Early Stumping Shows Strength, Weaknesses : Mayor Woos Black Vote in 5th-Term Bid

In an early start in his campaign for a fifth term, Los Angeles Mayor Tom Bradley wooed black voters Tuesday during daylong events that showcased both his strength and some weakness with what has been his most loyal base of supporters.

From middle-class Crenshaw to poor South-Central Los Angeles, Bradley met with a cross-section of black constituents in a way that the mayor’s critics have said is all too rare. Bradley received warm responses from young black professionals, workers and students.

But along the way he also got uncomfortable reminders that there are sore points between him and the community that spawned him: his support of a controversial South-Central trash burning project; his presentation of the city key to a South African Consulate official five years ago before he initiated the city’s tough anti-apartheid program, and his relatively new outspokenness on the drug problem, which was a plague in the black community several years before the issue hit the cover of national news magazines.

Bradley’s “area day” spent in Southwest and South-Central Los Angeles was the second such “out in the community” day that Bradley has held since the new year. The first, in San Pedro, attracted little attention. His greater visibility in various parts of the city is part of a Bradley grass-roots strategy to spark renewed interest in the mayor, who failed to inspire a high local voter turnout in the November gubernatorial election. The low voter turnout in black areas particularly concerned supporters of Bradley, who has announced he plans to run for mayor again in 1989.

“The mayor himself has got to get into the black community more,” Bradley aide Bill Elkins said. “So many see him as the black mayor but he is the mayor who happens to be black in a very diverse city. People have said they felt taken for granted and of course they are not, but they need to see him more and get a better understanding of some of the things he has accomplished.”

Bradley made a strong pitch at his first stop Tuesday, a breakfast in the Crenshaw area with young black professionals. When Bradley met during his gubernatorial campaign with similar groups, he typically spoke in generalities and did not address their specific concerns. But Tuesday, Bradley talked about money and his fight to include blacks in the city bidding and promotions.

“Blacks had been left out of the process,” he said, referring to his push for affirmative action goals when he became mayor in 1973. “I’m proud to say we have made a significant difference in this city.”

The mayor’s Office of Small Business Assistance has “opened the door” for “millions of dollars in contracts” for businesses owned by women and minorities, Bradley added. “That’s been going on for 14 years and it will continue in my fifth term,” he said to applause.

After a tour of job-training facilities in Watts and South-Central, Bradley visited the Concerned Citizens Community Kitchen, which provides food for the homeless. While talking to the volunteer operators of the kitchen, William and Sandra Swain, Bradley was continually heckled by Tut Hayes, who regularly protests the fact that Bradley gave a ceremonial key to the city to the South African consul general in 1982. Bradley has said that when he presented the key, he voiced his objections to apartheid in South Africa to the diplomat.

Another protester with Hayes handed out material against the proposed LANCER project in South-Central, which would burn trash in new incinerators that would produce electricity. Some critics, including many who live near the proposed site, have argued that too little is known about the toxic chemicals likely to be released from the incinerators. A protest chant merged the two concerns: “Burn South Africa, not garbage.” Bradley has said that he will continue his support of the project only if health studies show LANCER to be safe.

At George Washington Preparatory High School, Bradley announced that in April he and Los Angeles Police Chief Daryl F. Gates will hold three public hearings to discuss the drug problem and what to do about it. No dates have been set for the hearings.

Bradley urged the high school students to “say no to drugs, say no to gang activities.” When one student asked the mayor, “What took you so long” to start seeking solutions to the drug problem, Bradley said the city had ongoing anti-drug programs but more needs to be done.