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

3 An Ebb and Flow System

41 CHAPTER 3 An Ebb and Flow System Fluctuations in Black Political Advancement in Toledo There’s racism. . . . There is still a large percentage of this country as [there] is here in Toledo that is racist. They stereotype African American males by their manner of dress, by the clothes that they wear, and by the color of their skin. Michael Navarre, former Toledo police chief Described by native Toledoan and author P. J. O’Rourke as a city “in the middle of nowhere,” Toledo is not often the focus of significant research or scholarship.1 Toledo has a rich history, however. Nestled in Lucas County in the northwest corner of Ohio, a few miles south of what is now the Michigan border, Toledo developed as a result of a “war” known as the Toledo War or the Ohio-Michigan War. Early settlers fought without bloodshed in 1835–36 over which state had rights to the area. The genesis of the conflict was in the Northwest Ordinance of 1787, which set the southern boundary of Michigan Territory at a line drawn from the southern tip of Lake Michigan eastward to where it met Lake Erie. Later surveys determined that the southern tip of Lake Michigan was further north than previously thought.2 Between 1787 and 1834 three different surveys were conducted , each resulting in different lines. The various surveys effectively created an area of approximately 450 square miles of disputed land between the territory of Michigan and the state of Ohio—what became known as the Toledo Strip.3 42 AN EBB AND FLOW SYSTEM In 1812 Congress, hoping to end the dispute, authorized a survey of the boundary. The War of 1812 prevented the survey from taking place, however. Two additional surveys were conducted in subsequent decades by Ohio and Michigan. In 1833 the U.S. Senate sided with Ohio, but the House of Representatives refused to endorse the Senate’s view. The governor of the Michigan Territory, Stevens Mason , proposed the formation of a commission to negotiate a solution, but governor Robert Lucas of Ohio refused to cooperate, and in 1835 the Ohio legislature formed Lucas County out of the disputed territory .4 In response Governor Mason dispatched his territory’s militia to the disputed land. Governor Lucas responded in kind, sending Ohio’s militia. Mason asked President Andrew Jackson to intervene; Jackson sent two representatives to negotiate a peaceful resolution to the conflict. The federal government’s representatives suggested that Ohio and Michigan jointly govern the territory until Congress could decide the issue. Mason refused, intensifying the potential for bloodshed . As a result, President Jackson removed Mason as governor of the Michigan Territory, replacing him with John Horner.5 Horner worked with Lucas to reach a conclusion. On June 15, 1836, President Jackson ratified an agreement between the two governors. Under the agreement Ohio would receive the disputed area, and the Michigan Territory would become a state and would receive nine thousand square miles of the Upper Peninsula. The state of Michigan’s first convention of assent in Ann Arbor on September 26, 1936, refused to comply with the act of June 15, however. Michigan finally conceded on December 14, 1836, at its second convention of assent and was formally admitted into the Union as the twenty-sixth state on January 26, 1837.6 The compromise gave the Toledo Strip to Ohio, allowing Toledo to be incorporated as a city within the state of Ohio on January 7, 1837.7 Toledo’s Political Culture Toledo is part of a state with a varied political culture. Daniel Elazar describes the political culture of the state of Ohio in general terms AN EBB AND FLOW SYSTEM 43 as individualistic.8 This designation suggests that the state’s residents prefer that government involvement in residents’ private activities, and particularly their economic affairs, be limited; they understand government to be solely for the purpose of serving the demands of the people. In considering the political culture of the Toledo area, however, Elazar notes that it is close to that of Michigan—a “moralistic ” state in Elazar’s typology—and has strong traces of a moralistic culture. A moralistic political culture emphasizes the good of society and measures good government in terms of the degree to which it promotes the public good. While the individualistic nature of the state is present in Toledo, then, morality takes precedence in northwest Ohio. The...