handed out 1,800 cards touting his five-point program for the city: increasing accountability at City Hall, bringing jobs to Brockton, improving education, reducing youth crime, and encouraging home and business ownership.

For a few minutes, Stewart relaxes in his living room, sipping hot chocolate with Paul, 32, who worked as a computer analyst on the Caribbean island of Trinidad before immigrating to the United States and appears as well versed on issues like city finances and taxes as Stewart himself. Their son, Jajuan, polite but rambunctious, is chafing at the bit because the phone keeps ringing - he knows it's for him - and his dads won't let him answer it while a guest is present.

Paul believes there is little difference between them and most American families. "We are a typical, boring family," he says. "Our evenings consist of Jajuan doing his homework and preparing for a test. Kids are always coming over, and they treat us as a family."

The day before, however, voters in 11 states approved ballot initiatives banning gay marriage. Nonetheless, Stewart is confident that once Brockton voters get to know his family, they'll step back from any prejudice. "You project a certain image, and people respond," he says. "We will demand respect by respecting ourselves."

Whether the City of Champions, with its tightly knit political culture, is ready to embrace a black gay man as mayor is an open question. But those who think his candidacy could augur a new day for Brockton remain hopeful. "Brockton's needs are so great," says Miller. "If people don't vote for him because of this, that's their loss."

Neil Miller teaches journalism at Tufts University.