Community, Culture, and Economic Development, Second Edition: Continuity and Change in Two Small Southern Towns

4. Princess Anne, 1986–1991

49 4 Princess Anne, 1986–1991 The previous chapter explained how an oligarchy became established in Somerset County in colonial times and maintained its power well into the twentieth century, in spite of a series of potentially restructuring events. This chapter gives an account of instigating events that occurred in Princess Anne in the recent era and reports how the governing group responded to those threats. For three centuries, until 1990, county courthouse elites had dominated the town government, and no black had ever been elected to public office in Princess Anne. Then, the 1990 elections provided a severe jolt, for the voters chose a woman, a black, a retired research biochemist from New Jersey, and a music teacher from New York City to fill four out of five seats on the town commission. The electoral uprising represented an apparent restructuring of the regime, but this chapter will show that the “revolt” was soon got in hand. Still, change was in process, and restructuring efforts had been ongoing in the black community for several years. Another instigating event was the serious decline in agriculture, because it undermined the economic foundation of the planters’ regime. Hence the development policy that Princess Anne adopted in the 1980s should be understood as the response of governing elites to another one of a long series of threats to their economic and political dominance. Economic Pressures In Princess Anne, where the people were faced with a steady exodus of businesses, rising unemployment, and strain on the town coffers, the governing group had long acceded to the idea that growth was needed, but, until 1986, little action had been taken to bring it about. Elites were slow to embrace a program of thoroughgoing economic development, 50 / Community, Culture, and Economic Development because they feared the kinds of changes that growth might bring.1 In this community that had always been sustained by low-wage, labor-intensive industries, the lesson of the state prison was not lost on the governing group. That is, some elites worried that an influx of new business concerns would compete for the supply of cheap labor by introducing benefits and higher wages. Because this group’s interest had been in maintaining low wages, low taxes, and a large, dependent, seasonal labor force, a high unemployment rate was to their economic advantage.2 There were concerns too about what effects growth might have on the social fabric, the social structure, and the racial caste system to which the dominant group seemed largely committed.3 But by the 1980s, the decline in agriculture was far advanced, and all that was left of Princess Anne’s once aristocratic ruling group was a much reduced remnant that is perhaps best described by its name in the local idiom: “the good-ole-boy machine.” Since farming had ceased to be a viable option for the younger generation of many landholding families, some members of this group were becoming ready to reallocate their economic and political resources. A number of such families, whose estates bordered the town, had come to believe that their prospective fortunes now lay in commercial land-use development. They had supported the establishment of the Economic Development Commission of Somerset County (EDC) in 1981, no doubt also believing that growth would be conducive to the general good. Princess Anne thus clung to caretaker government until a series of events occurred in the 1980s that pointed toward a modification of the regime. The Black Community’s Challenge A legal challenge came in 1985, when a black citizen named James Mullen brought a class action voting rights suit against the town, charging that the at-large voting system was discriminatory. State Attorney General Sachs advised that the town was legally vulnerable, and the commissioners agreed to settle the case out of court. Two districts, one of them predominantly black, were then created to replace the at-large system. Of the three town commissioners, two would represent specific districts, and one would remain at-large. James Mullen was represented, in this case, by Christopher Brown, a civil rights lawyer from Baltimore, who defined two other goals for Princess Anne, 1986–1991 / 51 the black community: ending the requirement for separate voter registration for state and municipal elections and annexation of Greenwood, a predominantly black neighborhood. Brown and others believed that these changes would augment the electoral power of African Americans and gain better services for...