Black Mayors, White Majorities: The Balancing Act of Racial Politics

1 A Way Out of No Way

1 CHAPTER 1 A Way Out of No Way Reconsidering the Hollow Prize Thesis We are troubled on every side, yet not distressed; we are perplexed, but not in despair. 2 Corinthians 4:8 Black mayors were a new American phenomenon in the late 1960s. By the 1970s and 1980s political scientists began examining the impact of black mayors. Did black mayors live up to the black community ’s expectations? Were black mayors successful in delivering on their campaign promises? H. Paul Friesema was one of the early commentators to caution about the high level of black expectations, warning that black mayors were inheriting what he labeled a “hollow prize.”1 Friesema argued that African Americans were gaining control of cities that businesses and white middle-class residents were leaving , depleting the cities’ tax bases and providing inadequate resources to address the social and economic needs of the black community. One of the earliest empirical studies to test the hollow prize thesis was conducted by Edmond Keller.2 Keller examined whether there was a discernible difference in the policy preferences and positions on municipal expenditures between white and black mayors in six cities. He found that African American mayors were more likely to support social welfare policies than white mayors. According to Keller, “Black mayors, because of the constituencies they serve, would like to make welfare-type policies their central concern; but they are often constrained from doing this by structural and human factors.”3 2 A WAY OUT OF NO WAY Albert K. Karnig and Susan Welch discovered modest shifts in spending policy preferences when a city had a black mayor. They found, for example, that “cities with Black mayors made greater gains in educational spending and in the social welfare areas.”4 In his study of forty-three cities, Peter K. Eisinger observed, “The presence of a black mayor has a modest incremental effect on levels of black employment and on affirmative action effort, enabling us ultimately to conclude that a small but discernible portion of black employment is a product of black political authority.”5 In a subsequent study Eisinger noted that the capture of city hall by blacks could have important and positive economic consequences for the black community.6 In their classic study of ten California cities, R. P. Browning, D. R. Marshall, and D. H. Tabb found that black political incorporation, especially black control of the mayor’s office, was “associated with important changes in urban policy—the creation of police review boards, the appointments of more minorities to commissions, the increasing use of minority contractors, and a general increase in the number of programs oriented to minorities. . . . Cities with strong minority incorporation were much more likely to be responsive to minority interests.”7 In their political incorporation model Browning , Marshall, and Tabb gave extra weight to cities where an African American occupied the mayor’s office. From their perspective leadership from black mayors played a stronger and more important role than efforts of African American city council members. Grace Hall Saltzstein found that a mayor’s race had a clear effect on the types of policies implemented.8 More recently Robert A. Brown found that the presence of a black mayor in many financially strapped cities “had a substantive impact upon increased spending for housing and community development.”9 He also found a positive impact upon an increase in health spending. In the final analysis, he notes, “Black mayors had a significant influence upon increasing city government spending for social programs.”10 In general, then, the research seems to conclude that the election of a black mayor has a positive impact on the design and/or promotion of city policies that work to change the quality of life of African American residents. A WAY OUT OF NO WAY 3 In addition to research on black mayors’ impact on policy, scholars have recognized their symbolic, or psychological, impact. Lawrence Bobo and Franklin D. Gilliam Jr., for example, found that having a black mayor increased the political incorporation and participation of black constituents, leading to the greater political knowledge and political empowerment of black voters.11 Bobo and Gilliam’s conclusions suggest that black residents who are descriptively represented at the mayor’s office are more active participants in local politics. More recently Melissa J. Marschall and Anirudh V. S. Ruhil found that blacks reported higher levels of satisfaction with their neighborhood conditions...