Seniors Hold Key in School Race

Dorothy Andrews will never forget the December day in 1947 that singer Lena Horne helped her register to vote in South-Central Los Angeles.

“I turned 21 that day, and I’ve been voting regularly ever since,” Andrews, 72, said. “I cast my first ballot for Harry S. Truman when he was running for president.”

Faithful voters like Andrews are the prime targets of candidates vying for the Los Angeles school board’s 1st District seat, which has settled into a two-way battle between incumbent Barbara Boudreaux and community activist Genethia Hayes. Two other candidates, teacher Moses Calhoun and employment recruiter Austin Dragon, have not raised notable campaign contributions or endorsements.

As an African American female over 60, Andrews is among what political strategists have deemed the “highest propensity voters” in a district running from the poor neighborhoods of South-Central west to the middle-class communities of Baldwin Hills and Crenshaw.

Boudreaux, 65, and Hayes, 58, are African Americans with deep roots in the district. And both are relying on signs, mailers, radio advertising and door-to-door campaigning to get their messages to older women.

“I’m having all the breakfast and lunch meeting with seniors I can,” Boudreaux said. “They like one-on-one meetings.”

What remains to be seen is whose message will resonate when those women return to the polling booth on April 13.

Boudreaux is regarded as an old-style civil rights activist and staunch protector of African American rights. She tells constituents that, after years of decline, the troubled Los Angeles Unified School District is finally showing signs of improvement, with test scores going up and dropout rates going down.

Hayes is a professional coalition builder with a special interest in reaching out to Latinos, who comprise a majority of the district’s population. Hayes chastises Boudreaux’s leadership, and is pushing for reforms to correct fraud, mismanagement and generally low test scores districtwide.

Sitting on the ledge of a planter box at the Baldwin Hills Crenshaw Plaza, Andrews, whose two children attended local schools, said: “Somebody’s got to do something soon about schools graduating kids who can’t spell or read. It’s a shame.”

“So I’ll read everything these candidates send me--I want to know what they’re offering and what lies they are telling,” the retired nurse said. “Then, I’ll make up my own mind, and that’s the truth from here to heaven.”

Overall, about 75% of the 1st District’s so-called “high propensity voters” are African American--a majority of them women over 60, according to political strategists. About 12% are white, 10% Latino and 3% Asian.

Those figures do not represent the demographic makeup of the district, which was once almost entirely African American. In recent years, Latinos have become the largest ethnic group, and the Asian population is increasing. About 60% of the district’s students are Latino, 37% are African American and less than 3% are white and Asian.

Latinos in the district tend not to vote because the proportion of young Latinos is very high and younger people do not turn out for elections in general, according to polling experts. Beyond that, the district has a large number of immigrants who are not eligible to vote.

The number of Latino voters in the region is expected to increase in years to come.

But this year the school board race is “a classic power struggle” between a black civil rights politician and a black coalition builder, said Frank Gilliam, director of the Center for Communication and Community at UCLA.

“On one hand, there is still mileage left in the traditional circle-the-wagons Boudreaux approach,” he said. “On the other, many black residents look at the [district’s increasingly Latino population] and realize the need to share power expressed by Hayes.”

Boudreaux has made an issue of the fact that Mayor Richard Riordan is trying to remake the board by raising campaign funds for Hayes and three other candidates he supports.

In personal appearances, Boudreaux has attacked Riordan’s support for Hayes as an example of the white power establishment trying to tell African Americans whom they should elect. Boudreaux, who was born in Mississippi and attended a one-room schoolhouse, contends that Riordan is using Hayes as part of an effort to gain control of the Los Angeles Unified School District and its $6-billion budget.

“Many African Americans have sold out their own people for dollars, and many of my voters know who they are,” Boudreaux said in an interview. “I’m anti-nobody. But I am pro-black. Why should I abandon my blackness at the will of someone else like the mayor?”

Hayes, executive director of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference of Greater Los Angeles, a branch of the civil rights organization founded by Martin Luther King Jr., dismisses such criticism with a shrug.

“I’m not embarrassed about the mayor’s support,” she said. “Why should I be?”

Hayes describes Boudreaux as “racially divisive and aiming to keep the divide growing between the city’s blacks and Latinos.” She calls for mediation programs to reduce ethnic rivalries.

“We’re at our best and our blackest when we’re inclusive like Martin Luther King Jr.,” said Hayes, whose mother and father died within months of each other over the past year.

Her husband, Alton, was recently diagnosed with lymphoma cancer, which is in remission.

Both candidates are energetic campaigners who have been trying to visit every senior citizen center in the district, from the heavily Latino sectors in the southern half to the middle-class black, Asian and Jewish sections to the north.

“The candidate who moves these voters will be the one who focuses on academic achievement,” said Hayes campaign manager Parke Skelton, a veteran of 200 local election campaigns.

In interviews, many older African American women expressed intense concerns about local schools and student performance.

“These older black women come from a generation of struggle; many were politicized during the early stages of the civil rights movement,” Gilliam said. “Now, in the later stages of their own lives, they hate to see all they’ve struggled for crumbling before their eyes in institutions, including public schools.”

A month away from the election, many of these women have yet to make up their mind. But they are paying close attention.

“You bet I’ll be voting,” said Norma Williams, 91. “I’m looking for honesty in a candidate--that means most to me.”

“Our schools are in real bad shape; they desperately need a complete overhaul,” said Nellie Hendrix, 84, a retired nurse and volunteer at the George and Helen Thomas Senior Center. “We need someone with new ideas.”

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District 1 Race

Total campaign contributions reported by lead candidates for the Los Angeles Unified School Board 1st District seat:

Barbara Boudreaux

Itemized total through Feb. 27: $77,280

Top two contributors: $10,000 from Los Angeles City and County Employees Union/COPE Local 99. $10,000 from bilingual materials firm BINET International of San Marino.

Endorsements Include: U.S. Reps. Maxine Waters (D-Los Angeles) and Julian Dixon (D-Los Angeles); City Councilwoman Rita Waters,; the Black Business Assn.; the African Methodist Episcopal Southern California Ministerial Alliance; Associated Administrators of Los Angeles; Los Angeles City and County School Employees Union.

Genethia Hayes

Itemized total through Feb. 27: $102,272

Top two contributors: $30,00 from United Teachers/Los Angeles. $9,250 from Riordan & McKinzie Political Action Committee.

Endorsements Include: Civil rights attorney Connie Rice; Rev. William Epps of Second Baptist Church; Arturo Ybarra of the Watts Century Latino Organization; Lillian Mobley, executive director of the South-Centraaal Multipurpose Senior Center; International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 18, and the 41,000-membeer United Teachers/Los Angeles.