Facing a Different Reality : Politics: Unlike the first wave of black mayors, the current generation is finding it harder to make a splash nationally. There’s too much to do at home.

By the time Bill Campbell, one of the more prominent of the nation’s “second generation” of black mayors, was elected Atlanta’s chief executive in 1993, he had more than a decade of public service that included stints as a federal prosecutor and City Council member. Yet even he acknowledges that despite his glossy credentials, his stature as a national black leader pales when compared to his predecessors: Maynard Jackson and Andrew Young.

“That first wave [of black mayors] rode in on almost a messiah vote,” Campbell says, pointing to Jackson, first elected in 1973, and Young, who followed him in 1982.

Starting in the late 1960s and continuing through the ‘70s, a series of black politicians gained fame as they won their city’s top elective office--a group that included Cleveland’s Carl Stokes, Newark’s Kenneth Gibson and Detroit’s Coleman Young. Their victories signaled the transition of black activism into political clout. And each became a national hero to many African Americans for ascending political plateaus where no black person had been before.

“They were saviors that were going to uplift the people, eradicate police brutality, house the homeless, find new jobs for everyone who was struggling,” says Campbell. People across the nation and around the world noticed them because they were the first black mayors.”

Even Los Angeles’ Tom Bradley, although his background and political coalitions differed markedly from other black mayors of his generation, served as a national symbol of black political achievement.

Today, however, big-city black mayors function in a dramatically changed political environment. They are local leaders generally bogged down in provincial concerns. Their political universe is a smaller place than that claimed by their counterparts a generation ago.

To succeed at the local level, these contemporary black mayors generally must focus on coalition-building rather than efforts to expand the political and economic power of their African American constituents. Indeed, to make up for cuts in programs that once pumped large doses of federal money into their communities, many black mayors say they must spend much of their time working with white-controlled businesses to solidify their local economies. That, in turn, evokes howls of outrage from some black activists.

“They are longing for the days of defiant black mayors like Coleman Young in Detroit, who at times almost sounded like a black nationalist,” says Lenneal Henderson, a professor of public policy at the University of Baltimore. “Today, black mayors have to speak softer and about universalities.”

Additionally, four of the nation’s five largest cities--New York, Los Angeles, Chicago and Philadelphia--saw black mayors replaced by whites in the last several years. The result has been the loss of natural platforms for a black politician to emerge as a spokesperson for urban affairs.

This combination of factors could adversely affect President Clinton’s reelection campaign next year. Some political analysts predict the lack of nationally known, charismatic black mayors will undercut White House efforts to mobilize the black vote.

The ironic twist is that even as black mayors find it difficult to establish a national presence, their numbers have continued to increase and many are getting highly favorable reviews as stewards of their cities’ fortunes. Shaking his head in frustration, Campbell says: “We’ve probably got the brightest, most capable cadre of African American mayors that we’ve ever had.”

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Perhaps the most dramatic change for these officeholders is their agenda. Black mayors no longer cultivate an image as representatives mainly of black people and race-first causes but tend to cast themselves as colorblind defenders of urban concerns at time when few politicians are speaking up for the cities.

This is the campaign pitch--strong on political smarts and low-key on emphatic racial appeals--that San Francisco mayoral candidate Willie Brown is making as he attempts to move from the California Assembly to City Hall. Brown himself, in an article on his candidacy, wrote that the key issues for San Franciscans are “seemingly little things . . . streets swirling with debris, playgrounds where dust rises in the place of grass, the shattered glass from cars vandalized on quiet neighborhood streets.”

“The reality of politics for this new breed of black mayors is very different from the generation of black mayors [preceding them],” says David Bositis, an analyst for the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies, a Washington think tank specializing in issues related to black elected officials. “The second generation has less resources to work with and must be more accommodating to the total interests of their cities, not just be a black mayor.”

Emmanuel Cleaver II, the two-term mayor of Kansas City, Mo., looks back on the first wave of black mayors as having an easier job than the one he and others now sitting in city halls confront. “The early African American mayors were almost a part of the civil rights movement. They were seen as no different from the leaders of the NAACP, Urban League or SCLC [Southern Christian Leadership Conference]. People were awe-struck by them because there were so few and they had accomplished something great, tantamount to leading a major march that was successful.”

One of the many things that has changed is the number of black mayors.

According to the Joint Center, black mayors represented 356 towns and cities as of 1993, up from 48 in 1970. For the most part, these mayors preside over small towns in Southern states with overwhelmingly black populations.

But not all of them. Among the nation’s 503 cities with populations of 50,000 or more, 34 are served by black mayors, according to the Joint Center. And in many of these communities, black mayors have depended on multiracial cooperation to win their job. Cleaver, Mike White in Cleveland and Dennis Archer in Detroit won only after they patched together coalitions that garnered large black support but still relied on white voters to earn slim majorities.

And, in a few other cases, white voters made up the majority for black mayors. In Seattle, which is only 9.5% black, Norm Rice twice has been elected mayor. Wellington Webb was reelected earlier this year in Denver, where just 13% of the population is black.

In each of these cases, black mayors have risen up the ranks in local politics, earning the trust of white voters and governing with a broad mandate to serve their total communities.

Dallas Mayor Ron Kirk, elected this past spring, says the relative lack of attention received by black mayors nowadays “is a blessing, not a curse.”

“As Maynard Jackson told me, he’s been there and done that for us,” Kirk says. “Maynard didn’t become just the first black mayor of Atlanta, he was the first black mayor of all Georgia and all the South. Everyone [black] claimed him as their mayor. I don’t have that pressure on me. I think I’m less of a national figure because I’m less of a phenom.”

Kirk, Campbell and other black mayors say it is imperative they master the give-and-take of politics, unlike the earlier black mayors who could use their race as a springboard to electoral victories. Black voters are no longer content to be proud of having a black mayor, Campbell says, adding: “They want results from us.”

And as the second generation of black mayors strives for achievements, it must do so in the face of challenges unknown to the predecessors.

“Who could have predicted AIDS?” says Campbell. “Who could have predicted crack and its devastating impact on every city? You had no first-generation [black] mayors who even knew what crack was because it didn’t exist.”

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Meanwhile, mounting concern about the federal deficit has led to the reduction in federal aid to cities, a trend accelerated by the Republican takeover of Congress last November.

“I go and talk mostly to people in public housing and people at the bottom of the ladder, and they are still hopeful that the American Dream is going to yield something for them,” Campbell says. “I tell them, ‘Have you not listened to what’s going on in the Congress? They’re not talking about more. They’re talking about not only less, but potentially nothing at all.’ ”

Kansas City’s Cleaver says that in this new environment, black mayors can’t make civil rights their No. 1 issue. “We’ve all come into office with substantial black votes, and the black community in nearly every instance views our rise with inflated expectations. But we don’t lead demonstrations because we have learned that you cannot agitate, negotiate and legislate at the same time.”

Next year, the political skills and popularity of black mayors, the overwhelming majority of whom are Democrats, likely will be tested as they decide how extensively--and in some cases whether--to campaign for Clinton. Strong support from black voters was a key to his 1992 victory, and White House strategists are already attempting to line up black mayors to rally behind the President and excite urban voters.

But can relatively unknown black mayors excite and deliver the votes nationally for Clinton?

“In the old days, I would say [a Democratic presidential candidate] needed black religious leaders and the black mayors to deliver a one-two punch,” says Stuart Rothenberg, a political analyst in Washington. “But I’m not sure today, because there is such a fractured sense of leadership in the black community.”

Georgia Parsons, who teaches political science at Georgia Tech and is the author of “Dilemmas of Black Politics” (Harper Collins, 1993), is more blunt--and pessimistic--about the influence of black mayors in next year’s presidential election.

“Basically, the black mayors will be insignificant in the equation,” she says. “They can’t stand up and say with any measure of credibility that [the Clinton Administration] has delivered for us.”

Moreover, she adds, drawing a fine point on the dilemma faced by the black mayors lacking a national profile: “Who outside of their own [communities] is going to listen to them say it, anyway?”