Reality Clouds Optimism on Racial Coalitions

The numbers tell the stark story. In California and across the nation, the percentage of blacks is expected to increase only incrementally in future years, compared to vast leaps by the Latino population and continuing domination by whites.

For black politicians, that leaves one option: molding coalitions in either racially mixed or white-dominated areas. While black politicians are optimistic about forming coalitions, the realities are troublesome.

Already in Los Angeles, unceasingly calm by most standards of racial discord, there are open signs of racial tension.

Danny Bakewell, the president of the Brotherhood Crusade, the black community’s United Way, dismissed a recent attempt to recall Councilman Robert Farrell as the product of “disenchanted Jewish financiers”--not the sort of words to inspire unity.

And among many blacks, tensions with Latinos and Asians have grown because of perceptions that the others profited from black struggles.

“This country was built on the black soul,” said the Rev. Cecil Murray of the First A.M.E. Church, the largest black congregation in Los Angeles. “Those who know find themselves struggling at indirect anger at those wanting a piece of the cake they didn’t bake.”

Bruce Cain, a Berkeley-based political scientist who has studied Los Angeles’ demographics, said that despite “a kind of uneasiness,” tentative alliances between black and Latino community groups do raise the possibility of future large-scale coalitions.

But Rep. Augustus F. Hawkins, who in 1934 became only the second black elected to public office in the state, remains pessimistic.

“I’m not so sure that there’s any strong connection between the Hispanics and the blacks, for example,” he said. “As a matter of fact, they’re competitors.”

As for success in white-dominated districts, black officials point hopefully at the cross-over appeal of Mayor Tom Bradley and a few other blacks, including Rep. Julian Dixon (D-Inglewood).

Future candidates, Bradley said, “have got to begin to think beyond the limits of a black or Hispanic district if they really want to open the doors.”

Berkeley’s Cain agreed. “Either we will find black elected officials expanding their base or black elected officials dropping off,” he said.

But few black politicians expect success on a statewide level any time soon. Movement is predicted to occur, if slowly, at the local level.

Rep. Dixon and Assemblywoman Maxine Waters, among the most prominent black leaders in the state, are said to be looking hard at the 2nd District county supervisor’s seat held since 1952 by Kenneth Hahn. The seat opens in 1992--if the ailing Hahn rules out another run. Waters is also often cited by her colleagues as a potential mayoral candidate.

Black politicians place some of their hope in 1992’s redistricting, which will shift four or five congressional seats to California, Dixon said.

“I would hope that one could be carved out that would allow for a minority, particularly a black,” Dixon said. “With five seats, there may be the opportunity to do that. I stress maybe.”

On the City Council, little room for growth is seen in the near future--and there is fear that the seat now held by Lindsay may eventually be lost. Of the three seats now held by blacks, his 9th District has the most Latinos.

California’s senior elected black, 81-year-old Rep. Hawkins, who won public office a full three decades before the Voting Rights Act eased the way for others to follow, remains disappointed by the difficulties faced by black politicians in the last generation--and worried about the future.

“Well, it certainly didn’t live up to our expectations,” said Hawkins, whose South Broadway office fronts a block that is testimony to the changing tides in Los Angeles. Latino stores far outnumber all others in this former bastion of the black community.

“That doesn’t mean we’ve given up.”