Newly elected Mayor of Boston Michelle Wu addresses supporters at her election night party, Tuesday, Nov. 2 in Boston. Wu defeated city councilor Annissa Essaibi George to become the first woman of color to be elected mayor of Boston.
Josh Reynolds / AP
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Newly elected Mayor of Boston Michelle Wu addresses supporters at her election night party, Tuesday, Nov. 2 in Boston. Wu defeated city councilor Annissa Essaibi George to become the first woman of color to be elected mayor of Boston.
Josh Reynolds / AP
For the first time in history, Boston will inaugurate the newly elected mayor on Tuesday, who is not white. Michelle Wu – Asian-American, is the first woman and first person of color to be elected city leader. While many hailed this as a major turning point, others saw it as more of a disappointment that the three Black contenders in the race couldn’t even come close.
Many in Boston hope that this will be the year, in this time of apartheid, Boston can elect its first Black mayor, as most of the nation’s 30 largest cities have done.
Three Black candidates entered the race, and one even had the advantage of running as incumbent, after automatically inheriting the job – as an interim – when former Mayor Marty Walsh left to become Secretary of Labor in the Biden administration. And yet, neither Acting Mayor Kim Janey nor others have made it to the final election this month.
Danny Rivera, an artist and civil rights activist in Boston, says: “I got home and I cried. “I cried my eyes out because I didn’t know the next time we would see a Black mayor in our city.”
“It’s the most important life experience”
At Janey’s farewell speech in Boston last week, Rivera said he was particularly disappointed by how deeply and reliably he had found Janey’s personal history in Boston. As a girl, in the 1970s, she was among those caught up in white neighborhood schools, where blacks were humiliated and stoned. Then, as a teen mom, she struggled to earn it when she was completely unsuccessful.
“I believe life experience is the most important and what separates [Janey] he says.
Nia Ashleigh, 20, a student at the Berklee School of Music, is also frustrated that none of the Black candidates have enough support to ultimately survive, but she said, she doesn’t. surprise.
Mayor Kim Janey wipes away tears as she delivers her farewell address at Roxburys Hibernian Hall in Boston, marking her historic tenure as Boston’s first woman and first Black Mayor on May 10. 11.
Boston Globe / Boston Globe via Getty Images
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Mayor Kim Janey wipes away tears as she delivers her farewell address at Roxburys Hibernian Hall in Boston, marking her historic tenure as Boston’s first woman and first Black Mayor on May 10. 11.
Boston Globe / Boston Globe via Getty Images
“Is that just one of those things where it feels like what else is new?” she sarcastic.
Indeed, in the primaries, the three Black candidates combined won about three-quarters of the vote in the most densely colored areas of the city. But in the whitest areas, they won only about a quarter of the vote, according to an analysis of election results and Census data conducted by the MassINC Poll Team.
“I mean the data speaks for itself, and it’s causing trouble,” said former Massachusetts Representative Marie St. Fleur said. Especially, she said, for a city that is still strained under a long-standing reputation of being racist.
“For those of us who were born or raised in Boston, and who have lived through some dark days, it’s sad that we blink at this point,” she said. “At what point in the city of Boston will we be able to vote – and I’ll be very clear here – for a Negro in that corner office?”
“We can only play the race card on so many occasions”
To be sure, there are other factors and errors that impact how the race plays out.
“We can only play racing on so many occasions,” Rev. Eugene Rivers, a longtime Black community leader affirmed. “I mean black leadership hasn’t produced success even with one incumbent. We’ve failed. Now that’s not about the whites.”
Black leaders talked about drawing lessons from the upcoming Mayor Wu’s successful campaign to improve their own organization and political messaging, and increase the percentage of black voters in the country. future races. Some also called for a more coordinated strategy to rally behind a single black candidate, avoiding splitting the vote as has happened this year. But others were bubbling with the idea of expecting any Black candidate to drop out of the race because there were too many of them.
Imari Paris Jeffries, econsecutive director of King Boston, the group built a memorial on Boston Common in honor of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
Paris Jeffries says he also feels “grieved” when a Black candidate doesn’t make it through this year. But while symbolic and spiritually important, he said, a candidate’s race should not be the deciding factor in any race.
“In this anti-racism speech, I don’t think we’ll find identical twins in our experience to [candidates] to sympathize,” he said. I think we have to start building a bigger tent and find common ground together. “
It’s a theme the incoming Mayor Wu has emphasized throughout her campaign, and again, when she was asked about it while attending Janey’s farewell address.
“I hope that the Black community, will hold her accountable”
“I have heard and want to continue to acknowledge the frustration of many in our community who want to see representation of the Black community,” she said. “We will continue to work to meet this moment to address systemic racism and long-standing barriers.”
Boston voters, like Roxbury’s Pam Cannon, will be watching.
“I’ll keep her,” Cannon said. “I’ll make sure she comes to my neighborhood. I’ll wake her up. I’ll check in with her.”
So does Representative Ayanna Pressley, (D-MA), who supported Wu in the last election, after all three Black candidates had been eliminated.
“I’m not giving anyone anything,” Pressley said, as she also attended Janey’s farewell speech. “[Wu] won my endorsement, but she earned it because she prepared to be honest about different outcomes between every issue and i hope that the black community, will hold her accountable . Because this is about changing the heritage of the city of Boston. “
Former Boston City Council member and Janey supporter, Tito Jackson, agrees. He also attempted to become Boston’s first elected black mayor four years ago, and was unsuccessful. However, he said that Janey’s historic but brief tenure helped propel the conversation forward.
“We’re not going to bow our heads and we’re not going to go around like we’ve lost,” Jackson said. “[Janey] raises issues that I raised four years ago, which no one wants to touch on “before George Floyd’s death, put a new focus on racial equity and equity in America.”
For her part, outgoing Acting Mayor Janey delivered a similar message, noting that time spent in the corner office propelled Boston forward and made the city better than it is today. , largely because she approached every issue — from housing to schools and health care — “through the lens of racial equity.”
However, she added, “There’s still a lot of work to be done, when it comes to all of our ‘-isms,” in Boston and across the country.
