Wilkerson tells supporters to push for Obama

Supporters of state Senator Dianne Wilkerson gathered at her campaign headquarters on Tremont Street yesterday. (Justine Hunt/ Globe Staff)

Disgraced state Senator Dianne Wilkerson told nearly 100 supporters yesterday to "keep fighting" for the needs of the sprawling Boston district even as she halts her effort to win reelection in the face of federal bribery charges.

Wilkerson slipped in through a rear entrance of her campaign headquarters on Tremont Street in Roxbury for what one participant described as a farewell gathering with diehard supporters.

"There was praying and a little singing and more than a little sadness," Boyce Slayman, Wilkerson's campaign manager, said in an interview after the three-hour event.

Slayman said Wilkerson called on supporters who planned to work the polls for her tomorrow to redirect their efforts to Barack Obama's presidential campaign. He said several supporters asked whether they could still vote for her.

"She said: 'This is America, and it's a democracy. You can vote for anybody you want,' " Slayman said.

Asked by a supporter what would happen should she prevail in her sticker campaign, Wilkerson said she would have a decision to make, Slayman added. Many voters in her district had already received stickers in the mail for her reelection effort before she called off her campaign last week.

"She didn't suggest that she would take the seat or not," he said.

After her arrest on bribery charges last week, Wilkerson had vowed to stay in the race. She reversed course Friday under pressure from prominent black ministers and agreed to end her sticker campaign. But she did not step down from her Senate seat, despite a unanimous call for her resignation from angry Senate colleagues.

But her decision to halt her sticker campaign means a 15-year Senate career in which she commanded enduring support in Roxbury and Lower Dorchester - despite a series of ethical and legal transgressions - will most likely end with tomorrow's election.

She had narrowly lost the Democratic primary in September to former Jamaica Plain schoolteacher Sonia Chang-Diaz but was in the midst of her sticker campaign for the general election when news of her arrest rocked the state's political establishment, and a stream of subpoenas rained down on some of her key associates at City Hall and the State House.

Photos that US Attorney Michael J. Sullivan said show her accepting cash bribes have left an indelible stain on her political career.

But Slayman said that Wilkerson did not discuss the charges yesterday. In a statement last week, Wilkerson said there was more to the story that she could not yet discuss.

A supporter outside yesterday's event, Shakir Shabazz, 46, of Dorchester, said he was "very upset" with the black ministers who pressured her to give up her campaign and urged her to resign even though her case had not worked its way through the courts.

"The whole city turned against her," Shabazz said.

Slayman said Wilkerson's remarks at yesterday's event, where supporters dined on Haitian and Spanish rice, fried plantains, and lasagna, were not about her political future.

"She said it wasn't all about her," Slayman said. "It was about the community. It was all about thanking them and reminding them a historic day lies ahead."

Chang-Diaz held a press conference in front of the State House Friday in which she thanked Wilkerson for acting with the best interests of the community at heart and said her door would be open to Wilkerson's supporters.

But Archie Holmes, of Roxbury, another supporter at yesterday's farewell, said he worried that the district's presumptive new senator would not be as effective as Wilkerson because she is a newcomer.

"This new freshman senator's not going to get anything done," said Holmes, 78. "We're in pretty bad shape."

John C. Drake can be reached at jdrake@globe.com