BLACK LEADERSHIP
POWERLESS BY CHOICE
—By Frederick A. Hurst—
Although there are many good things about Black leadership in Springfield that will be in my next article on Black Leadership, this article is about the bad things.
I’ve watched and studied the current condition of Black leadership in Springfield and concluded that we have too many “Black leaders” and too little Black leadership. It’s getting to be embarrassing to watch. And I find myself constantly asking myself, “Is this what we have wrought?”
How is it that Springfield has four Black city councilors – two elected at-large – and so little gets accomplished that benefits the Black community? Actually, we should be running the city through a natural alliance between Black and Hispanic councilors and those White folks who would quickly understand that demographics rule. It’s not a race thing. It’s a power thing. The Protestants understood it. The Irish after them understood it. And the Italians understood it. And all of them understand it today. It seems that the only ones who don’t understand it at an operational level are our so-called Black political leaders who seem to think that power derives from their ability to compete with each other for preeminence and White approval.
I know it’s not the biggest issue, but I was never more disappointed with our Black city councilors than when those who had the opportunity to do so refused to confront the city over the all-White staff at our golf courses. I am told they are scared of Kevin Kennedy whose son runs the golf courses in a city that is majority minority (I suspect they might be afraid of White folks in general). But who the hell is Kevin Kennedy but a person who is supposed to be working for “We the people.” I certainly won’t challenge his personal commitment or his official position as chief of Springfield’s economic development. But I also won’t be intimidated by his presence. I don’t mean to sound macho but if he wants to fight over doing what’s right, that’s fine. I’ve had bigger fights. And I can give little respect to a Black elected official (or, for that matter, a White one) who is afraid to do the job for which they were elected because of their fear of a man who, by definition, is their employee and the servant of the people whom they claim to represent.
Ditto for Black aides to the mayor. Being a mayor’s Black aide does not necessarily a Black leader make. No White aide to the mayor has ever been promoted as the “leader” of the White community. In fact, we hardly know their names. When the mayor’s Black aides avoid attacking issues as simple as the racial makeup of our golf course staffs and the more complex issues revolving around the fact that Black folks are routinely shut out of the economic development dollars, they make it difficult for anybody to consider them leaders. They may be employees of the mayor. And I don’t begrudge them their paychecks. But I do think if they want to carry the title of “leader,” they should be more assertive about protecting Black rights and opportunities. They could at least say simple stuff such as “integrate!” and “share!” in a manner that gives us confidence they are aware of our needs.
The same applies to all the Black folks who are sitting on city boards. Give me the rambunctious George Bruce any day over passive Black folks who sit on these boards and operate just above the level of a potted plant when it comes to issues affecting Black folks. Like our Black city councilors, they seem to be too busy “following” agendas and not involved enough in “setting” agendas, which is why we don’t feel their impact much. We need to hear some good, old fashion noise.
And I haven’t even touched on the petty political mayoral aspirants who made us look like idiots. I give Johnnie McKnight credit for his steady stream of lofty literature but not much more. My question for him is, “What experts was he not listening too?” All of them, it seems. To win an election you have to do a lot more than spout homilies and play clever. And the other two Black candidates, who mugged him and cost him even a hopelessly distant second place finish and a place in the final election, offered nothing to the campaign for mayor.
Some say the latter two were shills for Domenic Sarno, deliberately inserted into the race to scuttle McKnight. But that’s a patently over-stated theory. Sarno garnered close to ten times the vote of his nearest competitor, who happens to be White. And if the two other Black candidates for mayor had somehow passed their votes to McKnight, Sarno would still have had ten times the votes of his nearest competitor, although that competitor would have been Black. Regardless, Sarno had no need to play political tricks. The sad fact is it probably never occurred to the three Black candidates that they might have achieved better results by combining their efforts around one.
No wonder the single-digit Black community voter turnout was among the lowest in the city (well below the anemic seven percent citywide average and even much further below the double digit votes in the strongest White precincts). Black folks were offered a choice between a White mayor who is a nice guy (though economic inclusion is clearly not one of his strengths) and three Black rookies who couldn’t garner much more than a half a thousand votes combined. And when you combine the sorry performance of Black mayoral candidates with the anemic performance of timid Black power-holders, it is easy to arrive at the counter-intuitive conclusion that Black voters are not apathetic. They are likely making a pretty damned intelligent decision to not waste their time voting until somebody starts meeting their specific needs and exciting them a little bit with solid proposals.
Black incumbents and others in power, who seem to so covet their jobs but say so little, could be in for a harsh surprise as their future political aspirations are spoiled by inexorable demographic shifts. They were voted in to upset the status quo, not to maintain it, and Black voters’ intelligent, though wrong, refusal to vote in significant numbers will only speed up their demise.
As I see it, too many Black folks in Springfield strive to be “the” Black leader in an environment that requires multi-dimensional levels of leadership and an uncommon level of openness and cooperation. Unfortunately, openness and cooperation run against the grain of the single Black leader concept, which has always been used to divide us and promote a few at the expense of the many. And, of course, “the few” actively promote the resulting division because it serves their interest even as it retards Black community progress. Which is why it is even more puzzling to watch the generation that is following my own appearing to fall into the same old divisive trap that continues to be instrumental in frustrating efforts to move the Black community toward the realization of its potential before it is too late.
And “too late” is close by. The very idea of a Black community that rises to genuine political prominence is rapidly dissolving. What we have is a lot of petty potentates vying to be “the man.” “The man,” of course, is Ray Jordan, who still wields enough residual power to be a significant presence. Roger Williams created him. Andy Griffin co-opted him. And Henry Thomas all but married him. And, with the aid of White folks, especially the late President Harry J. Courniotis at American International College, who used Ray as a cover to scoop up Mason Square property, and the Irish, Ray became the most powerful Black leader that Springfield has ever had…and ever will have.
But we don’t need another Ray, which is why “and ever will have” is the operative phrase. Ray was an anomaly, flawed, as are we all, but the right man who came along at the right time in the right place to capitalize on historical events that will not be repeated. In my opinion, he did a very good job. But he also did a flawed and significantly misleading one, which is why he and I will always have an ideological divide, as will Black folks in similar situations all over the nation who never accepted the concept of the “mighty whitey” that Ray and his close ally, the late Jeanne Bass, purveyed with an intensity that was embarrassing but which all too many Black folks bought into, and many White folks were all too willing to embrace.
And, as in the past, our prominent institutional leadership has faltered at another time when it is most needed. The heyday of the Urban League and the NAACP was well before the modern Civil Rights movement. Their impotence and ineptness led to the rise of the far more effective SCLC (Southern Christian Leadership Conference), Core (Congress of Racial Equality), SNCC (Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee), the Black Panthers, the Black Muslims and more, along with the very effective concept of Black Power, a concept that ascended from the days of Frederick Douglass, who understood that “power concedes nothing without a demand.”
But, after the passage of the Civil Rights laws, the latter organizations, their mission completed, faded away and the Urban League and NAACP re-emerged, albeit, I’m sorry to say, as weaker than ever. But because of the absence of alternatives, they have been predominant – that is until the recent riots and the recent emergence of the loosely led “Black Lives Matter” movement that the political class has yet to come to grips with.
I’m not going to speak of the national NAACP and Urban League because I am not close enough to feel comfortable as their critic although I have strong opinions. But I can tell you for certain that the local NAACP and Urban League – to put it as gently as possible – have been purchased. And I don’t fault White folks for that. Some of the folks doing the purchasing are well-meaning. But altogether too many are merely following the cheapest, weakest fault line that allows them to pursue their own interests. And Black folks are allowing it. So it is no wonder that Black Springfield has withered politically and lingers on the remote fringes of Springfield’s apparent economic revitalization and is in imminent danger of electoral and demographic insignificance while its newly-earned “political clout” goes almost wasted.
And I do believe that was my entrance point to this article. When I see the relatively passive Black councilors and other so-called Black leaders struggling individually to be “the” Black leader of a political domain that no longer exists and should no longer exist, and pussy footing around the important issues that affect Black folks, I take pause and feel pain. They look foolish. And they defame the legacy that got them where they are. And they need to be called out. And election time is a perfect time for it. I’m among those who want to hear some outrage noise from these pretenders to Black leadership. And if possible, I’d like to hear some unified noise. But if that is not possible, simple courageous noise will do.
Courageous noise, by the way, is what the Civil Rights movement was all about, a time when we overcame our fear of White power and asserted our own. But when emerging from our Civil Rights victories, we made some questionable turns, including electing politicians to beg for us instead of joining us in building our communities. I don’t have a problem with Black politicians begging. White politicians do it all the time. But all too often Black politicians have limited their begging to handouts for a big batch of questionable social programs that, in Springfield (and I am sure in other such places as Ferguson, Baltimore and across America), have failed with a completeness that is embarrassing. Too often they ended up being programs that provided impermanent employment but a solid electoral base for Black politicians.
The bottom line is that the Black community in Springfield needs better and far more fearless and unselfish leadership and we need it now. What the Black community doesn’t need and has had too much of, is leadership that cringes even at the thought that White folks might disapprove of rightful and necessary dissent. It’s not good for anybody of any race. Springfield needs Black folks who demonstrate enough courage to earn the role of “leader.” And, if such folks are not soon forthcoming, a history-making opportunity will be lost forever.
We Black folks don’t have a lot of time. The demographic trends are turning against us. At a time when we have a powerful presence on the school committee and city council and on boards and at the state house and when our voting power is still decisive, it is crazy to me that we seem to be confronted across the board by Black leadership that is powerless by choice. ■
