2 Introduction latest group of black political innovators was Cory Booker, Newark s third black mayor. To be sure, the idea of a post-racial body poli

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1 Introduction UNDERSTANDING BLACK POLITICS in Newark, New Jersey, at the dawn of the twenty-first century is a complex task with many moving parts. It is the story of a generational clash on the electoral front, the story of a clash of political styles (deracialized versus racialized), the story of the relationship between political brand development and electoral viability, and the story of the evolution of middle-class black representation of poor black constituents. Kenneth Gibson, Newark s first black mayor, famously said that wherever America s cities are going, Newark will get there first. 1 While Newark s story may seem unique to Newark, in reality it figures broadly into larger discussions of African American politics. To many, the city is synonymous with urban unrest, having been the site, in 1967, of one of the worst urban riots in American history. In the aftermath of those riots, Newark was also the site of the first National Black Power Conference, which sought nationalist solutions to the systemic problems made painfully apparent by the 1967 rebellion.2 In 1970, Newark became the first major northeastern city (and only the third large city in the United States) to elect a black mayor.3 The city has long been a barometer in discussions about the vitality of urban centers and the viability of creating and achieving an African American political agenda. Given Newark s recent history of being in the vanguard with respect to black politics, it should not be surprising that it would also be on the front lines of further political innovation. With the election of the nation s first black president, the end of the first decade of the twenty-first century ushered in what journalists commonly referred to as a post-racial era of American politics. The election of Barack Obama supposedly proved that America had finally atoned for centuries of slavery and codified segregation. Black candidates now would be free to run as candidates, judged only by the soundness of their racially transcendent policy proposals and not by the color of their skin.4 Featured prominently among the first wave of this 1

2 2 Introduction latest group of black political innovators was Cory Booker, Newark s third black mayor. To be sure, the idea of a post-racial body politic is a farcical idea to most people who study race and American politics. Although our nation has indeed improved race relations and reduced inequality, it is in no position to rest on its laurels and proclaim that Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. s dream has been fulfilled. Cities like Newark bear witness to the reality of persistent poverty and racial inequality that belies the claim of having entered a post-racial age. In 2000 (the most recent census at the start of this project), Newark s population was 53.5% black and 29.5% Latino. Only 58% of the city s residents over age twenty-five had completed high school, compared with just over 80% of similarly aged adults nationally. Only 9% of the population over age twenty-five had a bachelor s degree or higher, compared with nearly 24.5% of all Americans in the same age bracket. Fewer than one in four residents (23.8%) owned their own homes, compared with more than 66% of all Americans, and 28.4% of residents lived below the federal poverty line in While blacks made up more than half of Newark s population, they owned only 23% of the city s businesses in Latinos were also underrepresented, owning 23% of the city s businesses. And while Newark s population accounted for just over 3% of New Jersey s population throughout the first decade of the twenty-first century, the city s business activity represented only 1% of the state s retail sales in 2002, 1% of the state s wholesale sales in 2002, and just under 2.5% of the state s hotel and food service sales in These statistics indicate that black rule did not necessarily translate into a higher standard of living for Newarkers in general and black Newarkers in particular. As scholars like William Nelson and Linda Williams pointed out in the 1980s, black mayors across the United States assumed control in cities just as federal support started to disappear and the effects of recession and deindustrialization started to sink in. As a result, the black politicians who won election to mayoralties in the 1970s and 1980s were largely hamstrung in their well-meaning attempts to use electoral power to ameliorate poverty in black communities.6 In this context, the rise of young post-racial politicians takes on new meaning. The failures of previous generations of black elected officials to address entrenched inequality and poverty created opportunities for new politicians to emerge and critique their elders approach. It is these critiques that led to the acrimonious intraracial debates that frame a number of highprofile electoral contests featuring older and younger black politicians.

3 Introduction 3 Infighting is common in politics, including black politics. What is interesting here is the tone of the infighting. Should black politicians emphasize racial issues or frame their platform as race neutral? Should candidates focus on traditional civil rights issues or broad-based economic issues? Is the failure of black elder statesmen to improve the quality of life of their communities an artifact of larger systemic inequality or the result of poor leadership? The subtext of these important debates includes discussions of moral rectitude and technocratic competence. To be sure, black civil rights leaders have long been preoccupied with the moral uplift of poor black urban dwellers.7 Today, though, the intraracial public discussion is just as likely to focus on the moral lapses and lack of preparation of black leaders as a source of urban decay just as much as on the individual failings of black citizens. In her book The Boundaries of Blackness, Cathy Cohen introduced the theory of secondary marginalization to explain how black legislative and civil rights leaders were able to separate HIV/AIDS from the mainstream black agenda for the first decade of the crisis. She argued that black leaders had an incentive to concentrate on racial justice issues that were not so clearly identified with the most socially marginal members of the black community (i.e., gays and intravenous drug users). By centering on issues on which all blacks could agree and by publicly condemning the behaviors of some blacks as being pathologically indefensible, black leaders were able to maintain an air of social respectability and thus gain access to mainstream governmental institutions.8 My book extends Cohen s argument into the electoral realm. I contend that the same forces that discouraged black leaders from addressing controversial problems in black communities also created opportunities for deracialized political candidates to gain political currency. Cohen focused on the relationship between black elites and the black masses, demonstrating that black elites stake their claim as legitimate black leaders by publicly upbraiding marginal blacks for bad behavior.9 In this book, I hope to show that the forces of secondary marginalization govern relationships in the cadre of blacks vying for leadership positions in the African American community. I call this form of secondary marginalization elite displacement. In elite displacement, black political challengers seize on both the moral and the policy failings of incumbent black leaders to challenge them for political office. That is, insurgent candidates use the shortcomings of their predecessors to marginalize them, and they present themselves to the

4 4 Introduction general public as being better positioned to assume a role of political leadership within the black community. To some, the strategy of elite displacement seems like a shrewd strategy that is part of everyday political maneuvering. However, elite displacement has serious normative implications. It rarely occurs in a vacuum. In the United States, stereotypes that questioned blacks fitness to hold political office have existed since Reconstruction.10 When one black candidate employs elite displacement against another black candidate, we have to consider whether he or she may be reinforcing and perpetuating negative stereotypes about black leadership generally. We also must ponder if such attacks will affect the challenger s public persona as well. Ironically, the candidate who is perceived as doing the most to abolish stereotypes about blacks could be the one who is in fact perpetuating them. Perpetuating these stereotypes hurts both the challenger and the incumbent. The incumbent may eventually (and deservedly) lose her job, but as a result of his hard-nosed campaign tactics, the challenger may find it difficult to create lasting political coalitions in the community that he serves. This difficulty in creating political coalitions in turn hampers his ability to deliver on his key campaign promise to do more than his predecessors to improve black communities even if he maintains outside political support. Finally, the story of Newark, and the story of elite displacement generally, shows how race continues to permeate our political lives in subtle yet insidious ways. I hope that by pointing out the processes that continue to reinforce racial stereotypes, I can contribute to a wider debate about creating an empowering agenda that eliminates stereotypes and inequality while affirming the dignity and political efficacy of Americans of all walks of life. With this in mind, I use the case study of Newark to illuminate a larger theory. Relying on a single case study has both advantages and disadvantages. I was able to observe Newark s politics as a participant observer for about eight years, and the depth and richness of my information about this city are unparalleled. I recognize, however, that critics may have some concerns about its generalizability. I direct them to Mayor Gibson s pronouncement, that wherever America s cities are going, Newark will get there first. I also point out that political science in general and urban politics in particular has benefited from the work of scholars who developed broad political science theories using single-city case studies. Robert Dahl s Who Governs? and Clarence Stone s Regime Politics are two, formidable,

5 Introduction 5 single-city case studies (of New Haven and Atlanta, respectively) that generated years of robust scholarly debate.11 More recently, Todd Shaw used Detroit to study the effectiveness of grassroots activism on housing policy outcomes.12 To be sure, some comparative analysis is helpful. Accordingly, I draw comparative parallels where appropriate (particularly in chapter 1) to demonstrate that the phenomena I witnessed in Newark have analogues in other campaigns in other parts of the country. In chapter 1, I outline the theory of elite displacement to explain how ambitious black politicians like Cory Booker strategize to defeat popular, often entrenched, black incumbents. In chapter 2, I trace the evolution of black political power in Newark from the 1967 riots through the ascendance of the black and Puerto Rican conventions that led to the election of Kenneth Gibson as the city s first black mayor. The chapter then charts the political successes and failures of both Kenneth Gibson and his successor, Sharpe James. It was in this environment that young black leaders like Cory Booker emerged to try to challenge the black establishment. I offer basic biographical information about Booker and use interviews with his peers to explain how he was able to ascend to power starting in Chapter 3 covers the 2002 mayoral election. This election is notable because election theories predicted that a moderate like Booker would be able to beat an embattled, racialized incumbent like Sharpe James. Booker, however, lost this election because the black community refused to embrace him. This chapter explains why Booker lost, using content analysis, campaign literature analysis, and focus-group data. Essentially, although Booker had a huge media advantage, James was able to leverage that media advantage to position Booker as an outsider. Furthermore, Booker s camp reinforced his outsider status through a series of campaign missteps. In the end, black Newarkers remained skeptical of Booker and thus chose to continue to support Sharpe James. Chapter 4 explains why Booker won the 2006 mayoral election. Although to some people, it may seem fortuitous that James dropped out of the race, Booker s campaign planned for years to either run against him or push him out of the race. In any case, they made deliberate, strategic decisions to neutralize the racial and outsider attacks. These efforts contributed to James s decision to drop out of the race, and they positioned Booker to be able to score a resounding victory over Deputy Mayor Ronald Rice Sr. As the district-level data indicate, however, Booker still had relatively

6 6 Introduction weaker support among black voters, which did not portend well for him going into his first term in office. In the second half of the book, I analyze Booker s first term in office. In chapter 5, I study his progress on two key campaign initiatives, improving public safety and promoting economic development. Chapter 6 explores how Cory Booker is perceived as a mayor. Perceptions are extremely important when voters judge candidates. How do voters and elites see Booker s policy successes and failures, and how do they view him as a politician and mayor? In chapter 7, I discuss Booker s role in local and state politics. Using election return data from a number of 2007 state and local races, I examine the length of Booker s political coattails and the implications of those coattails for Booker s relationship with other officials and to run for higher political office. I look at Booker s 2010 reelection campaign in chapter 8. Even though Booker was able to win handily, the political vulnerabilities that became apparent in 2007 were still present in 2010 and had long-standing consequences for Booker s ability to govern. Finally, in chapter 9 I conclude with some closing thoughts and applications for future black politicians, and in the epilogue I offer a brief synopsis of the first month of Booker s second term in office.