Blacks Seeking Strategy, Leader for Post-Bradley Era : Politics: Without a clear favorite to rally around, they face an uphill battle in protecting mayor’s legacy.

The pending retirement of Mayor Tom Bradley leaves the city’s black community in a political vacuum. A politician who showed little interest in building a machine, Bradley leaves behind neither a favorite son nor a clear-cut strategy for protecting the gains made by African-Americans during his long tenure.

At a time when ethnic competition for political largess grows more intense by the day, many blacks are convinced they face an uphill battle not only to protect Bradley’s legacy of appointments, access and influence, but to address the critical needs of the city that were exposed by the rioting last spring.

And while the mayor’s departure opens up opportunities for a new generation of ambitious young blacks, the new voices often are among the most cautionary.

“There is great concern about our political future, about losing clout,” said Denise Fairchild, who directs a nonprofit firm that promotes economic development in the inner city.

“We worry about a mood that says, ‘You’ve had your chance now. Your day is over.’ ” said the Rev. Kenneth Ulmer, pastor of the Faithful Central Baptist Church in South-Central Los Angeles.

The 1993 mayor’s race, which has already begun, will be an important test of the black community’s political solidarity.

City Councilman Nate Holden, an African-American and a longtime foe of the mayor, has joined the race, and black lawyer J. Stanley Sanders is seriously thinking of becoming a candidate. But both men are considered long shots. Holden lost to Bradley in the 1989 mayor’s race and now must contend with allegations of sexual harassment by former female staff members. Sanders, a former Rhodes scholar and a Bradley appointee to two city commissions, is not widely known and would have to work hard for recognition outside downtown corporate and legal circles.

Without a black incumbent or a front-runner to rally around, black leaders are looking for ways to unite voters, knowing that the community’s ability to influence city policy will be tied to its continued willingness to vote as a bloc.

The sense of political urgency in the black community grows out of the rioting last spring. But it also is a reaction to dramatic economic and demographic changes that have robbed South Los Angeles of thousands of jobs just as hundreds of thousands of new, mostly Latino immigrants have begun competing with blacks not just for jobs but for government resources and political leverage.

Black political leaders realize that voting strength is the one clear advantage they have over other, faster-growing ethnic groups. Although their numbers are declining, registered black voters still outnumber Latinos by nearly 2 to 1 and Asians by 20 to 1.

Harnessing that power, black leaders say, is the best hope they have of holding onto the gains of the Bradley era.

“We are very focused on the issue of equitable distribution, whether it’s contracting opportunities or appointments to city commissions,” Fairchild said. “It’s bound to be an issue the (mayoral) candidates will have to grapple with. And we must make sure our interests aren’t taken for granted.”

Political tensions between blacks and other ethnic groups, particularly Latinos, in Los Angeles have surfaced during the selection of Police Chief Willie L. Williams and a new acting superintendent of the Los Angeles Unified School District, Sid Thompson.

Blacks came out on top in both cases, adding to an impressive list of African-American public officials that also includes Bradley, three members of the 15-member City Council and the winner of the still undecided race for the County Board of Supervisors. Both contenders, Yvonne Brathwaite Burke and Diane Watson, are black.

Yet these victories do not allay the insecurity of many blacks. They regard much of the progress made over the past several years as the last harvest of the old politics--alliances among blacks, Jews and Westside liberals that appear to be on the wane. Moreover, the rioting is seen as evidence that longstanding coalitions were not responding to the social and economic ills that were exposed last spring.

As the race for Bradley’s job gets under way, the challenge for black political leaders is to form new coalitions that will protect the gains made under Bradley, who opened up city departments and commissions to minorities and expanded minority business opportunities.

With the black population declining relative to other groups, leaders realize they will be unable to win on their own.

And to avoid alienating potential allies, they must deftly craft an agenda on such volatile issues as economic development for the inner city, crime and education.

“Obviously, you have to play to your base,” said Sanders. “But you can’t allow yourself to become a captive to it. You can offer a policy of economic vigilance toward South-Central that doesn’t amount to quotas for jobs or contracts.”

Even if a candidate could win the mayor’s race by conducting an ethnocentric campaign, the winner would not be able to govern without broad support, Sanders said.

“The trick to leadership,” he said, “is understanding that you won’t have a mandate to govern in this town if you haven’t reached out beyond your own group.”

Opinion polls and attitude surveys taken after the rioting last spring suggest that forging new alliances may be difficult. One survey by UCLA sociologist Larry Bobo found that ethnic antagonism among ethnic groups in Los Angeles had intensified after the violence. Moreover, Bobo’s survey indicated that blacks, by a larger majority than any other group, felt that government owed them “a better chance in life.” For the time being, at least, the concern of many politically active African-Americans is how to maximize the influence of the black vote in the coming mayor’s race.

For some it means organizing around a candidate.

“It will be a disaster if the black leadership doesn’t get together and select a candidate,” said Byran Jackson, a Cal State L.A. political science professor. Without such an effort, Jackson warned, “there is a definite danger of splitting the (black) vote a thousand ways.”

Johnnie L. Cochran, a prominent attorney who has represented Bradley, agreed with Jackson.

“We have to remain ever vigilant, not fighting among ourselves, and not battling with other groups,” he said. “It would be wonderful if many of us could arrive at a consensus candidate (to replace Bradley).”

Even if such a candidate can be found, organizing the black vote will not be easy.

Along with Bradley, the old hierarchy of ministers and civil rights leaders also is in flux. People are looking for leaders within the African-American community at the same time they are wondering about whom to vote for in the mayor’s race.

With Bradley gone “there will be a tremendous struggle to define leadership and define its goals,” said Bob Gay, a black aide to the late Councilman Gilbert Lindsay.

That process is complicated by the changing character of the black electorate.

“The black vote is not what it was 20 years ago when Bradley first ran,” said record company executive Virgil Roberts. “A lot has gone on to change the character of the community. People have moved to the suburbs. There are class cleavages now.”

And priorities have changed, Roberts said.

“Civil rights is no longer overriding. A lot of competing issues have to do with business opportunities, the ability to obtain capital, concerns about crime and affordable housing, even concern about the environment.”

Already, a number of prominent African-Americans have quietly or not so quietly pledged their support to non-black candidates. Assembly Speaker Willie Brown was the featured speaker at a recent fund-raiser for Richard Katz, a Democratic assemblyman from the San Fernando Valley who intends to run for mayor.

Similarly, Paul Hudson, chief executive officer of Broadway Federal Savings and the grandson of one of the founders of the Los Angeles branch of the NAACP, gave one of the endorsement speeches for mayoral candidate Michael Woo at a fund-raising dinner a few weeks ago.

No candidate has worked the black community more assiduously than Woo. Appearing at churches and civic groups, Woo never ceases to remind black audiences that he was the first council member to call for the resignation of Police Chief Daryl F. Gates.

The early outline of Woo’s platform, including proposals for an urban peace corps and a community development bank that would capitalize minority-owned businesses, looks more than faintly Bradleyesque to many people. Woo also is seen as trying to assemble a coalition of blacks and white liberals reminiscent of the old Bradley alliance.

But no candidate of any color is likely to appeal to the broad segment of African-American voters that flocked to Bradley in his heyday.

The Rev. Cecil L. Murray, influential pastor of the First African Methodist Episcopal Church, was pessimistic about the chances of an African-American bloc vote for any candidate. Murray called it “a totally uphill battle.”

Moreover, said Murray, it will take more than lip service to a black agenda for candidates to gain the support African-American voters.

“We’ll look at their track record. We’ll size up the power of their machine and their capability of delivering on their promises. And we’ll take stock of the person inside the candidate, feel their energy field, their spirit.”

In other words, Murray said, people will want to get behind a winner.

To be taken seriously in South Los Angeles, where the majority of the city’s African-Americans live, any black agenda will have to address the conditions that many believe are responsible for triggering the riots of last spring.

Roderick Wright, a black community activist who ran unsuccessfully for the City Council last year, spoke of the importance of “stabilizing” South-Central, stopping the erosion of the black middle class by creating more jobs, more housing and better police protection.

“We have to regentrify South Los Angeles,” Wright said.

An activist who asked not to be identified put the case a little differently: “Clearly, the candidates will have to unveil an economic engine for South-Central, but they will also have to offer people there a sense of ownership in the decisions that affect that part of L.A.”

In the city’s edgy post-riot climate, crime could be the trickiest issue for candidates coming into South Los Angeles. It is probably the one subject with the greatest potential for driving a wedge between the city’s traditional black and white allies.

The conventional wisdom is that non-black candidates campaigning in South-Central should steer clear of a strong law-and-order message for fear of sounding like an old-fashioned Southern sheriff.

“Only if you’re a conservative to begin with, can you say ‘lock ‘em all up and throw away the key’ because you haven’t got anything to lose,” said Rick Taylor, a white consultant with considerable campaign experience in South-Central Los Angeles.

Cynthia McClain-Hill, black author of a local political newsletter, disagreed. Hill pointed to the Senate primary campaigns of Rep. Mel Levine and Controller Gray Davis, two Democrats who did not shrink from tough law-and-order stands immediately after the riots. Both men were harshly criticized by white liberal opponents and lost. Yet Levine and Davis, who were running in separate races, finished first in the voting in South-Central Los Angeles.

“African-Americans, like everybody else in the city, are horrified at the incidents of violence and lawlessness,” Hill said. “Political candidates who don’t recognize that are just as likely to lose as those who ignore the social and economic problems of the community.”