Janey, Kim (1965- )

Subterms

    Latest story

    163 Shares99 Views

    8 Black Women Who Are Mayors in Some of the U.S.'s Biggest Cities

    by

    When Kim Janey failed in September to qualify for the mayoral runoff election in Boston, effectively ending her time as the city’s top leader, her political rivals rejoiced and her supporters were dismayed. But her loss affected one group in particular: the collective of seven other Black women who are mayors of large cities. It’s currently a record number.Black women mayors lead eight of the 100 cities with the largest populations in the United States, according to data from the Center for American Women and Politics (CAWP) at Rutgers University. Their disparate communities stretch across both coasts, the Midwest and the South, from Boston, San Francisco and Chicago to New Orleans, St. Louis and Washington, D.C. Some of their cities have large Black populations but others do not. And the women have forged a quiet fellowship because of their relative scarcity and similar experiences of managing the myriad facets of a big city as mayors in a shifting political landscape.That these eight Black women have achieved this milestone is both remarkable and a long time in the making, say analysts of Black politics. The number of female mayors of any race in major U.S. cities has more than tripled in the last decade, from just nine in 2011 to 31 today, according to CAWP, which began tracking this data in 1997. But within that number, the rise of Black women has been particularly dramatic.“This is the age of Black women in politics,” said David Bositis, a scholar of Black politics and a voting rights expert witness in federal and state courts. “This has been culminating for a long time.”According to CAWP, the first Black female mayors of the 100 largest American cities — Lottie Shackelford of Little Rock, Ark., and Carrie Saxon Perry of Hartford, Conn. — were elected in 1987. Ms. Shackelford was in disbelief on her inauguration day, she recalled in a recent interview: “Is this really true? Is this happening?”Kim Janey, the mayor of Boston.Lelanie Foster for The New York TimesMuriel Bowser, the mayor of Washington, D.C.Stephanie Mei-Ling for The New York TimesBut for a long time, Ms. Shackelford and Ms. Perry were members of a lonely club. For decades, there were no more than two or three Black female mayors serving at the same time. That number only began to shift six years ago, rising to four in 2015, seven in 2018 and eight this year. And even as more Black women have won mayoral races across the country, the numbers of Latina and Asian American female mayors of major cities have continued to hover around one to three at a time.In interviews with the current Black female mayors — Ms. Janey in Boston; Keisha Lance Bottoms in Atlanta; Muriel Bowser in Washington; London Breed in San Francisco; LaToya Cantrell in New Orleans; Tishaura Jones in St. Louis; Lori Lightfoot in Chicago; and Vi Lyles in Charlotte, N.C. — all eight women said they were heartened by their collective achievement, but had no illusions about the barriers still standing in the way of Black women in U.S. politics.“It doesn’t mean that racism magically disappears. It doesn’t mean that sexism magically disappears,” said Ms. Janey of Boston.Ms. Bowser in D.C. was the first of the eight to be sworn in, in 2015. Ms. Janey took her oath in March of this year and Ms. Jones assumed office in April. Six of the eight — Ms. Breed, Ms. Lyles, Ms. Jones, Ms. Lightfoot, Ms. Cantrell and Ms. Janey — are the first Black women to serve as mayors of their cities.LaToya Cantrell, the mayor of New Orleans.Imani Khayyam for The New York TimesThis breakthrough moment may be a fleeting one. In Atlanta, a city where nearly half of the population is Black, Ms. Bottoms announced earlier this year that she would not be running for a second term. Two Black candidates — Kasim Reed, a man and the city’s former mayor, and Felicia Moore, a woman and the current city council president — are leading the race to replace her in the Nov. 2 election, according to a recent Atlanta Journal-Constitution poll. In Boston, Ms. Janey, who was appointed acting mayor earlier this year, came in fourth in the preliminary election this fall, failing to secure a spot in the runoff; the frontrunner to replace her, Michelle Wu, is an Asian American woman and a current city councilor. Even without Ms. Janey, though, the number of Black women mayors may not diminish. India Walton, a Democrat, is currently running for mayor of Buffalo; if elected, she would be the first woman — and first Black woman — to lead New York’s second-largest city.Political experts attribute the rise in Black female mayors, and Black women in other elected positions, to a number of factors, including a changing electorate, grass roots activism and increased support from so-called gatekeepers, including political parties, major unions and other organizations that can help boost a candidate through fund-raising and endorsements.This trend has accelerated in the last five years, Debbie Walsh, the director of CAWP, said: “There has been increased activism in recruiting and supporting women of color who are running for office, certainly on the Democratic side. More and more of these gatekeepers are engaging and seeking out Black women candidates.”One political scientist also points to young Black women’s early exposure to civic engagement through sororities and other clubs, describing their political rise as “Black girl magic.”“One of the things that I’m finding in my research is that the overwhelming majority of Black female mayors belong to a sorority — and they learned about activism in college because these sororities emphasize community service,” said Sharon Wright Austin, a professor of political science at the University of Florida and editor of the forthcoming book “Political Black Girl Magic: The Elections and Governance of Black Female Mayors.”Keisha Lance Bottoms, the Atlanta mayor.Anissa Baty for The New York TimesVi Lyles, the mayor of Charlotte, N.C.Liam Woods for The New York TimesEven as more cities have elected Black women as mayors, other executive government positions — for which mayorships of major cities have traditionally been steppingstones — have remained out of reach. No Black woman has ever been elected governor or president. Only two Black women have ever been elected to the Senate and, with the election of Kamala Harris as the nation’s first Black, female and Asian American vice president, there are currently no Black female Senators in office.Dr. Austin sees the increasing number of Black female candidates for these positions as encouraging nonetheless. “Before, it used to be that Black women didn’t run. They were the organizers and the campaign volunteers, but the men were the ones who were running for office,” she said. “But now you’re seeing Black women not only organizing campaigns and working in communities but having the confidence that they can run for office themselves.”Dr. Austin cited Stacey Abrams, who narrowly lost the 2018 governor’s race in Georgia, as emblematic of the kinds of Black female candidates who are shifting the balance. Ms. Abrams rose to prominence after her loss thanks to her efforts to highlight voter suppression and mobilize Black voters in Georgia, and she has been credited with helping to flip the state for Democrats in the 2020 presidential election and 2021 Senate runoffs.“You could argue that these candidates were unsuccessful because they didn’t win the election but you can’t really say that their campaigns are failures,” Dr. Austin said. “Because each time a woman runs, it’s sending a signal to other women that they can run, too.”Some experts say that perhaps no other politician has a more direct and profound impact on people’s lives than a mayor, particularly in cities that operate under the strong-mayor model of governance used in most major American cities (including all but one of the cities — St. Louis — currently run by a Black woman). In this kind of system, mayors can hire and fire police chiefs, manage the city’s budget, enforce municipal policy, negotiate city contracts and in some cases even oversee cultural institutions and public transportation.London Breed, the mayor of San Francisco.Bethany Mollenkof for The New York Times“Mayors are arguably the most important politicians in any American citizen’s life,” said Ravi Perry, a professor of political science at Howard University. “Everything that we actively deal with as citizens mostly is litigated and legislated at the local level.”Once in office, however, Black female mayors recounted how they’ve often found themselves continuing to battle the same stereotypes that made it so difficult for them to secure their positions in the first place. Many of the current mayors talked about experiencing everyday bias, from coded language and leading questions about their qualifications to more outright discrimination.Ms. Bottoms of Atlanta said she is often asked who is advising her — implying, she feels, that she is incapable of making decisions on her own. “It was not enough that I stood on my own two feet,” she said. “It had to be someone else or something else that was responsible for me.”Women in these executive leadership positions, and particularly women of color, are often held to impossibly high standards, experts say, making it harder for them to accomplish their policy goals or win re-election. “It’s a scenario we call a glass cliff,” said Ms. Walsh, the CAWP director. “Expectations are set too high. And then, when they don’t meet them, it’s a steeper fall for those women.”Part of the challenge for many of these leaders may also be the increasingly diverse electorates that have sent them to office, Andrea Benjamin, a professor of African and African American studies at the University of Oklahoma, explained. “Historically we know that Black mayors were first elected in majority Black cities. It took that kind of majority voting to get them in office,” she said. “You have to have a much broader appeal now, which can put you in a precarious position.”Lori Lightfoot, the Chicago mayor.Akilah Townsend for The New York TimesTishaura Jones, the mayor of St. Louis.Lawrence Agyei for The New York TimesBrought together by their mutual experiences, the women say they find solace in their bonds with each other. In moments of strength, happiness and adversity, they lean on each other.“There’s definitely a sisterhood there,” said Ms. Jones of St. Louis, adding that seeing strong Black women leading major cities bolstered her resolve in her own campaign.The mayors have text threads. They do group video chats and share jokes. They watch each other on T.V. and read each others’ statements, seeking lessons in leadership applicable to their own cities. Ms. Jones and Ms. Bottoms were in the same historically Black sorority, Delta Sigma Theta. Ms. Lyles even sent Ms. Bowser a baby gift.The support system provides a private space for shared insights, both professional and personal. “I think that all of us recognize that we’re walking in the same shoes,” Ms. Lyles said.In essence, the women lift each other up. For Ms. Bottoms, this sometimes means sending a text just to say: “Hey girl, I’m thinking about you. Keep your head up.”Many of the mayors also said they felt a sense of responsibility that extended beyond the realm of local governance.They know that millions of Black women and girls are watching them, seeking inspiration. When Ms. Janey of Boston takes video meetings, adults will often bring their children onto the screen — and when she acknowledges them, the children light up, she said.Karen Weaver, the interim executive director of the African American Mayors Association and the former — and first female — mayor of Flint, Mich., summed up the inspiring effect these women can have for young people: “If you don’t see it, you don’t dream it.” More

    More stories

    • 138 Shares179 Views

      in Elections

      Boston Mayoral Election Race Narrows, With Michelle Wu in the Lead

      by

      The city’s 91-year succession of Irish American and Italian American mayors has ended, with Michelle Wu earning one of two spots in the general election in November.BOSTON — Michelle Wu, an Asian American progressive who has built a campaign around climate change and housing policy, earned one of two spots in Boston’s preliminary mayoral election on Tuesday, setting the stage for change in a city that for nearly 200 years has elected only white men.As a front-runner, Ms. Wu, 36, marks a striking departure for this city, whose politics have long turned on neighborhoods and ethnic rivalries.The daughter of Taiwanese immigrants, she is not from Boston, and has built an ardent following as a city councilor by proposing sweeping structural changes, like making the city’s public transportation free, restoring a form of rent control, and introducing the country’s first city-level Green New Deal.The vote count moved slowly into Wednesday morning and The Associated Press did not immediately announce who had finished second behind Ms. Wu. But another city councilor, Annissa Essaibi George, announced that she had won the other spot in November’s general election, and her two closest competitors told supporters they had lost.Ms. Essaibi George, 47, has positioned herself as a moderate, winning endorsements from traditional power centers like the former police commissioner and the firefighters’ union.In a debate last week, she promised voters that if elected, “you won’t find me on a soapbox, you’ll find me in the neighborhoods, doing the work.”The Nov. 2 matchup is expected to test the consensus that emerged among many national Democrats after New York’s mayoral primaries: that moderate Black voters and older voters will tug the Democratic Party back toward its center, particularly around the issue of public safety.For weeks, polls showed two leading Black candidates — Acting Mayor Kim Janey and City Councilor Andrea Campbell — in a dead heat with Ms. Essaibi George for second place. But turnout in the nonpartisan preliminary election was low on Tuesday, and they appeared to fall short.The prospect of a general election with no Black candidate came as a bitter disappointment to many in Boston, which had seemed closer than ever before to electing a Black mayor.“Boston is a Northern city,” John Hallett, 62, who had supported Ms. Janey, said in frustration. “They have had Black mayors in Atlanta, in Mississippi, and other places down South. I think this is just ridiculous. Really, I don’t know. I don’t know what it’s going to take.”The winner of the election will take the helm of a swiftly changing city.Once a blue-collar industrial port, Boston has become a hub for biotechnology, education and medicine, attracting a stream of affluent, highly educated newcomers. The cost of housing has skyrocketed, forcing many working families to settle for substandard housing or to commute long distances.Annissa Essaibi George, a city councilor.M. Scott Brauer for The New York TimesMs. Wu, a Chicago native who moved here to attend Harvard University and Harvard Law School, speaks to those new arrivals and their anxieties, acknowledging that her flagship proposals are “pushing the envelope.”“Others have described them, at times, as ‘pie in the sky’ because they are bold, reaching for that brightest version of our future,” she said. “So much of what we celebrate in Boston started as visions that might have seemed ‘pie in the sky’ initially, but were exactly what we needed and deserved. And people fought for them.”Throughout its history, she says, Boston has served as a laboratory for new ideas, like public education, and for movements like abolitionism, civil rights and marriage equality.“This is a city that knows how to fight for what is right,” said Ms. Wu, who credits Elizabeth Warren, her law professor, with helping to launch her in politics.But Boston’s most faithful voters are in predominantly white precincts, where many look askance at many of Ms. Wu’s policies, and at the calls for policing reforms that followed the murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis.Those voters have rallied around Ms. Essaibi George, who grew up in Dorchester, the daughter of Tunisian and Polish immigrants, and is the only candidate to oppose cuts to the police budget and favor increasing the number of officers on Boston streets.At a victory celebration that began shortly before midnight, Ms. Essaibi George, flanked by her teenage triplets, launched into a critique of Ms. Wu and her policy-wonk platform.“We need real change, and that doesn’t come with just ideas or an academic exercise, that comes with hard work,” she said. “I don’t just talk, I work. I do. I dig in and get to it. It’s how my parents raised me. It’s how this city made me.”She went on to poke holes in two of Ms. Wu’s signature platforms, to cheers from the crowd. “Let me be clear,” she said. “The mayor of Boston cannot make the T free. The mayor of Boston cannot mandate rent control. These are issues the state must address.”Ms. Essaibi George’s supporters, who gathered on a Dorchester street corner on the eve of the election, wearing her campaign’s trademark hot pink T-shirts, were mostly white, and named public safety as a top concern. Robert O’Shea, 58, recalled “Dirty Water,” the 1965 pop ode to the polluted Charles River and its “lovers, muggers and thieves.”“Well, when that was written, nobody wanted to be here,” he said. “Look what it is now. I’ve seen this city grow so much, I can’t afford to buy the house I live in.”Mr. O’Shea said he was not hostile to Ms. Wu, or what he called “all this progressive stuff.”“It’s all great, though the socialism aspect of it kind of scares me a little bit,” he said, noting that several of his relatives are Boston police officers. “But people need to be safe. People need to feel safe in their homes before they can save the world.”One reason Boston may prove more receptive to progressive candidates is that it is a very young city, with roughly one-third of its population between the ages of 20 and 37.Its manufacturing jobs have mostly vanished, making way for affluent, better-educated newcomers, “people who may read The Times but don’t necessarily go to church,” said Larry DiCara, 72, a former Boston city councilor. And it was not jolted by a rise in violent crime over the summer, something that probably shifted votes in New York toward Eric Adams, the Democratic mayoral nominee.Ms. Wu had no choice but to build her political base around a set of policies because she could not bank on ethnic or neighborhood affinities, said Jonathan Cohn, the chair of the Ward 4 Democratic Committee, which endorsed her.“There is a real way that politics is often done here, of ‘what church, what school, what neighborhood,’ and she is trying to shift it to a policy discussion,” he said.Clockwise from top left: Michelle Wu, Andrea Campbell, Kim Janey and Annissa Essaibi George.M. Scott Brauer for The New York TimesWhen Ms. Wu entered the City Council in 2014, the body had largely concerned itself with constituent services, but over the next few years it became a platform for national-level policy, on climate change and police reform. The policies Ms. Wu zeroed in on, like fare-free transit and the Green New Deal, emerged as her mayoral platform.Some observers question whether Ms. Wu’s policy platform will be enough to carry her through the general election in November.“People just want the city to work for them, they don’t want nice policies,” said Kay Gibbs, 81, who worked as a political aide to Thomas Atkins, the city’s first Black city councilor, and to Representative Barney Frank. Boston’s next mayor, she said, will have her hands full with the basics, taking control of powerful forces within a sprawling city government.“The electorate is smarter than we think they are, and they have certain interests that don’t extend to all these dreamy ideas of free public transport and Green New Deal,” she said. “They are going to choose the person they think is most able.”Boston is growing swiftly, with rapid growth in its Asian and Hispanic populations. It has seen a shrinking percentage of non-Hispanic white residents, who now make up less than 45 percent of the population. And the percentage of Black residents is also dropping, falling to 19 percent of the population from about 22 percent in 2010.Ms. Janey, who was then the City Council president, became acting mayor in March after Martin J. Walsh became the country’s labor secretary, and many assumed she would cruise into the general election. But she was cautious in her new role, sticking largely to script in public appearances, and damaged by criticism from her rival Ms. Campbell, a Princeton-educated lawyer and vigorous campaigner.At a campaign stop on Monday, Ms. Janey said incumbency had not necessarily proved an advantage.“I certainly would say, if anything, it’s a double-edged sword,” she said.Municipal elections, especially preliminary ones, tend to draw a low turnout, whiter and older than the city as a whole. It is only in the last few years that change has begun to ripple through Massachusetts, which has seen a series of upsets for progressive women of color, said Steve Koczela, president of the MassInc Polling Group.“This is the culmination of a lot of flexing of new political muscle,” he said. More

    • 50 Shares129 Views

      in Elections

      Boston Preliminary Election Results

      by

      Four women of color lead a field of seven in the preliminary election to become mayor of Boston, a city that has, since its founding, only elected white men. The top two finishers will face each other in November. City Councilor Michelle Wu has led in polling, followed by acting Mayor Kim Janey, City Councilor Andrea Campbell and City Councilor Annissa Essaibi George. Get full coverage here » More

    • 175 Shares169 Views

      in Elections

      It’s a ‘Brawl in Beantown,’ as Progressive Allies Clash in the Boston Mayor’s Race

      by

      For years, they were “sisters in service,” taking on the old guard and boosting one another’s careers. A rare open mayoral seat changed that.BOSTON — Not so long ago, Boston’s leading progressives called themselves “sisters in service,” linking arms to take on this city’s overwhelmingly white, overwhelmingly male old guard.For a time, they headlined one another’s fund-raisers. They marched together at the head of parades. They even shared a campaign headquarters, unthinkable in the sharp-elbowed history of this city’s politics.But that time is over.Over the past month, Boston’s mayoral election has become a fierce competition between four women of color, any of whom would represent a departure from this city’s norm.With a preliminary election on Tuesday set to winnow the field to two, City Councilor Michelle Wu, a favorite of the city’s young left, appears poised to take one spot. The other is up for grabs, with sparks flying between the two Black front-runners, City Councilor Andrea Campbell and Kim Janey, the acting mayor.The spectacle has elated some — a historic shift in the city’s leadership now seems almost inevitable — and discouraged others. Denella Clark, a supporter of Ms. Janey’s, is upbeat about her candidate’s chances but said the battery of attacks had been draining.From left, members of the Boston City Council, Lydia Edwards, Michelle Wu, Annissa Essaibi-George, Andrea Campbell, Ayanna Pressley and Kim Janey after a meeting in January 2018. Ms. Pressley is now in Congress, and Ms. Janey is the acting mayor. Keith Bedford/The Boston Globe via Getty Images“It’s been worse than I expected,” said Ms. Clark, president of the Boston Arts Academy Foundation. “It’s different because it’s rivals in the Black community and it’s women. I just really didn’t expect the women to be going after each other.”Alisa Drayton, who is supporting Ms. Campbell, said the close race was nerve-racking for many Black voters, who have waited decades for a chance to elect one of their own.The city she grew up in, during the busing crisis of the 1970s, was so blighted by racism that she could not safely walk through some of its white enclaves, she said. The election of a Black woman, she said, could finally free Boston of that old stain.“To see one of our own, born-and-raised Black women to go to that runoff, it’s important,” said Ms. Drayton, a financial services professional.The race was upended in January, when President Biden selected Boston’s mayor, Martin J. Walsh, as labor secretary, and he — the lone candidate representing the city’s white, working-class, pro-union tradition — bowed out of the race.That left the women. Two formidable progressives had already begun campaigns — Ms. Wu, 36, a Harvard-educated lawyer who has foregrounded policies on climate, transportation and housing; and Ms. Campbell, 39, a Princeton-educated lawyer who grew up in Roxbury, the historic center of Black Boston, and who has pledged to challenge the city’s police.Michelle Wu, a candidate, joined canvassers in Boston’s Copley Square in May.Philip Keith for The New York TimesThen Ms. Janey, 56, a longtime community activist and president of the City Council, was vaulted into a leading position as acting mayor, bathed in positive press coverage as the city’s first Black and female mayor. Another strong contender emerged in City Councilor Annissa Essaibi George, the daughter of Tunisian and Polish immigrants, who has positioned herself as a moderate, promising more harmonious dealings with the police and developers.A fifth candidate, John Barros, who is the son of Cape Verdean immigrants and served as Mr. Walsh’s economic development chief, has struggled to get traction.From the outset, it promised to be a bruising race. The number of undecided voters was small, and the ideological differences between top candidates narrow, said David Paleologos, director of the Suffolk University Political Research Center.“If you’re a strategist, you can’t just convince the undecided, you have to knock down someone,” he said. “You’re going to have this elbowing that’s going to accelerate into a street fight.” As summer turns into fall, he said, “It’s going to be a brawl in Beantown.”‘The umbrella is gone’The glow of Ms. Janey’s swearing-in had barely faded when her City Council rivals began to jab her.Ms. Campbell was particularly aggressive, delivering a battery of crisp news conferences in which she urged Ms. Janey to release legal documents in a police scandal, make deeper cuts to the police budget and move faster to mandate vaccines for city employees.Ms. Janey’s City Council colleagues quickly cooled to their new mayor, complaining that she was imperious and unresponsive in her new role; in June they voted, 10-1, to give themselves the right to remove her as Council president, a largely symbolic step that showed they could remove her as mayor.As a relative newcomer to city politics, Ms. Janey may have been viewed as “skipping the line,” said Erin O’Brien, a professor at University of Massachusetts Boston.“She’s been under the umbrella of the Council, that sisterhood, and now the umbrella is gone,” she said.Ms. Janey has been cautious in her new role, sidestepping hot-button issues that could hurt her in the general election, and remaining largely scripted in public appearances.She was gaining ground this summer, outpacing her rivals in fund-raising, when she made a misstep: Asked about New York-style vaccine passports, she batted away the idea, comparing them to racist policies that required Black people to show their identification papers.Kim Janey was sworn in as the first female and first Black mayor of Boston by Chief Justice Kimberly S. Budd at City Hall in March.Maddie Meyer/Getty ImagesMs. Campbell zeroed in on the comment. She held a news conference the next morning, saying Ms. Janey’s remarks “put people’s health at risk, plain and simple,” then highlighted the remark in a fund-raising letter, then made an appearance on MSNBC.Her energy and confidence impressed the editorial board of The Boston Globe, which endorsed her last week, praising her “restless impatience with the status quo and a willingness to charge headfirst into political risks.”Ben Allen, a Janey supporter, complained this week that a “relentless stream of criticism from other progressives” had clouded Ms. Janey’s achievements as acting mayor, which includes the introduction of a mental health crisis response force and quadrupling the assistance provided to first-time home buyers.“She’s not only doing a good job, she’s enacting a progressive agenda,” said Mr. Allen, 41, a mathematics professor.Poll results released on Tuesday by Suffolk University showed that Ms. Janey remained in second place but suggested her momentum was flagging; she had support from 20 percent of likely voters, a two-point drop since June. Ms. Essaibi George and Ms. Campbell have both gained support, rising to 19 and 18 percent.Ms. Wu, the only candidate not born in Boston, has built a commanding lead of 31 percent, cobbling together a coalition that underlines how swiftly this city has changed: She is dominating with Asian American voters, voters who have recently moved to Boston, highly educated voters, and voters who identify as left-leaning.“She lights up the board demographically,” Mr. Paleologos said.Boston is growing, according to recent census data, while its percentage of non-Hispanic white residents is declining, dipping from 47 percent in 2010 to less than 45 percent now. The city’s Black population is also declining, from about 22 percent in 2010 to 19 percent now. There is swift growth in its Asian and Hispanic communities.Although Ms. Wu has benefited from a young, energized base — elements of the “Markeyverse,” which fueled the surprise re-election of Senator Ed Markey, reunited into a “Wuniverse” — she could encounter headwinds in the general election because of her positions on housing and development, like her support of rent control.It is a departure, in itself, that so much of this race has centered on policy. Boston’s campaigns have long turned on ethnic rivalries, first between Anglo-Protestants and Irish Catholics, then drawing in racial minorities as those populations increased.Boston’s mayors relied so heavily on turnout from ethnic enclaves that they had no need to build a multiethnic coalition by presenting a bold vision, the way Fiorello La Guardia did in New York, said the historian Jason Sokol, author of “All Eyes Are Upon Us: Race and Politics From Boston to Brooklyn.”“They did not have to express any vision, nor did they end up governing with much vision,” he said.The results of Tuesday’s preliminary election could guide the city into very different matchups for a November general election, including one that pits Ms. Wu against Ms. Essaibi George, who draws her core support from white neighborhoods.Ms. Clark said she feared that the battle between the two Black candidates could lead in that direction, closing a rare window of opportunity for the city, whose Black population is gradually waning with the rising cost of housing.“I firmly believe, if Kim does not stay in there, we will not see a Black elected mayor in the city of Boston,” she said.Wilnelia Rivera, a political consultant who supports Ms. Wu but has also worked closely with Ms. Janey, said it had been difficult for many activists and campaign workers to make a choice.“I lost some friends along the way because of it,” she said. But she added that even those bruises were a marker of something positive: that the center of power in Boston had moved.“It is a triumph, and when I’m in calls now with colleagues in other parts of the country and talk about the Boston race, they’re flabbergasted,” she said. “The transformation that has happened here is very real, and it’s happening in real time.” More

    • 125 Shares139 Views

      in Elections

      Boston Mayor Janey Draws Fire Over Criticism of Vaccine Passports

      by

      Boston’s acting mayor, Kim Janey, made waves this week by comparing vaccine passports to racist policies that required Black people to show their identification papers. Her unscripted comments drew sharp criticism from her political rivals and from Mayor Bill DeBlasio of New York.Asked on Tuesday whether she supported requiring people to show proof of vaccination when they enter restaurants, gyms, movie theaters and other indoor public spaces — a measure being introduced in New York City — Ms. Janey warned that such policies would disproportionately affect communities of color.“There’s a long history in this country of people needing to show their papers — whether we are talking about this from the standpoint of, you know, during slavery, post-slavery, as recent as, you know, what the immigrant population has to go through,” she said. “We’ve heard Trump, with the birth-certificate nonsense.”Ms. Janey tried to walk back that comparison on Thursday.“I wish I had not used those analogies, because they took away from the important issue of ensuring our vaccination and public health policies,” she said.But she did not withdraw her critique of the policies requiring proof of vaccination.If the credentials were required to enter businesses today, she said, “that would shut out nearly 40 percent of East Boston and 60 percent of Mattapan,” neighborhoods with large Black and Latino populations. “Instead of shutting people out, shutting out our neighbors who are disproportionately poor people of color, we are knocking on their doors to build trust and to expand access to the lifesaving vaccines.”She added that Boston has a mask mandate for its schools, and is working with labor unions toward mandating vaccination for city workers.Her remarks on Tuesday, five weeks before Boston’s preliminary mayoral election, had already drawn fire from several directions. City Councilor Andrea Campbell, a rival candidate in the race who, like Ms. Janey, is Black, called the acting mayor’s comparison “absolutely ridiculous” and said it “put people’s health at risk, plain and simple.”“There is already too much misinformation directed at our residents about this pandemic, particularly our Black and brown residents in Boston and in the commonwealth, and it is incumbent upon us as leaders not to give these conspiracies any oxygen,” she said at a news conference.Ms. Campbell added, “This is not the time to be stoking fears.”Mr. DeBlasio was scathing when asked on Thursday about Ms. Janey’s comments.“I am hoping and praying she hasn’t heard the details and has been improperly briefed, because those statements are absolutely inappropriate,” he said. “I am assuming the interim mayor hasn’t heard the whole story, because I can’t believe she would say it’s OK to leave so many people unvaccinated and in danger.”Mr. DeBlasio said New York had embraced a “voluntary approach” for seven months, and “it’s time for something more muscular.” More

    • 125 Shares109 Views

      in Elections

      In a Changing Boston, a New Mayor Challenges the Police

      by

      Three weeks into her tenure as Boston’s acting mayor, Kim Janey has done something her predecessor did not: order the police to release documents about a leader accused of sexual abuse.BOSTON — Three weeks after her swearing-in as acting mayor of Boston, Kim Janey was enjoying a sort of honeymoon, enacting feel-good policies like forgiving library fines and basking in the spotlight that came with her status as the city’s first Black and first female mayor.Though she had landed the position in part by happenstance — she was City Council president when her predecessor, Martin J. Walsh, was tapped to be secretary of labor — Ms. Janey has moved slowly and deliberately to build her political profile, taking her place on the growing list of Black women running major U.S. cities.That cautious approach ended last Saturday, when Ms. Janey found herself responding to a police scandal.A report in The Boston Globe reviewed the handling of sex abuse allegations involving Patrick M. Rose, 66, the former president of the Boston Police Patrolmen’s Association, the largest and most muscular of the city’s three major police unions.The police, The Globe reported, had allowed Mr. Rose to serve for more than two decades after a 12-year-old accused him of sexual assault. Though the victim ultimately recanted and the criminal case was closed, an internal affairs investigation by the police subsequently found he had most likely broken the law.Those allegations resurfaced last year, when another child came forward, alleging abuse between the ages of 7 and 12, followed by four more victims. Mr. Rose was ultimately charged with more than 30 counts of sexual abuse of children.Patrick M. Rose, former president of the Boston Police Patrolmen’s Association, served on the police force for two decades after a 12-year-old accused him of sexual assault.Jessica Rinaldi/The Boston Globe, via Associated PressMr. Rose maintains his innocence, both in the 1995 charges and in the more recent ones, said his lawyer, William J. Keefe.Ms. Janey, one of six candidates running for election in November, was faced with a choice: Should she keep the internal police records private, as Mayor Walsh, her predecessor in City Hall, had, citing the victims’ desire for privacy?Or should she take the path urged by fellow progressives in the City Council, demanding that the police release the records to the public — and risk unsettling the victims and poisoning her relationship with the powerful police union? This week, Ms. Janey’s choice became clear.“As a mother and as a grandmother I was heartbroken and angry to learn nothing was done to keep Mr. Rose away from children, or to terminate him, for that matter,” she said. “Transparency cannot wait any longer.”Her decision points to a larger political calculus, said Daniel Medwed, a law professor at Northeastern University.“She has probably made the calculation that she is better off without the police, which is amazing,” he said. “Because the support of the police is, to some extent, code for the support of white voters in Boston.”This election will provide a snapshot of a city undergoing rapid change, as professionals move into neighborhoods once dominated by middle-income Irish-American and Italian-American families.Though Boston’s white population had dipped to 44 percent by 2017, white voters historically turn out in far greater numbers in city elections, and police union endorsements, telegraphed early in the race, were signals to them.This year, however, “none of the top-tier candidates are shopping for police support,” said Erin O’Brien, a professor at University of Massachusetts Boston.A poll released on Wednesday by WBUR and MassINC, a polling group, found that 46 percent of voters were still undecided. But it identified two front-runners — City Councilor Michelle Wu, with 19 percent support, and Ms. Janey, with 18 percent — who are both outspoken proponents of policing reform.Describing the way politicians viewed the police in the past, Dr. O’Brien said, “It’s like the boogeyman, in some ways — ‘don’t cross the police, don’t cross the police’ — well, no one’s done it, they’re afraid of them.” Rachael Rollins beat a prosecutor with police backing when she was elected Suffolk County district attorney in 2018.Cody O’Loughlin for The New York TimesBut recent elections suggest the clout of the police is waning, she said, pointing to the 2018 upset win of Rachael Rollins, a progressive, as district attorney in Boston, over a longtime prosecutor with police backing. Dr. O’Brien compared the union’s political clout to the Wizard of Oz, who appears formidable but only from a distance.“They have a lot of power until the curtain gets pulled,” she said. “The question is whether the curtain has already been pulled.”The internal affairs file on Mr. Rose, which will be made public early next week, should shed light on the decision to return him to street duty after a 12-year-old came forward with an allegation of sexual abuse.Although the victim’s complaint was dropped, ending the first criminal prosecution, a subsequent internal affairs investigation by the police, which uses the lower legal standard of preponderance of the evidence, found he had broken the law, according to The Globe.The findings should have been forwarded to the department’s legal adviser and the police commissioner at the time, Paul F. Evans, who would determine a punishment, said Daniel Linskey, a former superintendent in chief of the Boston Police, who is now a managing director at Kroll, a security consultancy firm.Mr. Linskey said he supported Mayor Janey’s decision to make the files public, which he said could help “restore trust and integrity in the system.”He added that, as far as he knows, police officers are not rallying to Mr. Rose’s defense.“I don’t think the police union is going to die on the hill for this one,” he said. “There is no rallying cry behind Pat on this because the information to date seems to indicate that there is some substance to the charges.”Mr. Keefe, Mr. Rose’s lawyer, said his client did not pressure any witness to withdraw the charges.“He denies anyone was pressured to do anything,” he said.A police spokesperson referred The New York Times to the mayor’s statement. An official at the Boston Police Patrolmen’s Association did not respond to requests for comment.The Rose case is only one of the thorny police matters that Mayor Janey inherited, including the fact that the department has no permanent commissioner. Though Mr. Walsh appointed one, a veteran officer named Dennis White, he was placed on paid leave after The Globe reported that he had threatened to shoot his wife, also a Boston police officer, and was later ordered to stay away from his family.Many of the legal structures governing Boston’s police, like overtime rules and disciplinary practices, are outside the direct authority of the mayor, determined in collective bargaining between the city and the unions.Still, Mr. Walsh, before leaving office, had embarked on new steps to increase oversight of police, including creating a new Office of Police Accountability, which includes a civilian review board.Thomas Nolan, who served as a Boston police officer for 27 years and is now an associate professor at Emmanuel College, said Boston could follow the lead of cities like Oakland, Calif., or Chicago, which have increased civilian control over policing.“It may come to a point where we scratch our head and say, ‘Do you know there was a time when they let the police investigate themselves for wrongdoing?’” he said. “The accountability will come when they can’t basically absolve their own people of wrongdoing.” More

    • 88 Shares159 Views

      in Elections

      Kim Janey Becomes Boston's First Black Mayor

      by

      At 11, Kim Janey was bused into a neighborhood where Black students were pelted with rocks. As acting mayor, she hopes to help Boston step out of the shadow of that era.BOSTON — On a September morning in 1976, an 11-year-old Black girl climbed onto a yellow school bus, one of tens of thousands of children sent crisscrossing the city by court order and deposited in the insular neighborhoods of Boston in an effort to force them to integrate.As her bus swung uphill into the heart of the Irish-American enclave of Charlestown, she could see police officers taking protective positions around the bus. After that, the mob: white teenagers and adults, shouting and throwing rocks, telling them to go back to Africa.That girl, Kim Janey, became acting mayor of Boston on Monday, making her the first Black person to occupy the position, at a moment of uncommon opportunity for people of color in this city.With the confirmation of her predecessor, Martin J. Walsh, as U.S. labor secretary, the 91-year succession of Irish-American and Italian-American mayors appears to be ending, creating an opening for communities long shut out of the city’s power politics.It isn’t clear what role Ms. Janey, 55, will play in this moment. As the president of Boston’s City Council, she automatically takes the position for seven months before the November election, and she has not said whether she plans to run. But the five candidates already in the race are all people of color, and racial justice is certain to be a central theme of the campaign.Students arrived by school bus at South Boston High School in Boston on Sept. 8, 1976. An initiative to desegregate Boston Public Schools, put in effect in the fall of 1974, was met with strong resistance from many residents of Boston.Ed Jenner/The Boston Globe, via Getty ImagesNearly 50 years after court-ordered desegregation, Boston, the home of abolitionism, remains profoundly unequal. In 2015, the median net worth for white families in the city was nearly $250,000 compared with just $8 for Black families, according to a study from the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston.Boston’s police force remains disproportionately white. And a recent review of city contracts found that during the first term of Mr. Walsh’s administration, Black-owned firms landed roughly half of 1 percent of the $2.1 billion in prime contracts.None of this comes as a surprise to Bostonians who, like Ms. Janey, came of age in the 1970s — the “kids on the bus,” as one of them put it. Now in their 50s, they are a group without illusions about what it will take to close those gaps.Denella J. Clark, 53, president of the Boston Arts Academy Foundation, carries a scar on her left leg from a broken bottle that was thrown at her by a white woman when she was a 9-year-old being bused into a South Boston elementary school.“I still think we have those people that are throwing bottles, they’re just not doing it overtly,” she said. “When you see some of this change, it’s because people were forced to make those changes, just like in the court case” that led to busing in Boston.Michael Curry, who was 7 when he was first bused into Charlestown, described a similar conclusion: In a city with a limited pool of jobs and contracts, “the people who have taken advantage of those things are being asked to share that pie.”“Boston will not go without a fight,” he said.‘Where Are They Now?’Mr. Curry, now 52, recently realized something: More than four decades after he was bused to the Warren-Prescott elementary school, he has rarely returned to Charlestown.He is middle-aged now, a father of three and a lawyer. But he can still close his eyes and replay the path of that bus as it slid past the Museum of Science, then turned right and crossed into Charlestown, where crowds were waiting, armed with rocks or bricks.“It boggles my mind to this day,” he said. “How much hate and frustration and anger would you have to have to do that to children?”He wonders sometimes about those white parents. “Where are they now?” he said. “Do they look back and say ‘I was there that day’?”This month, Mr. Curry, a former president of Boston’s N.A.A.C.P. branch, reached out to his social media networks, asking friends for their own memories. The responses came back fast — and raw. “Absolutely no interest in recollecting memories from that era,” one said. “It was a nightmare.”One person who has struggled to put that time behind her is Rachel Twymon, 59, whose family’s story was the subject of a Pulitzer Prize-winning 1985 book, “Common Ground,” which later became a television mini-series. Ms. Twymon still seethes at her mother, one of the book’s protagonists, for sending her to school in Charlestown in the name of racial justice.“For adults to think their decision was going to change the world, that was crazy,” said Ms. Twymon, an occupational therapist who lives in New Bedford, Mass. “How dare you put children in harm’s way? How dare you? I have never been able to come to grips with that.”Rachel Twymon outside her home in New Bedford, Mass. She says that she still seethes over her mother’s decision to send her to school in Charlestown in the name of racial justice.Philip Keith for The New York TimesMs. Janey’s recollections of busing are tempered, by comparison.“I had no idea what would be in store,” she said. “When I finally sat on the school bus and faced angry mobs of people, had rocks thrown at our bus, racial slurs hurled at us, I was not expecting that. And there’s nothing that can prepare you for that.”She quickly added, though, that the environment changed as soon as she stepped inside Edwards Middle School, where her closest friend was Cathy, a white girl from an Irish-American family.“The other thing that I would share, and I think this gets lost when we talk about this painful part of our history, is that inside that school building, I was a kid,” she said. “We were children. We cared about who we would play with, and who’s going to play jump rope, and who wants to play hopscotch.”Lost and GainedThe city Ms. Janey will lead as mayor is radically changed, in part because of what happened after busing: The working-class, Irish-American neighborhoods that fiercely resisted integration began to wane under pressure from white flight and gentrification.They had been poor neighborhoods. Patricia Kelly, 69, a Black teacher from New Jersey who was assigned to a Charlestown elementary school in 1974, recalled her shock at the deprivation she encountered there; once, she gingerly approached a boy’s mother about the stench of urine on his clothes and was told that they had no hot water.After busing began, Boston’s public schools lost almost a third of their white students in 18 months, as white families enrolled their children in parochial schools or boycotted schools in protest.For David Arbuckle, 58, who is white, it meant that most of his old friends were gone. He recalled walking to school through crowds of white residents who bellowed at him for violating the antibusing boycott, a daily gantlet that gave him stomachaches.A crowd of antibusing demonstrators storming up East Sixth Street in South Boston armed with rocks and clubs on Feb. 15, 1976. Ulrike Welsch/The Boston Globe, via Getty ImagesFor decades, some of those childhood friends blamed desegregation for ruining their chances in life, Mr. Arbuckle said.“They would tell you, ‘I didn’t get an education because Black people came to my school and took my seat,’” he said. The 1980s only deepened their grievances, he said; factory jobs were drying up, and court-ordered affirmative action policies, many complained, made it more difficult to be hired by the Police or Fire Departments.“It almost feels like a lost generation, to some extent,” said Mr. Arbuckle, who now works in management for the commuter rail system in Boston. Returning to Charlestown as an adult, shuttling his sons to hockey practice, he sometimes wore a suit, straight from the office, and people from the neighborhood “would turn on me because I was a yuppie.”He said it was hard to imagine members of the older generation softening their views, even as the city surrounding them became wealthier and more diverse.“I don’t know if people have to die off,” he said. “I know it sounds awful.”‘A Hundred-Year Fight’Ms. Janey — whose ancestors escaped to Canada through the Underground Railroad and began settling in Boston in the second half of the 19th century — does not dwell on busing when she tells the story of her life, except to say that it was a setback.“It was the first time that I didn’t feel safe in school,” she said. “It was the first time that I was not confident about how teachers felt about me as a little Black girl, the way I felt in elementary school.”Her parents withdrew her as soon as they could, sending her to the middle-class suburb of Reading through a voluntary busing program, starting in the eighth grade. She would go on to work as a community activist, serving at Massachusetts Advocates for Children for almost two decades before running for a seat on the Boston City Council in 2017.She described her work in education, in a talk to students last year, as an extension of the civil rights movement that swept up her parents.“The fight for quality education for Black families in this city dates to the beginning of this country,” she said. “It’s a hundred-year fight.”The fury unleashed by busing reshaped Boston in many ways, including by setting back the ambitions of Black candidates. White anger made it difficult for them to build the multiracial coalitions that were necessary to win citywide office in Boston, said Jason Sokol, a historian and author of “All Eyes Are Upon Us: Race and Politics From Boston to Brooklyn.”“You can’t overlook how powerful the legacy of the battles over school desegregation were,” he said. “The white resistance was so vicious that it didn’t seem like a political system a lot of African-Americans wanted to be part of. It was just very poisoned for a long time.”Michael Curry, former president of the Boston branch of the N.A.A.C.P., outside the Warren-Prescott elementary school. Mr. Curry said he could still close his eyes and remember the school bus crossing into Charlestown, where armed crowds were waiting with rocks and bricks.Philip Keith for The New York TimesMs. Janey, who became mayor when Mr. Walsh stepped down on Monday, will officially take the oath of office on Wednesday, acutely conscious of her place in history.The city will be watching to see if she makes a mark between now and November: The powers of an acting mayor in Boston are limited, and she may have difficulty making key appointments. Ms. Clark of the Boston Arts Academy Foundation, who serves on Ms. Janey’s transition committee, warned against expecting swift change in the city’s politics.“I worry they’re going to block her at every instance,” she said. “We all know what Frederick Douglass said: ‘Power concedes nothing.’ This is Boston. This is a big boys’ game.”Still, Thomas M. Menino, one of Ms. Janey’s predecessors, became acting mayor under similar circumstances, when the city’s mayor was appointed as a U.S. ambassador. Mr. Menino used the platform to build a powerful political base and was elected mayor four months later, becoming the city’s first Italian-American mayor. He went on to be re-elected four times, serving for more than 20 years.Ms. Janey, by all appearances, would like to follow a similar path. Her swearing-in, she said last week, is a moment full of hope, a measure of how far Boston has come.“I’m at a loss for words, because, at 11 years old, I saw firsthand some of the darkest days of our city,” she said. “And here I am.” More