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

Epilogue

213 EPILOGUE In No Name in the Street, from which this book’s introductory epigraph is borrowed, James Baldwin chronicles America’s immediate post– civil rights racial status. In it Baldwin talks about the race problem: “It has been vivid to me for many years that what we call a race problem here is not a race problem at all: to keep calling it that is a way of avoiding the problem. The problem is rooted in the question of how one treats one’s flesh and blood, especially one’s children.”1 Baldwin ’s comment is significant because the mayors studied in this book, in their efforts to advance black interests in majority-white cities, often spoke of the city’s young people and how to prepare a better environment for them. This approach worked. Whereas they might have faced political battles, friends and foes alike would often join them at various events throughout their communities as they sought to lift up the city’s youth. Their ability to connect with largely nonblack audiences in this way to fight the rust-belt “brain-drain” problem led to their ability to convince many whites that what was in the interests of the city’s black residents was in the interests of the city as well and thereby important to all. In cities where relations between whites and blacks continue to be the major racial story line, these mayors sought to weave a path for improvement that was targeted at blacks, inclusive of everyone, and framed as critical to moving their cities forward. As Baldwin continues in No Name in the Street, such a path is vital for American progress: “The black and white confrontation, whether it be hostile, as in the cities and the labor unions, or with the intention of forming 214 EPILOGUE a common front and creating the foundations of a new society, as with the students and the radicals, is obviously crucial, containing the shape of the American future and the only potential of a truly valid American identity.”2 Apparently for Baldwin these mayors are either radicals or students as they represent an effort to form a “common front.” As I write, both mayors, students of politics and professors on college campuses, seek to reenter the political climate to serve again. Both McLin and Ford have successfully pursued post-mayoral careers in politics. McLin, after losing a bid for a third term (in large part due to her support of a city ordinance that extended the city’s anti-discrimination policies to include sexual orientation) considered entering the 2013 race for a seat on the Dayton City Commission. While she has since indicated she did not wish to join the 2013 race for a seat on the commission she once led, she’s been vindicated perhaps in other ways. While her support for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) rights was an enigma to her campaign in 2010, social scientists and the nation have since learned, for example, that Americans, including African Americans, increasingly support municipal and corporate non-discrimination policies. Hence while McLin was ahead of her time in 2010, the nation and various constituencies within it have increasingly come to share her view. Meanwhile , she remains very active in Ohio Democratic Party politics, hosting fundraisers and events for major candidates and advising others’ efforts to serve the Dayton community as vice-chairwoman of the Ohio Democratic Party. I fully expect she will serve the public again someday. Jack Ford, upon leaving office in 2006, has served as a member of the Toledo School Board and was a candidate for an at-large city council seat in Toledo’s November 2013 election. At his announcement for the council seat, his long-time political foe and friend Carty Finkbeiner, who kept Ford from a second term, actively supported his bid. By the time this book is published, I’d guess Ford will be back EPILOGUE 215 in Toledo’s government again, serving the public, advocating for the area’s youth. With a new lease on political life, McLin and Ford remain active Ohio political figures whose political philosophies and inclusive orthodoxy continue to inspire the many constituents they seem to never tire of serving. ...