The Election of Blacks to City Councils : A 1970 Status Report and aProlegomenon

John Kramer

Journal ofBlack Studies, Volume 1, Issue 4 (Jun., 1971), 443-476 .

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The Election of Blacksto City Councils

A 1970 Status Reportand a Prolegomenon

JOHN KRAMERState University of New York College

at Brockport

In the next decade, as in the last, change is likely to be thecentral fact of urban black politics. During the 1970s eventsare almost certain to challenge the accuracy of many of thetraditional axioms which now underpin discussions of thesubject. As examples, center cities' changing racial mixes andrising black political consciousness offer prospects forgreater, perhaps approaching equitable, levels of black repre-sentation in urban government and a more active andpolitically sophisticated black electorate . As James Q. Wilson(1965 : preface) has written: "any book on Negroes, particu-larly on their politics, ought to be published in a loose-leafbinder, so that it can be corrected and updated on a monthlybasis." Students of black urban politics, in their effortsmerely to keep abreast of ongoing events in the nation'sdiverse urban settings, must digest large, multidimensionalmasses of data which accrete almost daily, and certainly witheach municipal election .

AUTHOR'S NOTE : The research project upon which this paper isbased was supported by the State University of New York ResearchFoundation .

[4431

[444] JOURNAL OF BLACK STUDIES/ JUNE 1971

This paper deals with a largely unstudied aspect of blackelective politics, a crucial portion of the total black urbanpolitical thrust . It focuses upon the election of black citycouncilmen in twelve of the country's major cities . The paperhas two purposes . First, it is the outgrowth of a researchproject . It summarizes cogent data about councilmanicelections in the late 1960s and, in that sense, is a statusreport about black councilmanic representatives at thebeginning of the 1970s. Second, and more significantly, it isintended as a prolegomenon . Few attempts are made togeneralize from the data . Instead, the text and tables containimplicit and explicit suggestions for further research . Theoverriding aim of the paper is to indicate the growingheuristic utility of black councilmanic politics as a focus forintensive investigation.

BLACKS AND CITY COUNCILS

City councils in the United States vary enormously inelection prescriptions operations, and prerogatives (seeAdrian and Press, 1968 : ch . 10). Any generalizations aboutcity councils must be tenuous. As a general rule, councilstoday are less prestigious and powerful than they were beforebeing tethered by reformers in the early days of this century.Nevertheless, without exception, they retain at least a residueof legislative authority, especially over municipal financing,and this makes them latent, if not functioning, agencies forassisting blacks in their struggle for social equality .Although a black was elected to Cleveland's Council as

early as 1909 (Cuban, 1967 : 301), the first black councilmanof note was Oscar DePriest . Later the first black Congressmansince Reconstruction, DePriest was elected to Chicago'sBoard of Aldermen in 1915 (Gosnell, 1967 : 170-172) fromthe predominantly black Second Ward on the Near SouthSide.' The first sixty years of the century, however, did not

Kramer / ELECTION OF BLACKS TO CITY COUNCILS [4451

see any great number of black councilmen . Across thecountry, black council representation ranged from none totoken. As evidence, not until 1957, 1963, and 1967respectively were the first blacks elected to councils ofDetroit, Los Angeles, and San Francisco . Banfield and Wilson(1963 : 293) and Wilson (1966 : 435) have used the paucity ofblack councilmen to illustrate the underrepresentation ofblacks in city government.

In the latter years of the 1960s, the number of blackcouncilmen increased dramatically . No claim can be madethat blacks anywhere are proportionately represented, but inmost cities with sizable black populations there now are atleast several blacks in council seats . Nor can it be assumedthat all black councilmen, as is sometimes suggested bymilitant rhetoric, behave totally in their own politicalself-interest, thereby ignoring the crushing needs of theirconstituents . With numbers, political variety and diversemotivations have been introduced . The heterogeneity ofblack councilmen, the localized nature of councilmanicpolitics, and the potential role of councils in bringing aboutpositive change, combine to make black councilmen, and thepolitical milieu in which they function, a subject worthy ofintensive study. At the very least, studies with this focusoffer potential for discovering and assessing some of thesure-to-come changes in urban black politics during the 1970sand beyond.

METHODOLOGY

The aims of the research project upon which this paper isbased were to develop social and political information aboutblack councilmen and about unsuccessful black candidatesfor council posts, and to collect data about the issues andvoting patterns in council campaigns involving black partici-pants. Geographically, the study was limited to those twelveU.S . cities, outside the South, with 1960 nonwhite popula-tions of 100,000 or more. These ranged from New York,

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with a 1960 nonwhite census of 1,141,322, to Pittsburgh,with 101,739-figures for this are taken from the 1968Statistical Abstract of the United States. In these cities, itwas felt, black councilmanic politics would be most highlydeveloped . Temporally, the project concentrated upon thelast municipal election (or sets of elections) held in thetwelve cities during the 1960s.

Regardless of the contestants' races, councilmanic politicsin most cities tends to be quasi-subterranean . Electioncampaigns usually are badly eclipsed by races for higher cityand state offices held on the same dates. Moreover, the dailypress in most cities gives these elections, as well as day-to-daycouncil proceedings, little space in its news columns. As aresult of the almost covert nature of the subject, data had to,be collected from a wide array of sources . The Leagues ofWomen Voters in the twelve cities were especially helpful .So, too, were the Boards of Elution. Current and back issuesof daily newspapers and of the cities' black press werecombed for information. Some of the local political partiessupplied material, as did Clerks of the City Councils and thelocal Urban Leagues in some of the cities . In New York, theCitizen's League was of major assistance . Finally, a numberof councilmen and unsuccessful council candidates, bothwhite and black, responded to mail and phone requests forspecific information.'

Table 1 contains the essential city council electionarrangements for the twelve cities included in the study.

OVERVIEW

Prior to the final municipal elections in the 1960s, a totalof 43 blacks held council seats in the twelve cities studied . Asa result of these elections, the number of black councilmenincreased by 10, to a total of 53. The city-by-city data areshown in Table 2.

[4481 JOURNAL OF BLACK STUDIES /JUNE 1971

TABLE 2

NUMBER OF BLACK COUNCILMEN IN THE TWELVESELECTED CITIES BEFORE AND AFTER LAST ELECTIONS

(or sets of elections) IN 1960s

a. Dates of special elections, held to fill vacancies, which resulted in quantitativechanges in Newark's black representation .b. The black incumbent had been appointed in 1966 . He was elected in 1967,marking the first time a black achieved election to city-wide office in San Francisco.

CityBefore (district-

at large) Dates of ElectionsAfter (district-

at large)Gains orLosses

Baltimore 2 November '67 4 + 2(2-01 (4-0)

Chicago 7 February-April '67 10 + 3(7--N/A) (10-N/A)

Cincinnati 3 November '69 2 -1(N/A-3) (N/A-2)

Cleveland 11 November '69 12 + 1(11-N/A) (12-N/A)

Detroit 2 November '69 3 + 1(N/A-2) (N/A-3)

Los Angeles 3 April-May '67 3(3-N/A) April-May '69 (3-N/A)

New York 2 November '69 2(2-0) (2-0)

Newark 1 May-June '66 3 + 2(1-01 September '68a (2-1)

June '69a

Philadelphia 2 November '67 3 + 1(1--1) (2-1)

Pittsburgh 1 November '67 2 + 1(N/A-1) November '69 (N/A-2)

San Francisco 1 November '67 1(N/A-1) November '69 (N/A-1)

St . Louis 8 April '67 8 -(8-0) April '69 (8-0)

43 53 +10(35-8) (43-10) (8-2)

Kramer / ELECTION OF BLACKS TO CITY COUNCILS [4491

The largest single gain occurred in Chicago, where threeadditional blacks were elected, bringing that city's number ofblack councilmen to ten. In six other cities the number ofblack councilmen increased by one or two, and in four citiesthe number remained unchanged . Only in Cincinnati, of thecities studied, did the number of black councilmen decrease .Cincinnati's electorate failed to return one of that city's threeblack incumbents .

DISTRICT-BASED ELECTIONS

Eight of the twelve cities elect all or part of their councilsby district . There is great variation in the size of theseelectoral units. The districts in New York, Philadelphia, LosAngeles, and Baltimore are relatively large ; they are com-posed of clusters of wards. The districts in Chicago, Cleve-land, St . Louis, and Newark are comparatively small. Each isconterminous with a single ward's boundaries?

Observers of urban politics long have been aware thatchances for minority representation on city councils aregreater in district, and particularly in small district, electionsthan they are in at-large formats. As shown in Table 2, 43 ofthe 53 black councilmen elected during the late 1960s werethe products of district balloting. Of the 43 black councilmenfrom districts, 32 were elected in the four cities withsingle-ward units. Further, as shown in Table 3, eight of theten council seats gained by blacks in the late 1960s were theresult of district elections .

For purposes of preliminary analysis, Table 3 divides the188 district-based council elections in the late 1960s intofour racially focused categories . The first designation in eachcategory reflects the race of the victorious candidate . Thesecond indicates the presence or absence of a significantprimary or general election challenger of the "other" race .Hence, white/white and black/black elections involved racial-

[450] JOURNAL OF BLACKSTUDIES/ JUNE 1971

TABLE 3

RACIAL COMPOSITION OF DISTRICT ELECTIONSFOR COUNCIL (last elections in 1960s)

a. Each asterick denotes a seat gained by blacks.

CLEVELAND

Interracial Contests

Interracial Contests

b. The three rows represent, respectively, Newark's regular election in 1966 andspecial election held in 1968 and 1969 .c. Composite totals for St . Louis elections of 1967 and 1969.d. There are 186 district seats in the twelve cities . The two special elections inNewark account for the total of 188 shown in the table.

ly homogeneous contests . White/black and black/white elec-tions were those in which interracial contests were held .' Ofparticular interest are the councilmanic contests in Cleveland,Chicago, Baltimore, and Newark.

One often-made allegation is that white council incum-bents linger in racially changing districts long after blackshave become the population majority . Unfortunately, theabsence of precise population data between censuses makes itdifficult to undertake definitive tests of the charge . InCleveland, however, a special census was taken in 1965,allowing at least an approximate test of the proposition.The racial compositions (indicated by percentage of black)

in Cleveland's mixed and predominantly black wards are

CityDistrictSeats

White/White

Black/Black

White/Black

Black/White

Baltimore 18 11 3*a 3 1Cleveland 33 21 11 2 1Chicago 50 39 8* 1 2**Los Angeles 15 12 3 0 0New York 27 24 2 1 0Newarkb 5 3 1 1 0

1 0 0 1 01 0 0 0 1*

Philadelphia 10 7 2* 1 0St . Louisc 28 20 8 0 0

Total 188d 137 38*** 10 5*****

Kramer / ELECTION OF BLACKS TO CITY COUNCILS [4511

shown in Table 4. Also in the table are the racial character-istics of the wards' 1969 council elections . Each of the tenlargely black wards (over 75% black) experienced black/blackcouncil races. No whites contested for council seats. In thecity's eight racially mixed wards (20%-61% black), two blackswere elected to council and two other black candidates madesignificant challenges against whites .The circumstances behind three of Cleveland's mixed-ward

elections deserve brief elaboration. Each would make anexcellent individual subject for in-depth study .

In the rapidly changing East Side Twenty-Eighth Ward,estimated to be approximately 60% black in 1969, a black

TABLE 4

1969 COUNCILMANIC ELECTIONS IN CLEVELAND'S

MIXED AND BLACKWARDS

Mixed wards

Black wards

SOURCE for racial percentages: Jeffrey Hadden, Louis Masotti, Victor Thiessen .The Making of the Negro Mayors 1967, in James D. Barber (editor), Readings inCitizen Politics, Markham Publishing Co . (Chicago), 1969, p. 178/a. Ward 17 incumbent black councilman Charles Carr, leader of the DemocraticCaucus in the Council, had no opposition .

Ward 1965 % BlackRacial Categorizationof 1967 Elections

16 56.6 White/Black19 25.3 White/White21 61 .1 White/Black23 20.3 White/White28 28 5 Black/White29 24.4 White/White30 51 .7 Black/Black31 21 .8 White/White

10 91 .3 Black/Black11 91 .8 Black/Black12 82 .7 Black/Black13 75.2 Black/Black17 99.0 Black/Blacks18 89 .3 Black/Black20 91 .0 Black/Black24 92.6 Black/Black25 90.9 Black/Black27 85.7 Black/Black

(4521 JOURNAL OF BLACK STUDIES /JUNE 1971

Republican, Paul Haggard, defeated the white Democraticincumbent Charles L. Flynn. Haggard was thirty-three yearsold; Flynn was sixty-one. But Flynn had been appointed tocouncil in August of 1968, to fill the remainder of anunexpired term and, thus, was not the classic well-entrenchedwhite political veteran. Nor was Haggard the stereotype blackinsurgent. Stressing the need for additional police protectionin the ward, along with a generally conservative politicalphilosophy, Haggard campaigned as a strong cross-partysupporter of black Mayor Carl Stokes . In an extremely closerun-off contest, Haggard won by a mere twenty votes (3,827to 3,807 for Flynn) .

Cleveland's Twenty-First Ward presents an even moreheuristically suggestive election story. In the late 1960s,Cleveland's Democratic Party was badly factionalized : MayorStokes headed one branch and Council President JamesStanton another. The Twenty-First Ward, in 1969, wasperhaps 80% black. Its white incumbent, Edward Katalinas,sought a fifth term against a strong black challenger, StateSenator Larry Smith. Katalinas had never been known as astrong advocate of his black constituents. On the other hand,Katalinas sided with Stokes in his political battles withStanton and, indeed, was one of the Mayor's strongest alliesin the party's strident in-fighting. The Mayor entered WardTwenty-One on a number of occasions, to campaign for thewhite incumbent. On September 24, Stokes was quoted bythe Plain Dealer: "This is a changing ward . But merelybecause a ward is changing color should it change itscouncilman too? I do not think so." Despite its overwhelm-ingly black electorate, Ward Twenty-One handily returnedKatalinas to council, by a vote of 2,520 to 1,218 for Smith.

Cleveland's Thirtieth Ward lies at the city's southeasternextremity. While its population is more than half black, manyof the blacks in the ward are middle-class escapees from theghettos of Cleveland's inner city . During Mayor Stokes' firstterm, he proposed the creation of a 277-unit public housing

project to occupy 51 acres in the ward. The black incumbentcouncilman from the district, Clarence R. Thompson, ob-jected vehemently to the plan. In the 1969 elections,Thompson was opposed by John E. Barnes, also black andactively supported by Stokes . After a bitter campaign,Thompson was reelected by 63 votes (4,943-4,880) .

BALTIMORE

Kramer / ELECTION OF BLACKS TO CITY COUNCILS [4531

In a departure from the usual one district/one councilmanformat, the city of Baltimore is divided into six councilmanicdistricts, and each elects three councilmen from the districtas a whole . Thus each Baltimore citizen has three council-manic representatives . A nineteenth councilman, the councilpresident, is elected at-large from the total city .

Baltimore's Second District, despite a black populationestimated to be 55% in 1967, never had elected a blackcouncilman. During the September 1967 primaries, 25individuals, the majority of them black, contested for threeDemocratic spaces on the district's November general elec-tion ballot . The primary victors were Robert Douglass, arelatively militant black, and two white conservatives, one anincumbent, who on their previous records were generallyconsidered unsympathetic to blacks . The Republican Party,which had not elected a Baltimore councilman since 1939,slated three black candidates. One of them, Walter Lively, ayoung, well-known, and extremely outspoken civil rightsadvocate, was accorded a modest chance of election .The campaign was intricate and especially bitter. Douglass

sought votes independently of his two white Democraticrunning mates . Then, on election eve, handbills were circu-lated in the white sections of the district calling upon votersto vote "black power" and for Walter Lively in particular,who purportedly stood for "more welfare, forced open-hous-ing, forced school busing, disarming the police, and state-paidrent, telephones, and electric bills" (Baltimore News-Ameri-

[454] JOURNAL OF BLACK STUDIES /JUNE 1971

can, 1967) . The final results showed the three Democratswinning handily, with Douglass leading the ticket. The twowhite Democrats made surprisingly strong showings. Livelyclaimed, and not without justification, that the fraudulenthandbills had aroused the white electorate to vote againsthim.The election in Baltimore's more heavily black Fourth

District was quiet by comparison. Of significance, however,was the primary defeat of black three-term incumbent WalterT. Dixon, 73-year-old member of the James H. Pollackorganization. Pollack, a white political "boss" of the oldschool, long had controlled Fourth Ward politics, judiciouslymixing white and black council slates (see Fleming, 1960). Inthe November general election, the Fourth Ward voterselected three non-Pollack Negro Democrats, thereby givingBaltimore a total of four black councilmen, two more thanever previously.

CHICAGO

After Chicago's municipal elections of 1967, the numberof black councilmen rose from seven to ten . The retirementof long-time white councilmen in two predominantly blackwards (the West Side Twenty-Ninth and the South SideEighth) paved the way for two black additions. In theTwenty-Ninth, the Democratic organization (synonymouswith Major Richard Daley) nominated a black undertaker,Robert Biggs, who was elected with only token opposition.In the Eighth, however, the organization's black candidatewas defeated by a black independent, William Cousins . Oncean Assistant State's Attorney, Cousins had broken from hisformer political base, the Illinois Republican Party, whenBarry Goldwater was nominated for President in 1964.The third black addition in Chicago resulted from a

complex black/white contest in the city's far South SideTwenty-First Ward. There a black organization candidate

Kramer / ELECTION OF BLACKS TO CITY COUNCILS [455]

(William Frost) easily unseated a white Republican incum-bent. The Twenty-First Ward election featured the appearanceof such black celebrities as author Lerone Bennett andentertainer Oscar Brown, Jr . ("Mr. Kicks") campaigning onbehalf of independent and avowedly anti-organization blackcandidate Augustus (Gus) Savage. Savage originally was ruledoff the ballot because of improper nominating petitions, wasreinstated by court order approximately three weeks beforethe election, and finished a distant third .Of the seven seats held by blacks prior to the 1967

elections, three changed hands (two in 1967 and the other ina special election held in 1969) . One election, in theSeventeenth Ward, was a routine affair in which oneorganization black succeeded another . The other two in-volved the defeat of organization blacks by black independ-ents. A. A. (Sammy) Rayner, in the South Side Sixth Ward,defeated organization incumbent Robert Miller in 1967 .Then, in a special election in March of 1969, held to fill avacancy in the Second Ward, Fred Hubbard, an anti-organiza-tion social worker, defeated organization-backed Lawrence C .Woods, an administrative aide to black Congressman WilliamDawson. As a result of the regular 1967 elections, and thespecial election of 1969, not only did the total number ofblacks in Chicago's city council increase, but three anti-organ-ization blacks (Cousins, Rayner, and Hubbard) acceded tooffice .One other Chicago councilmanic election deserves men-

tion. The city's Sixteenth Ward, on the South Side, isapproximately 80% black and the site of numerous publichousing projects . For 22 years, the councilman for theSixteenth was Paul Sheridan, a white power-figure in theDemocratic organization. Upon his death in 1965 he wassucceeded in office by his son, Paul Sheridan, Jr . In 1967, theyounger Sheridan was opposed by an articulate black femaleattorney, Mrs . Anna Langford, who drew the support ofmany of Chicago's civil rights organizations . Mrs. Langford

[4561 JOURNAL OF BLACK STUDIES/ JUNE 1971

was defeated badly (6,369-2,752) in the city's only white/black councilmanic election of that year . According tovarious observers in Chicago, many blacks in the Sixteenthwere reluctant to elect an anti-organization councilman, ofwhatever race, for fear of losing vital services administered bythe city to the projects .

NEWARK

As can be determined easily by accounts in the publicpress, the racial and political situations in Newark are so fluidthat descriptions of that city's elective politics are badlyoutdated before reaching print. Rival independent blackorganizations, as well as a number of white "law and order"groups, plan to wage energetic campaigns for mayoralty andcouncilmanic candidates in the 1970 municipal elections . Thefollowing acount of councilmanic elections in the 1960s,therefore, can be viewed only as background for thecomprehension of ongoing events . Of necessity, because theNewark district and at-large council elections were linkedwith one another in the 1960s, both will be discussed here .

Since adopting its present city charter in 1954, Newark haselected five councilmen from geographically designated wards(Central, North, South, East, and West) and four from thecity at-large . One black councilman, Irvine Turner, of thecity's badly deteriorated Central Ward, was first elected withthe adoption of the 1954 charter and has been returned tooffice by overwhelming majorities ever since (see Pomper,1966, for an analysis of the voting patterns in Newark's 1962municipal elections) . Until April of 1966, Turner wasNewark's lone black council representative . But in that year'smunicipal election another black, Calvin West, was electedat-large .

West barely achieved election . In a race for four seats, Westfinished fourth in a fifteen-man field . He led all candidates inthe Central Ward, was second in the racially changing South

Kramer / ELECTION OF BLACKS TO CITY COUNCILS [457]

Ward, but finished far down the list of fifteen in the city'sthree predominantly white wards. In fact, West's overall voteof 20,201 exceeded that for the fifth-place finisher (a white)by less than 1,500. Under Newark's complicated electionprocedure, West was spared a run-off (which almost certainlywould have meant defeat) only because the two top votegetters (whites) received overwhelming support in the city'swhite ethnic districts . Newark's election code prescribes thatthe third- and fourth-place finishers are elected to office,without a run-off, if the top two candidates pull one-eighthof the total vote each. West, formerly a clerk in the city'soffice of Civil Defense, joined Turner as a strong council-manic ally of Newark's Democratic Mayor, Hugh Addonizio.

In January of 1968, Newark's Council appointed a thirdblack political ally of Addonizio, Leon Ewing, to fill anunexpired at-large term until a special election could be held .Ewing had run seventh in the 1966 regular at-large election inwhich West had become Newark's first at-large councilman .Again, in the special election of November 1968, Ewingfailed to achieve election, this time finishing third in a racefor two seats . Newark's black councilmanic representationwas thereby reduced again to two.Ewing trailed the white second-place finisher by 78 votes,

and in the process collected 24,862 ballots, the highestcitywide vote total ever obtained by a black. The electionwas marked by the activity of a coalition of militant blackorganizations (the Committee for a United Newark), spear-headed by playwright LeRoi Jones. The coalition at firstrefused to support Ewing but later grudgingly adopted him asone of its candidates . According to various students ofNewark politics, the coalition's support for Ewing cut intohis vote in white districts and among middle-class blacks aswell . Almost half of Ewing's votes came from the SouthWard, about to boil over in political revolt . After theelection, Ewing charged that black extremists had interferedwith his campaign workers, preventing them from passing

[4581 JOURNAL OF BLACK STUDIES /JUNE 1971

out literature at the polls. Demanding a recount, Ewingwarned Newark's blacks to be aware of "collusion, trickery,and double-dealing within their own race" (Newark EveningNews, 1968).

Early in 1969, the black political unrest in Newark's SouthWard began building to a climax . A successful recall petitionwas initiated against incumbent councilman Leo Bernstein,and a special election was called for June of that year .Formerly a Jewish residential area, the South Ward by 1969was estimated to be approximately eighty percent black.Bernstein had served since 1962 and long had been accusedof indifference toward his black constituents. In 1966 henarrowly defeated an energetic black opponent in an espe-cially bitter reelection campaign . Perhaps his greatest faultwas political insensitivity . For example, campaigning to holdhis seat in the special election, Bernstein advocated theextensive use of police dogs for crime control in the ward.Victorious in the special election was the Reverend Horace P.Sharper, a leader in the recall movement, an outspokenadvocate of black political power, and a vocal critic of MayorAddonizio. Sharper handily defeated Ewing, Bernstein, andMrs. Jennie Lemons, a third black in the race. Thus, at theend of 1969, Newark's nine-man council contained threeblacks-one an independent, and two allied with the incum-bent mayor.'

OTHER DISTRICT ELECTIONS

New York: Space limitations prevent more than briefnotations about district races in other cities . New York City'sCouncil districts are so arranged as to preclude more than twoblack incumbents (one from Harlem and one from theBedford-Stuyvesant section of Brooklyn).' In the 1969Harlem race (the Fifth District of Manhattan), Liberal Partycandidate Charles Taylor, an ally of mayoralty winner JohnLindsay, upset the militant and well-publicized civil rights

Kramer / ELECTION OF BLACKS TO CITY COUNCILS [4591

activist Jesse Gray, who had won the Democratic primary .Taylor and Gray contested for the seat of retiring incumbentJ . Raymond Jones, once the leader of New York's Tammanyorganization and probably the most powerful black politicalfigure in the city's history . New York's lone white/blackcontest occurred in Manhattan's racially and economicallyheterogenous East Side Fourth District, which begins atFifty-Ninth Street, encompasses the luxury apartments liningthe East River, and extends northward through East Harlem.A black woman, Mrs. Hilda Stokely, waged an energeticcampaign in the Democratic primary, but was defeated easilyby a white candidate .

Philadelphia: The gain of one black seat in Philadelphiacame about through the two-to-one election victory ofDemocrat Charles Durham over a black Republican opponentin that city's heavily black Third District (in West Philadel-phia) . The district's seat was vacated by a white Democratwho did not seek reelection . Philadelphia's white/blackcouncilmanic campaign (Table 3) occurred in the EighthDistrict (Germantown), where black attorney Joseph Cole-man entered the Democratic primary with substantial back-ing from the city's decaying Democratic organization. TheEighth District is changing racially, but remains predominant-ly white . Coleman finished a poor third . Mention should bemade, too, of the entrance of a pair of Black Panther Partycandidates into two special councilmanic elections (in pre-dominantly white districts) in November of 1969 . ThePanthers' vote totals were 252 and 215, out of approximately40,000 votes cast in each of the districts.

Los Angeles: During the early 1960s Los Angeles was thescene of spirited attempts by blacks to elect their firstrepresentative to council (see Patterson, 1969). By 1969,three blacks were entrenched in office (Gilbert W. Lindsay,Billy Mills, and unsuccessful 1969 mayoralty candidate

[4601 JOURNAL OF BLACK STUDIES/ JUNE 1971

Thomas Bradley) . In their campaigns for reelection, Lindsay(1969) and Bradley (1967) ran unopposed, and Mills (1967)had only token opposition .

St. Louis: On the surface, St . Louis' black councilmanicpolitics is relatively placid : there were no interracial contestsin either the 1967 or 1969 elections, and black incumbentswere routinely returned to their seats . The situation isespecially deserving of intensive study, however, as the eightblack councilmen were variously allied with separate seg-ments of the city's factionalized Democratic party . Of note,too, in St . Louis is the extremely weak showing of blackRepublican candidates for council, despite the lack ofDemocratic cohesion . The best showing by a black Republi-can councilmanic candidate in either 1967 or 1969 occurredin the latter year, in the city's Fifth Ward. There, RepublicanSidney Davis received 575 votes, losing by better than athree-to-one margin to his Democratic opponent .

AT-LARGE ELECTIONS

With the exception of those in New York City, candidatesfor at-large council seats in the twelve cities studied must facecitywide electorates (see Table 1, note b) . Thus, until citieshave black population majorities which actually vote inproportion to their numbers, black at-large councilmaniccandidates will face many of the same racially orienteddifficulties now experienced by black candidates for mayor.The at-large campaign problems of blacks are well known (seeWilson, 1965 : ch . 1) . Basically, blacks in at-large electionsmust receive solid black support while gathering sizablenumbers of white votes as well . This dilemma, according tostudents of such contests, forces blacks into relativelyconservative stances on issues. Furthermore, because cam-paigns are not limited by district boundaries, at-large races

tend to be time-consuming and expensive . Organizationsupport, endorsements, or a name well known to the voters(often achieved by virtue of being an incumbent), areinvaluable assets .As shown in Table 5, after the last municipal elections of

the 1960s, ten blacks were serving in at-large seats in thetwelve cities studied . This represented a gain of two blackat-large councilmen. Of particular interest were the contestsin Detroit, Cincinnati, and Pittsburgh.

DETROIT

Kramer / ELECTION OF BLACKS TO CITY COUNCILS [461]

Salaries for councilmen in Detroit are the highest for thetwelve cities ($17,500 per year plus various expenses) . At thesame time, Detroit places the fewest barriers to getting on theprimary ballot . All a prospective candidate need do is pay a$100 filing fee, and even that is refunded if the individualsecures more than half the votes gained by the lowestqualifier for the general election . In addition, councilelections are nonpartisan . The result, in the primary, is abewildering array of names. In September of 1969, 118candidates contested for eighteen spots on the Novembergeneral election ballot .

Prior to the 1969 elections, two blacks held seats inDetroit's nine-man council . One, the Reverend NicholasHood, a more than moderate civil rights exponent, had beenelected in 1965 . The other, Robert Tindal, former ExecutiveSecretary of Detroit's NAACP, had been elected in avacancy-filling contest held in 1968 . In the September 1969primary, Hood finished second and Tindal third . Four otherblacks also finished in the top eighteen, thereby gainingplaces for the general election .Although Detroit's 1969 population was estimated at

approximately 40% black, blacks in that year actually madeup only about 25% of the registered voters . The problem ofovercoming a three-fourths' white majority was diminished,

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however, by the composition of the 1969 mayoralty race .The leading white conservative candidate was defeated in theprimary, creating a general election contest between "liberal"white Roman Gribbs and a black aspirant, Richard Austin.Gribbs narrowly defeated Austin, but the combination ofracially mixed, pro-civil rights mayoralty candidates pro-duced a heavy liberal turnout . As a result, Hood and Tindalwere reelected easily (finished second and fifth respectively),and a third black, Ernest Browne, finished a successful ninthin the eighteen-man field . Indeed, where Detroit's councilpreviously contained a 5-4 conservative majority, liberalstook a 6-3 lead (including the three blacks in the liberalcolumn) after the 1969 election.

Browne received 192,203 votes, a bare 2,306 more thanthe tenth-place finisher, a conservative and former council-woman. Before election, Browne was an analyst in the city'sBudget Bureau . He had started his career in the city's HealthDepartment in 1947, rising in that time, in his own words,"from rats to litter ." Browne was aided by a number ofsignificant endorsements: among them, the United AutoWorkers, the Detroit News, Civic Searchlight (a nonprofit"good government" organization), and black incumbentsHood and Tindal .

CINCINNATI

Kramer / ELECTION OF BLACKS TO CITY COUNCILS [4631

Cincinnati is the only city of the twelve to show a decreasein the number of black councilmen after 1969 . As was truewith the gain in Detroit, the loss in Cincinnati was, at least inpart, related to the broader political context in the city.

Cincinnati's local political milieu is a function of threeactive parties ; the Democratic, the Republican, and theCharter . The last originated in the 1920s to push forreorganization in city government (Straetz, 1958). Althoughthe city's "third" party today, it retains considerablestrength. By city charter, Cincinnati's Council elects one of

[4641 JOURNAL OF BLACK STUDIES/ JUNE 1971

its members as mayor and, in addition, names a city manager.Since 1957, control of Cincinnati's Council and, hence, ofCincinnati itself, has been in Republican hands.

Prior to the 1969 elections, each of the three parties had ablack councilmanic representative . Myron Bush, a Charterite,was first elected in 1965 and was reelected in 1967 . WilliamJ. Chenault, a Democrat, was named by the Republicanadministration in 1968 to fill a vacant seat . And Arthur Reid,a Republican attorney, also was named in 1968 to fill avacancy. Thus, of the three blacks, only one actually hadbeen elected to office .'Midway through 1969, the Democrats and Charterites

joined forces for the express purpose of overthrowingRepublican rule . The Democrat-Charterite coalition and theRepublicans each named nine-man slates for council . Bushand Chenault were on the former ticket, Reid on the latter . Anineteenth candidate, Robert C. Weaver, the fourth black inthe race, ran as an independent.' The Democrat-Charterites,in their joint effort, succeeded only in reducing the Republi-can council majority by one, from a 6-3 Republicanadvantage to 5-4. Bush finished a successful third andChenault achieved election by finishing eighth . Reid was theonly Republican incumbent to be defeated, coming inseventeenth . Weaver trailed the nineteen-man field .

Reid's defeat is probably owed to a mixture of political aswell as racial factors. First, as perhaps the least-knownRepublican incumbent, Reid was not helped by the Republi-can party-in-power strategy of waging a relatively quietcampaign . Second, the underdog Democrat-Charterites madeenergetic appeals for votes in black neighborhoods. Bush andChenault, while advocating support for Reid as a show ofblack strength, also spoke vehemently against the effects oftwelve years of Republican rule in Cincinnati . Third, incontrast to Bush and Chenault, Reid failed to get suchinfluential endorsements as those of the Cincinnati Inquirer,the AFL-CIO Labor Council's Committee on Political Educa-

tion (COPE), or the nonpartisan Independent Voters of Ohio(IVO) . Finally, even though parties run slates, Cincinnatimunicipal election ballots do not actually indicate the partyaffiliation of council candidates, and voters cannot pull astraight party lever. Hence, on purely mechanical grounds,Reid doubtless failed to get as many Republican straight-ticket votes as he might have obtained elsewhere .

PITTSBURGH

Kramer / ELECTION OF BLACKS TO CITY COUNCILS [465]

In Pittsburgh, the gain of one black councilman in 1969 isdirectly attributable to the decision of the Democraticorganization to increase black councilmanic representation .Virtually a one-party city, Pittsburgh's Council, in 1970, hadbeen entirely Democratic for over thirty years. RegularDemocratic candidates are selected by the Allegheny CountyDemocratic Policy Committee, made up of a coterie ofhigh-ranking -party officials . The organization's city councilcandidates routinely win the primaries held in May, and theneasily defeat their Republican opponents in November.

Until 1969, the Democrats accorded blacks one councilseat . Occasionally, independent blacks would attempt to gainadditional seats by running in the Democratic primary, butthey seldom made more than token showings .' The Republi-can Party ordinarily included one black on its ticket, but in acity with a more than two-to-one Democratic registrationmajority, this was little more than a gesture.

Organization control over city council elections never wasmore evident than in 1969 . In the May primary theorganization's mayoralty candidate was dealt a stunningdefeat by Democratic insurgent and then city councilmanPeter Flaherty . Nevertheless, in the primary, the organiza-tion's five council nominees all easily survived the mayoraltyupset . Included on the organization slate was George Shields,intended as the party's second black councilman . LouisMason, the black incumbent, had been elected in 1967 to afour-year term.

[4661 JOURNAL OF BLACK STUDIES/ JUNE 1971

Campaigning in the general election, Flaherty disassociatedhimself from the organization candidates for council. Headvised his supporters that he was "not running with a slate"and to "look them all [Republicans as well as Democrats]over" (Pittsburgh Press, 1969a) . For its part, the organiza-tion, disspirited with a maverick at the head of theDemocratic ticket, gave its council candidates only limitedsupport. Indeed, at one point, a Republican council candi-date only half facetiously asked the city's DemocraticChairman for the names of his "faceless" opponents, so thathe could mount a campaign against them (Pittsburgh Press,1969b) .

Flaherty achieved an overwhelming two-to-one victory .The quintet of relatively anonymous Democratic councilaspirants, supposedly cut adrift by the reformist mayoraltywinner, also swept into office by approximately two-to-onemargins. Shields proved to be the poorest vote getter of thefive, polling approximately 10,000 votes less than the leadingcouncil candidate, but he outdistanced his nearest Republi-can rival by nearly 40,000 ballots.

OTHER AT-LARGE ELECTIONS

Philadelphia : Philadelphia's black councilman-at-large isEdgar Campbell . Politically allied with Democratic MayorJames J. Tate, Campbell was elected to his first term in 1967.In effect, Campbell took over the traditionally black at-largeseat made vacant by the death earlier that year of ReverendMarshall Shepard. Campbell finished third in a field of 21 .Philadelphia's election procedures are such that the minorityparty is guaranteed at least two at-large seats of the seven.Five Democrats, including Campbell, were elected . Finishingthird among the Republicans, and missing election byapproximately 500 votes (he received over 320,000) was ablack disc jockey, George Woods ("The Man With TheGoods").

Kramer / ELECTION OF BLACKS TO CITY COUNCILS [467]

San Francisco: San Francisco's at-large council politics iseven more chaotic than that in Detroit . As occurs in thelatter city, candidates run without party labels, and there areonly minimal impediments to getting on the ballot . More-over, in San Francisco, there is no primary. The whole fieldruns in November, with the top five or six (in alternatebiannual elections) gaining election . Terry Francois, a blackattorney, was appointed to the San Francisco Council in1966 to fill a vacancy. He then ran a strong race in 1967,finishing fifth, in a field of 44, and became the first black towin a citywide election in that city . Francois, by militantstandards, is a black conservative . In 1969, he authored anarticle for the September Reader's Digest entitled "A BlackMan Looks at Black Racism," in which he openly criticizedblack extremists .

Surprisingly, despite the ease with which one can get onthe San Francisco ballot, few blacks have chosen to run forcouncil. In the most recent election, in 1969, only one blacksought a place. Wifred T. Ussery, a National Director ofCORE, and of militant persuasion, submitted a nominatingpetition with only fifty valid signatures out of the requiredsixty . Since he filed one day before the September 11deadline, he had no time to submit additional names. Ruledoff the ballot, Ussery immediately announced his intentionof forming an independent political organization to create, inSan Francisco, a black political movement free of whiteinfluence .

New York: Blacks in New York, too, seldom appear asat-large council candidates . One small factor in this phenome-non may be the relative unimportance of the council vis-a-visthe city's Board of Estimate . Made up of the mayor, thecomptroller, the president of the city council, and the fiveelected borough presidents, the Board of Estimate in NewYork assumes many of the prerogatives over municipal financegranted councils in other cities . The Democratic Party

[4681 JOURNAL OF BLACK STUDIES/ JUNE 1971

customarily reserves the position of Manhattan boroughpresident for a black. In 1969, the black incumbent, PercySutton, was easily reelected .

CITY COUNCIL PRESIDENCIES

City council presidencies (or their equivalents), in nine ofthe twelve cities, are filled by the councils themselves,electing one of their members through in-house proceedings.In New York, St . Louis, and Baltimore, the positions of citycouncil president are separate elective offices, contested oncitywide bases . During the last elections of the 1960s, blackcandidates sought each of these council presidencies, andeach contest displayed marked racially oriented voting .

Harlem State Assemblyman Charles Rangel contested forthe presidency of the New York Council in the June 1969Democratic primary . He finished last in a field of six, but hecarried the eight predominantly black assembly districts inthe city." Rangel's total vote exceeded 70,000, slightly lessthan half the ballots cast for the primary winner, whiteincumbent Francis X. Smith .

Councilman Joseph Clark, of St . Louis' predominantlyblack Fourth Ward, ran for that city's council presidency inthe June 1969 Democratic primary . Finishing fourth in afield of six, Clark carried five of the eight St . Louis wardsrepresented by black councilmen, and finished second in theother three . His total vote of over 15,000 was approximatelyhalf that of the primary victor, Democratic organizationcandidate Sorkis Webbe. Webbe, in turn, carried by narrowmargins the three black wards not won by Clark.

State Senator Clarence Mitchell finished second in a fieldof three in Baltimore's June 1967 Democratic primary .Although he carried every black precinct in the city,Mitchell's vote of approximately 33,000 was only one-thirdthat of the white organization candidate . Baltimore's Repub-

Kramer / ELECTION OF BLACKS TO CITY COUNCILS (4691

lican Party slated another black, Horace Ashby, as itscandidate for city council president . Ashby easily won theRepublican primary and then, along with the total Republi-can ticket, was snowed under in the general election. Of someinterest is the fact that Ashby, making a modest inroad intothe black vote, obtained 3,000 more ballots in the generalelection than the white Republican candidate for mayor.Of course, blacks need not be elected president to hold

important posts in city councils . The following is only apartial list of blacks holding at least nominally significantcouncil positions at the close of the 1960s . St . Louis'Laurence Woodson was vice-president of that city's council,selected for the post by his Democratic council peers . MyronBush was chairman of the Cincinnati Council's Employmentand Human Resources Committee. Cleveland's Charles Carrheld the position of majority leader of the council for tenyears, until his resignation in October of 1969." Carrretained his post as chairman of the council's powerfulFinance Committee . And Terry Francois, in San Francisco,was chairman of the Fire, Safety, and Police Committeewhich, in addition to its more trenchant responsibilities,evaluates the propriety of the city's topless and bottomlessdancers .

PARTY AFFILIATION

Without detailed studies of decision-making within thetwelve separate councils, it is impossible to test the real"strength" of blacks in these legislative bodies . However,some idea of at least potential black strength, in a collectivesense, can be gained by noting the degree to which blackscompose various councilmanic partisan blocs . Data for theeight cities with readily ascertainable partisan divisions areshown in Table 6. These data, of course, ignore the very realissue of intraparty factionalization .

[4701 JOURNAL OF BLACK STUDIES /JUNE 1971

TABLE 6

PARTISAN COMPOSITION OF CITY COUNCILS AND THEPARTY AFFILIATIONS OF BLACK COUNCILMEN

(after the last elections in the 1960s)

*-black percentage of partisan bloc**-black percentage of total council

a . Two special elections in Chicago, In April 1968 and 1969, did not change thenumber of blacks in that city's council but they did alter the council's partisancomposition .

CityDates of Last

Elections Total Council Blacks in Council

Baltimore November '67 Dem-19 Dem- 4 (21%)*19 4 (21%)**

Chicago February-April '67 Dem-37 Dem- 7 (19%)April '68a Rep- 7 Rep- 0April '69a Ind- 6 Ind- _3 (50%)

50 10 (20%)

Cleveland November '69 Dem-27 Dem- 9 (33%)Rep- 6 Rep- 3 (50%)

33 12 (36%)

Cincinnati November '69 Rep- 5 Rep- 0DemCharter- 4 Dem-Charter- 2 (50%)

9 2 (22%)

New York November '69 Dem-30 Dem- 1 ( 39'0)Rep, 4 Rep- 0

Liberal- 4 Liberal- 1 (25%)38 2 ( 5%)

Philadelphia November '67 Dem-13 Dem- 3 (23%)Rep-_4 Rep- 0

17 3 (18%)

Pittsburgh November '67 Dem- 9 Dem- 2 (22%)November '69 9 2 (22%)

St. Louis April '67 Dem-23 Dem- 8 (30%)April '69 Rep- 6 Rep- 0

29 8 (28%)

Kramer / ELECTION OF BLACKS TO CITY COUNCILS [4711

In none of the councils, after the last election of the1960s, did blacks compose a majority of the party in power .Nor, in any city, would the defection of all black votes in thecouncil have prevented the majority party from achieving aplurality . Nevertheless, most black councilmen (34 of 43 inthe eight cities shown in Table 6) are members of thecouncils' controlling partisan blocs . One should not ignorethe patronage and other advantages of majority partymembership even though, in the case of black councilmen,the parameters of this advantage need to be established byempirical research.

SUGGESTIONS FOR FURTHER RESEARCH

The data about black councilmen presented in this paperare not designed to form the foundation for new anddefinitive generalizations about urban Negro politics . Theyare, as previously mentioned, intended to provide a prelimi-nary description of the state of affairs at the beginning of the1970s and, of more consequence, the should be viewed assuggestive of further research . Readers are encouraged todevelop their own avenues of inquiry from the rudimentaryand descriptive material presented in the text and tables .What follows is only a minimal list of subtopics and questionswhich might be investigated .

(1) Councilmanic elections provide excellent vehicles forthe study of racially motivated voting . As 1970 census data ismade available, it should be possible to investigate thequantitative aspects of city council elections occurring early inthe decade. For example, one question which immediatelyoccurs : at what point in the transition from white to black isa changing ward likely to elect a black councilman?

(2) Quantitative voting studies, of course, are of onlylimited value unless they are linked with information aboutthe relevant campaign issues . If, for the moment, we

[ 472] JOURNAL OF BLACK STUDIES/ JUNE 1971

trichotimize city wards into white, black, and changing, canseparate patterns of issues in councilmanic campaigns bediscovered in the three types? One researchable phenomenon,which promises to increase in frequency, is black versus blackcouncilmanic races in predominantly black districts. Hereto-fore, black political cleavage has been muffled by theperceived need to maintain a united front against whites . Ascouncilmanic contests between blacks grow in number, theopportunity is afforded to explore ideological and otherdifferences within the urban black electorate .

(3) Studies of black campaigns for at4arge council seatsalso offer distinct possibilities for research . For example, asthe black populations of cities increase, and in some instancesas blacks become the majority of the population and at leasta potential majority of the electorate, will black at-largecandidates find more success with militant, rather thanconservative, political appeals?

(4) Most of the material in this paper has dealt .withelections . The rising incidence of black councilmen, however,offers an opportunity to investigate another dimension of theissue. How do black councilmen, district and at4arge,conduct themselves once in office? What are the relationshipsbetween black councilmen and the prevailing political organ-izations in the city? To what extent are black councilmeninvolved in the making of meaningful decisions, and in whatdirections do they exert their influence (for a series ofrelevant case studies see Banfield, 1961)? And how, if at all,do the political fiefs carved out by black district-basedcouncilmen differ from those traditionally constructed bywhites?

(5) The growing number of black councilmen also pro-vides a chance for insight into the question of politicalrecruitment among blacks . Who, in the social and politicalsense, are the blacks who achieve these relatively prominentpositions? Who are their active supporters? Furthermore,what are the career mobility patterns of black councilmen

Kramer / ELECTION OF BLACKS TO CITY COUNCILS [473]

after election? Are councilmanic posts for blacks viewed asterminal political positions? Are they seen essentially asstepping-stones to higher office? Or are they valued for thetangible and intangible rewards they can bring to anindividual's other occupational endeavors? Associated withthis general issue is the question of self-contained blackpolitical organizations. As these agencies grow in strength andbegin to name serious candidates for council races, will theirnominees differ significantly, on whatever dimensions, fromblack political independents or from those blacks slated bythe standard political parties?

(6) Finally, a quasi-heretical suggestion. Despite the grow-ing importance of the black vote, and a corollary increase inthe number of black public officials, the power in most citiesfor the foreseeable future is likely to rest with declining, yetubiquitous, old-line political organizations. Black council-men, then, can readily be placed into two oversimplifiedcategories ; those tied to the controlling organizations, andthose opposed. Black organization politicians long have beencastigated as Uncle Toms or worse. It would be instructive tostudy, by means of rigorous empirical research, the extentand quality of governmental services which flow to thedistricts of black organization councilmen, as contrasted tothe services rendered districts represented by the growingnumber of black councilmen outside the "Establishment ."Further, if the districts of organization councilmen farebetter, as might be expected, on what grounds will theanti-organization black incumbents campaign for reelection?Wilson has observed that blacks without tangible rewards tooffer their constituents often resort to racial ideology as asubstitute (Wilson, 1965 : 34) . Does the advent of council-manic "outsiders," therefore, promise to increase the level ofracially oriented political invective in the nation's alreadytraumatized cities?

[474] JOURNAL OF BLACK STUDIES /JUNE 1971

NOTES

1 . For simplicity, the term councilman is used throughout this paper,although in some cities the appelations "supervisor" or "alderman" arecolloquially substituted.

2. Because of the politically sensitive nature of the material solicited, manyof the individual respondents requested anonymity. In order to honor theserequests, it was decided to include no direct quotations in the paper (other thanthose taken from newspapers) and to cite none of the respondents, even thosewho did not expressly ask that their names be withheld .

3. Between censuses, voter registration is probably the most meaningfuldevice for cross-city comparisons of district size . For example, Cleveland's 33wards ranged from 3,922 to 16,327 registered voters at the time of the 1969municipal election . Los Angeles, by contrast, requires that each of its council-manic districts contain approximately 15% of the city's nearly 1,200,000registered voters . By city charter, Los Angeles redistricts every four years . In anyparticular election, councilmanic districts containing over 100,000 registeredvoters are not uncommon .

4. The first designation presented no placement problems; only the race ofthe general election winners had to be ascertained . The second posed seriousdifficulties . Council races, particularly in primary contests, sometimes involveboth black and white candidates with no organized support and no practicalchance of winning. The essential question was : where blacks or whites enteredcouncil contests in which a member of the other race achieved victory, at whatpoint could the contest actually be considered interracial?

After some fruitless attempts to apply a single criterion (placement position inthe election ; or some other like it), it finally was decided to utilize an ad hocscheme . Each contest, including the primary (where held), was examinedseparately . If an unsuccessful candidate of the other race was supported by apartyor by an organization, or if he was mentioned as a "serious" candidate by thedaily or black press or by an informant, or if all candidates of the other racecollectively received as much as ten percent of the total vote (in either theprimary or the general election), the contest was considered interracial.

5. On December 17, 1969, Mayor Addonizio, incumbent black councilmenWest and Turner, and seven other past and present Newark public officials wereindicted by a Federal Grand Jury on charges including extortion and income taxevasion.

6. Proposals are made periodically to reduce the size of New York's Councildistricts, or to rearrange their boundaries; so as to increase the number ofminority-group councilmen . While blacks in New York are drastically underrepresented, the city's nearly 1,000,000 Puerto Rican-Americans were entirely withoutrepresentation in the city council elected in 1969 . Two Puerto Ricans served inthe 1965-1969 Council. One, Carlos Rios (Democrat, at-large, Manhattan) failedto obtain enough signatures to get on the June primary ballot for reelection . Theother, Robert Lebron (Tenth District, Bronx) was onaosed in the Democratic

Kramer / ELECTION OF BLACKS TO CITY COUNCILS [4751

primary by another candidate of Puerto Rican background. The two split thePuerto Rican vote, enabling a white non-Spanish candidate to achieve nomination.

7. During the late 1940s and early 1950s, two blacks regularly were electedto Cincinnati's Council. The vote-getting ability of one, Theodore Berry, and thepossibility that he might become mayor under the then existing "proportionalrepresentation" election system, precipitated changes in the city's electionprocedures .

8. The owner of a clothing store, Weaver had finished last in a field of 22 in1967 . During the 1969 campaign, he paraded like Diogenes through Cincinnati'scity hall carrying a 94-cent gas lantern and failing, by his own account, to find anhonest man.

9. Perhaps the best primary showing by a nonorganization black occurred in1967 . The Reverend James J. (Jimmy Joe) Robinson, in the 1940s the first blackto play as a starter on the University of Pittsburgh football team, finished fifthbehind the four organization candidates. With over 23,000 votes Robinson trailedthe fourth party regular by 10,000 .

10 . Four Harlem assembly districts in Manhattan, three Bedford-Stuyvesantand South Williamsburg districts in Brooklyn, and the Springfield Gardens districtin Queens. New York's 68 assembly districts are customarily regarded as the basicvoting units in the city, and voting returns, even for municipal elections, are oftenanalyzed in those terms.

11 . Carr had held the post since 1960 . He resigned, reportedly, because of theuntenable man-in-the-middle nature of the position in the political feud betweenMayor Stokes and Council President James Stanton.

REFERENCES

ADRIAN, C. R. and C. PRESS (1968) Governing Urban America. New York :McGraw-Hill .

Baltimore News-American (1967) November 8.BANFIELD, E. C. (1961) Political Influence. NewYork : Free Press.---and J. Q. WILSON (1963) City Politics . New York : Vintage.CUBAN, L. (1967) "A strategy for racial peace: Negro leadership in Cleveland,

1900-1919." Phylon (third quarter) : 299-311 .FLEMING, G. J. (1960) An All-Negro Ticket in Baltimore. New York:

McGraw-Hill.GOSNELL, H. F. (1967) Negro Politicians : The Rise of Negro Politics in Chicago.

Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press.Newark Evening News (1968) November 7.PATTERSON, B. C. (1969) "Political action of Negroes in Los Angeles: a case

study in the attainment of councilmanic representation ." Phylon (secondquarter) : 170-183 .

[4761 JOURNAL OF BLACK STUDIES / JUNE 1971

Pittsburgh Press (1969a) October 10.--- (1969b) September 28 . September 25 .POMPER, G. (1966) "Ethnic and group voting in nonpartisan municipal

elections." Public Opinion Q. (Spring) : 79-97.STRAETZ, R. A. (1958) PR Politics in Cincinnati. New York : New York Univ .

Press.WILSON, J. Q. (1966) "The Negro in American politics : the present," pp.

424-448 in J. Davis (ed.) The American Negro Reference Book . EnglewoodCliffs, N.J . : Prentice-Hall .

--- (1965) Negro Politics : The Search for Leadership. NewYork: Free Press.