Two Kinds of Racial Politics

By Alessandra Stanley

Boston comes together, Miami splits apart

"Tonight Boston made history. We have proven that the hopes that unite us are greater than the fears that separate us."

--Boston Mayor-elect Flynn

"To Xavier Suarez I extend an olive branch but not the laurel of victory. That will never happen as long as he allows himself to be manipulated by the hate-mongers of this community."

--Miami Mayor Ferre

The tone of the victory speeches delivered in Boston and Miami last week aptly reflected the spirit of their mayoral elections. Both cities are marked by years of ethnic strife, and race was a determining factor in the results. But in Boston, where a white candidate opposed a black, the campaign was civil, high-minded and the color issue was barely discussed. In Miami, however, two Hispanics vied for city hall in a brawl that exploited the spiraling tension between blacks and Cubans.

The differences in style reverberated beyond the voting booth. When he conceded defeat, Black Leader Melvin King was the first to acknowledge that the exemplary campaign represented a victory for Raymond Flynn and "a giant step forward" for the city of Boston. The contest between Maurice Ferre, a Puerto Rican, and Suarez, a Cuban, was so fractious that it left Miami more divided than ever.

Flynn's victory had been predicted after he narrowly finished first among eight candidates in last month's nonpartisan primary. King, a former state legislator, ran a strong second in the elimination heat, but the arithmetic was against him in the two-way general election. Noting that blacks constitute only 20% of Boston's electorate, Political Pollster Thomas Kiley said flatly, "A black candidate cannot achieve more than 40% of the vote in this city."

Flynn, 44, was born and raised in the Irish working-class district of South Boston. In his early days as a state legislator, he was an outspoken conservative, opposing school busing and the Equal Rights Amendment and supporting the death penalty. Though he is still against busing, he has moved to the center on most other issues. Both he and King vowed that they would shift the city's resources away from the downtown development that has been favored by retiring Mayor Kevin White and back into Boston's long-neglected neighborhoods. Softening his populism with tiny doses of political prudence, Flynn also committed himself to keeping the downtown area strong.

Once a dashiki-clad radical, King, 55, recently adopted a sober tone and somber attire. Nevertheless, he let slip a few atavistic faux pas, such as saying that he preferred Fidel Castro to Ronald Reagan. More damaging in this heavily Catholic city, he implied, without offering evidence, that the late Humberto Cardinal Medeiros was antiSemitic.

Still, King's campaign was persuasive enough to win 20% of Boston's white voters, an accomplishment in any major American city, let alone one with Boston's racially divided past. Among blacks, King took about 92% of the vote.

King's gracious concession speech came easily: he had won a moral victory by becoming the first black to reach Boston's mayoral finals. Indeed, on election night, his headquarters rang with celebration. Amid joyous shouts of "Rainbow! Rainbow!" echoing the rainbow coalition theme used by King and Presidential Candidate Jesse Jackson, Supporter Katherine Jones boasted, "King has changed this city and it will never be the same again."

Flynn was equally gracious as he became the first native of South Boston to run city hall. Just before putting on King's RAINBOW COALITION button, Flynn promised that "the only special-interest groups will be the people and the neighborhoods in this city."

Flynn's unifying tone was noticeably absent in Miami. Suarez, 34, a wealthy attorney who once ran unsuccessfully for a seat on the city commission, openly appealed to the Cuban hunger for political control of the city. Little Havana was plastered with signs for "nuestro alcalde" (our mayor), and one particularly crude political cartoon distributed by Suarez's organization portrayed Ferre in a phone booth talking to Fidel Castro. Cuban radio stations conveyed the message that "no one but a Cuban is pro-American enough for our interests."

Ferre, 48, who will be entering his sixth term, has been criticized for pushing downtown construction at the expense of poor neighborhoods. But he also has won praise for expanding black assistance programs and work contracts after violent disturbances in 1980 and last year.

Ferre supporters made no bones about trying to exploit black distrust of Cubans. Black Radio Announcer Les Brown urged his WEDR listeners to form "a bolt of black thunder" at the polls. He had a taunt for any Cubans who tuned in: "You stole our jobs and you're not going to steal our city." The most dramatic display of raw enmity came when City Commissioner Joe Carollo went on TV to endorse Ferre and abruptly changed his mind, charging a visibly stunned Ferre with running a "racist campaign of hate."

Black turnout was high (60%) and overwhelmingly (96%) for Ferre. But helpful to the incumbent's victory was winning 27% of the Hispanic vote, almost all of which is Cuban. The independence shown by those voters was encouraging. It suggested that a truce was at least possible in Miami's racially charged politics. Said Miami Attorney Neal Sonnett: "The time is particularly right for some healing."

--By Alessandra Stanley.

Reported by Joelle Attinger/Boston and William McWhirter/Miami

With reporting by Joelle Attinger/Boston, William McWhirter/Miami This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so viewer discretion is required.