The Weakness of Black Politics: Cursed by Factions and Feuds

...The Experience of Percy Sutton While Jones's political career was winding down in the late 1960s —along with that of Adam Clayton Powell, replaced in Congress by Charles Rangel—black New York politics had already experienced the formative stage of political incorporation...

...For the first time," explains Sutton, a very fair-skinned black, "I experienced articles in newspapers . . . addressing my constituency as being only black...

...9 Joyce Gelb explains the rivalries in black FALL • 1987 • 525 CONFLICTS AND CONSTITUENCIES New York politics in terms of mobility barriers...

...Black politicians responded with such fury to the behavior of the Koch administration because these actions withdrew concessions that black politicians had extracted from previous administrations...

...209-211...

...Thus Gelb observes that "frustration occurs when success appears elusive...

...Jones attempted such a reversal in the late 1950s...

...In 1941, LaGuardia's strongly pluralist mayoralty successfully backed a black district leader...

...The Koch mayoralty-1978 to the present— fashioned another backlashing posture for the white power structures...

...6 Shefter, Political Crisis-Fiscal Crisis, pp...

...Now when you are set aside like that and you are trying to raise money, that is an awful burden to bear...

...By the late 1960s, a main concern of black New York was the quality of its political incorporation—whether it would be weak or strong, would remain cyclical or achieve stability...

...But Jones was not himself part of a 526 • DISSENT CONFLICTS AND CONSTITUENCIES well-structured political mechanism capable of pyramiding posts and powers into a strong political incorporation...

...Minority politics is not something that is simply defined internally, but develops within a broader context that plays a critical role...

...Especially is this true with regard to pyramiding successive political offices, such as mayor, county party boss, state party boss, governor, U.S...

...This imbalance between the power broker and ethnic organizer persisted throughout Sutton's career, creating what I call a kind of client-political incorporation...

...5 Theodore Lowi, "Functionalism in Political Science: The Case of Innovation in Party Systems," American Political Science Review (September, 1963), pp...

...A decade ago Charles Hamilton noted that while liberal institutions like federal agencies and foundations offer funds for black neighborhood and community development, these funds actually distort systemic and authoritative political structuring...

...It was in this period that black New York was gaining the potential to bid for parity in political incorporation...

...This demand/supply imbalance— too many professionally trained blacks chasing too few opportunities—leads to a crude fend-for-yourself outlook...

...12 See James Q. Wilson, The Amateur Democrat (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1962...

...In addition, there was a tacit understanding that Beame would back Sutton for mayor in 1977...

...In the Lindsay administrations, which broadened somewhat the range of pluralistic forces, such a fragmented politics receded to some extent...

...Perhaps the major reason was his overdependence on a client approach to politics: he so shaped his politics around his political brokers—especially Tammany head Frank Rossetti—that his own ethnic organization flagged...

...From the 1950s into the 1970s, New York's political posture toward blacks showed a gap between the city's liberal and cosmopolitan image and its racially tight-fisted power structures...

...This "broader context" is what I refer to as a city's pluralistic dynamics...

...Yet what Koch giveth with the left hand, he taketh with the right...

...In return, Beame had promised to appoint large numbers of blacks to important positions in his administration...

...According to Hamilton, this facilitates building relationships and ties vertically—up and out—not horizontally, throughout the community—and, thus, the fragmentation...

...I was rather unprepared for the isolation of me as a candidate on the grounds of race...

...In the early 1970s Major Owens formed the Central Brooklyn Mobilization for Political Action and Albert Vann the Vannguard Independent Democratic Association...

...Though heavily opposed, or backlashed, by Democratic boss Meade Esposito's organization— led by black client-politicians like Samuel Wright, a state assembly member later convicted of fraud—these independent political thrusts survived, eventually sending Vann to the state assembly and Owens to Congress...

...Because there is no one institutional channel to power . . . aspirants will take their chances when support is offered by a dissident faction or pressure group...

...In his first administration, Koch appointed a black as Deputy Mayor for Labor Relations—an important job in view of the large black city labor force—and supported an increase of blacks in professional or managerial city jobs...

...Sutton, the best organized of the rather poorly organized black politicians, chose Rossetti, who, in fact, prevailed...

...Sutton lacked a sense of the interconnectedness between black politicians' power and the empowerment of their constituency...

...Two Politicians Confront Divisive Politics Basic to black New York's divisive politics is a self-serving ethos, the opposite of the other-serving rhetoric common among black politicians...

...The lack of viable competition caused blacks to be locked into the Democratic party, which in turn exploited this cul-de-sac, stifling black political growth...

...Second, the mayor reorganized the city's poverty program, evoking even louder protests from black political leaders and activists...

...instead, Beame ran for reelection, claiming that charges of financial maladministration required him to clear his political name...

...This situation is what Joyce Gelb refers to when she writes: The [elected] Negro politicians who . . . can maintain constant channels of communication to both a broad-based and relatively stable group of constituents, continue to be overlooked by white political leaders...

...By the mid-1980s only 56 percent of eligible blacks in New York were registered, while in Chicago black registration was 70 percent...

...The Coalition's effort was marred by extraordinary factionalism, pitting Manhattan politicians against Brooklyn politicians and blacks against Hispanics...

...Dinkins sits on the eight-member Board of Estimate, a mayor-dominated body that decides on the city's contracts, appropriations, land use, and other such matters...

...Angelo Falcon, a keen analyst of New York's ethnic politics, had this discrepancy in mind when observing recently that "New York, more so than many other cities, has been able to postpone confronting the issue of minority political empowerment...

...This process is fulfilled when it becomes transferable from one cohort of black politicians to another or, what amounts to the same thing, to uniting with allies, such as Hispanics, women, even white ethnic politicians...

...FALL • 1987 • 529...

...The politics of client-incorporation enables politically skillful leaders to carve out a power niche for themselves, but not for their constituency...

...7 Charles Hamilton, "Public Policy and Some Political Consequences," in Marguerite Ross-Barnett and James Hefner, eds., Public Policy for the Black Community (Port Washington: 1975), p. 245...

...Whatever the sins of the Republicans, the Democratic party shares major blame for New York's weak pluralistic dynamics vis-a-vis blacks...

...Vann also had a personal reason for backing Badillo —his campaign for the borough presidency of Brooklyn in which he needed a sizable Hispanic vote...

...Why this fear of political structuring among black politicians...

...Precisely Sutton's failure to effect such pyramiding closed out his political career...

...He immediately translated this victory into an authoritative structuring of black New York's politics...

...In the 1950s and 1960s, a major factor in New York's weak pluralistic dynamics was the failure of the Republican party to compete for black support in any meaningful way, even as it was reaching out to Italians and Jews, traditionally Democratic ethnic groups...

...I° See Martin Kilson, "The Militant as Politician: Adam Clayton Powell, Jr.," in John Hope Franklin and August Meier, eds., Black Leaders of the Twentieth Century (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1982...

...The legacy of Jones's failure persists to this day, and it even hindered his consolidating his own position in the Democratic organization...

...Kenneth Clark, Dark Ghetto: Dilemmas of Social Power (New York: Harpers, 1967), pp...

...This power niche produces sizable personal clout for black leaders, as well as some wealth and business opportunities...

...3 (Emphasis added...

...But the feuding that defines the politics of black New York prevailed...

...Reversing this situation has eluded even such skillful black politicians as J. Raymond Jones and Percy Sutton...

...But most of the Democratic regulars did not honor their I.O.Us...

...There is one black borough president, David Dinkins, for Manhattan, who was elected in 1985...

...10 But when seeking a strong incorporation into the decisive political structures of New York City, the sure-fire method of J. Raymond Jones (known as "The Fox") was required...

...For it seems Sutton expected the Democratic leaders and their media allies to assist him, as the first black mayoral candidate, in overcoming the ethnocentric or racist perceptions of white Democratic voters...

...Thus Jones's tenure as Tammany boss was brief...

...Herein lies the weakness of black New York politics...

...The mayor's rhetoric during his first term," observes Martin 524 • DISSENT CONFLICTS AND CONSTITUENCIES Shefter, "was especially feisty on racial issues, contributing to his popularity among the city's white ethnic groups...

...Clark's explanation remains one of the best: An important reason might be that some of these leaders suspected Jones of trying to build his own political empire at their expense...

...For the next decade Sutton's alliance with the New York Democratic leader consolidated his position in New York politics...

...4 Comparative analysts of ethnic group politics— Robert Dahl, Edgar Litt, L. Raymond Wolfinger, and others—have shown that weak pluralistic dynamics, in the form of ethnically exclusive parties, will usually thwart an ethnic group's politicization...

...He had many I.O.Us with Democratic regulars, especially Abe Beame, an important Rossetti protege whom Sutton had helped to elect mayor in 1973...

...A politics of fragmentation toward blacks helped Italian and Jewish politicians to consolidate their positions, without contending with black empowerment...

...8 This sort of politics reached a high point in the 1960s and 1970s for a very good reason...

...Ousted in 1967, his political career was finished...

...He also appointed as Deputy Mayor for Policy a presumptive ally of blacks, Herman Badillo, a leading Puerto Rican politician...

...He functioned as a district leader, a high-profile client ally of Rossetti, and the only black member of the powerful Board of Estimate by virtue of being Manhattan borough president...

...There is still some political hope for blacks in New York...

...A crisis in Powell's often quarrelsome status in the Democratic party in 1956 provided J. Raymond Jones the opportunity for an authoritative structuring of local black politics, unifying and disciplining diverse political ranks...

...White attorney Edward Costikyan got the post...

...For one thing, the Democrats take for granted the one-party cul-de-sac...

...576-577...

...And when black factionalism enabled Beame to renege on appointing Sutton's protege, Wilbert Tatum—a newspaper owner— as New York's first black deputy mayor, Sutton lacked the political tenacity to squash such factionalism...

...His first major opportunity to influence New York politics as a client-politician came in 1967 during a contest for the county Democratic leadership...

...No black politician with the requisite skill and astuteness has yet emerged to impose a unifying political framework over highly localized politicians and factions to consolidate black New York's electoral potential...

...In return, Wagner sought Jones's elevation to New York County Democratic leader, but failed...

...Black politics in Brooklyn is different from the faction-riddled and personalistic tradition of Harlem...

...these include four of fourteen congressional seats (27 percent), 13 of 60 state assembly seats (21 percent), and four of twenty-five state senate seats (16 percent...

...Lowi found that whenever the Republicans won out over traditionally dominant Democrats, this coincided with "periods of influx of new ethnic minorities to the top...

...This politics reigned supreme among New York black politicians throughout the 1960s and 1970s, as Percy Sutton's political career demonstrates...

...Powell was a self-made politician, based in the "personalistic" structure of his church, employing symbolic and ritualistic political materials (racial militancy, flamboyant rhetoric) to mobilize black support...

...The minority party did not reach to black newcomers to provide them with a moderate or strong alternative...

...But Sutton failed to effect a strong political inclusion of black New York...

...Other black politicians favoring coalitions have emerged in the Bronx and Queens—for example, Reverend Floyd Flake, a newly elected member of Congress...

...Compared with the political gains of blacks in cities like Atlanta, Chicago, Philadelphia, Cleveland, and Detroit, black politics in New York is marked by low influence and a marginal presence) Several features of black New York's politics demonstrate this weak political incorporation: (1) the failure to elect a black mayor, to mount a serious black mayoral challenge, or to play a decisive role in a successful mayoral coalition...

...Black/Hispanic feuding in the campaign was particularly pathetic...

...Theodore Lowi has hypothesized that "leaders of new ethnic minorities making claims for recognition and representation . . are likely to find that their most effective claims are on the minority party," which in New York means the Republicans...

...This potential appeared, however, precisely at the point when several white ethnic groups—especially Italians and Jews—were overcoming the longstanding hegemonic pretensions of the Irish in New York politics...

...Sutton faced "the most disheartening, deprecating, disabling experience I have ever had...

...Twenty-five percent of the city's population is black, and blacks have seven of the thirty-five city council seats (20 percent...

...In the early 1960s, he anchored himself between the competing (even feuding) Democratic camps—the Tammany Hall regulars and the Democratic reformers.' 2 The opportunist in Sutton prevailed over whatever there was of the political visionary...

...J. Raymond Jones was a machine politician, employing party resources (patronage, organizational loyalty) to achieve political influence...

...He had expected, rather naively, that the transethnic aspect of his client-politician operations would automatically translate into a public image of him as a cross-racial, not merely a black, politician...

...For one-dimensional politicization, the quickfire and cathartic politics used by Powell had a certain value, as suggested by Powell's emergence in the ethnically-safe twentieth congressional district in 1944...

...3 Angelo Falcon, Black and Latino Politics in New York City (New York: Institute for Puerto Rican Policy, 1985), pp...

...But Sutton never functioned as an instrument for the effective political incorporation of a broad black constituency...

...Tammany, moreover, did not prevail on Beame to keep his promise to step down for Sutton...

...Black politicians formed the Coalition for 528 • DISSENT CONFLICTS AND CONSTITUENCIES a Just New York as a mechanism for presenting a unified front in the 1985 mayoral campaign...

...The emergence of new black politicians outside Manhattan is one sign...

...Black New York's politics are very much like the classic case described by V. O. Key under conditions of one-party rule in Southern states—conditions that foster factionalism, feuding, and a politics of personality...

...The black electoral potential in New York is, in fact, pathetically underdeveloped compared to that in other cities...

...Even though it was apparent that no black candidate of mayoral stature and vote-getting potential was available for the 1985 campaign, the coalition of black politicians refused to back the candidacy of the leading Hispanic politician, Herman Badillo...

...Sutton's clientalliance politics came to an abrupt and bitter halt...

...They were unwilling to undergo the political equivalent of a baptismoffire, the authoritative disciplining and structuring in the hands of a politically tested leader...

...and (2) the election of two strong pluralist mayors, Robert Wagner and John Lindsay, who supported political accommodation to black New York...

...Black New York, still faction-riddled, took a long time to regain the Manhattan borough presidency—until 1985, when City Clerk David Dinkins was elected after several attempts...

...His political style is best revealed by contrasting him with Adam Clayton Powell, New York's first black congressional representative, elected in 1944...

...Vann supported Badillo, partly out of a clear grasp of the logic of coalition politics that he and Major Owens have experimented with successfully since the early 1970s in Brooklyn...

...Insofar as they constitute 20 percent of the population and 13 percent of the Democratic mayoral electorate (compared to 25 percent and 23 percent respectively for blacks), Hispanics would seem to be a natural electoral ally for black politicians...

...Instead of following the lead of Jones, the other politicians reverted "to the old competition," as Kenneth Clark observed...

...Furthermore, the political process by which Farrell emerged as the minority mayoral candidate reveals the persistence of pathological factionalism and feuding in black New York politics...

...Impressed by his own reelection as borough president in 1969 FALL • 1987 527 CONFLICTS AND CONSTITUENCIES and again in 1973, Sutton assumed that New York politics was now ready for a major bid at political pyramiding—his own elevation to the mayoralty...

...In the 1950s-1960s period, under the Wagner and Lindsay administrations, when blacks were just beginning to penetrate the decision-making hierarchy (e.g., Hulan Jack became the first black borough president, in Manhattan, in 1953, and J. Raymond Jones gained the New York County Democratic leadership in 1964-1967), New York's pluralistic political atmosphere was conveyed mainly through the posture of the mayors, not the actual behavior of the mediating agencies that formed New York...

...Vann lost the race to incumbent Howard Golden—gaining 60 percent of the black vote but only 28 percent of Hispanics—but he did surface as the first major black politician to support a major Hispanic politician...

...Beame eventually lost the primary to the man who would become New York's second Jewish mayor, Ed Koch...

...Yet other aspects of black New York's political position do not by themselves indicate weakness...

...Throughout the 1970s Sutton nurtured his multimilliondollar business endeavors in the communication industry (radio, television, newspapers)— his class payoffs, in short—while so neglecting an effective political structuring among blacks that he was unable to make Mayor Beame keep his promise on major black political appointments...

...Sutton's political rise was a sign of his skill as a political opportunist...

...senator, and onward...

...It was, in fact, a Brooklyn black politician, Albert Vann, who tried to bridge the black/Hispanic cleavage during the 1985 campaign...

...7 This fragmentation of black political life is propelled by external interests often hostile to a strong black political incorporation...

...8 Joyce Gelb, "Blacks, Blocs and Ballots: The Relevance of Party Politics to the Negro," Polity (September, 1970), p. 311...

...2 Martin Shefter, Political Crisis-Fiscal Crisis: The Collapse and Revival of New York City (New York: Basic Books, 1985), pp...

...In 1961 Jones brilliantly executed an independent petition to save the second-term mayoral nomination of Mayor Robert Wagner, whom DeSapio (the head of Tammany) sought to discard for a hand-picked candidate...

...The power structure thereby creates within the black community a faction beholden to it...

...5 But this new political-inclusionary cycle, as we might call it, was short-circuited for New York blacks...

...Yet in the post-war era backlashing by the Democratic organization was common, especially in Brooklyn during the late 1960s and into the 1970s...

...q Notes For comparisons of groups in terms of political incorporation, see Rufus Browning, Dale Marshall, David Tabb, Protest Is Not Enough: The Struggle of Blacks and Hispanics for Equality in Urban Politics (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1984...

...Sutton announced his candidacy in 1977, hoping the Democratic organization would fall into line behind him...

...Jones organized other black leaders to back Powell and succeeded in thwarting Powell's expulsion...

...They [the federally-funded leaders] see no need to come together for collective, community-wide action . . . maintaining their own individualized contacts with their external "angels...

...Jones, though in keen competition with Powell for control in Harlem, doubted that Democratic leader Carmine DeSapio could defeat Powell in Harlem...

...The powerful builder-bureaucrat, Robert Moses, treated Hulan Jack as a token figure, FALL • 1987 . 523 CONFLICTS AND CONSTITUENCIES viewing him contemptuously as "the puppet borough president of Manhattan...

...Tammany Hall regular Frank Rossetti was opposed by West Side Democratic reformer Ronnie Eldridge, an ally of Senator Robert Kennedy...

...This double-cross stunned Sutton, who nonetheless mounted a campaign—an experience equally traumatic...

...There are two interrelated reasons: 1. Ethnic parochialism, sometimes racism, among white politicians...

...But it seldom facilitates effective political incorporation for blacks in general...

...Harlem Democratic regulars held the balance of power between the warring Democratic camps...

...This frustration, in turn, enables black politicians to justify "an unwillingness to defer personal political gratification in the name of unspecified community goals...

...159-160...

...This makes uncertain the black politician's ability to advance his own power...

...Largely for short-run political benefits, Powell broke ranks with the Democratic organization and backed Eisenhower in the 1956 campaign, causing the Democratic organization to seek Powell's expulsion...

...they cultivate black support on terms grossly unfavorable to black political needs and interests...

...It would not seem unreasonable to expect that this range of office-holding by 25 percent of the city's population could be translated into a strong level of coming together for common purposes, that is, for political incorporation...

...Jones had failed to calculate the tremendous power of past patterns of ghetto deprivation that expressed themselves in suspicion and rivalry...

...And when such a political maverick's tenure expires, the political-incorporation spinoff for the black community is marginal...

...9 V. 0, Key, Southern Politics in State and Nation (New York: Knopf, 1949...

...Data on Sutton's career are based in part on Douglas Schoen, Report on Harlem Politics 1967-1972 (Unpublished study, January 1973...

...Weak Pluralistic Dynamics Though it is often assumed that New York politics offers blacks a substantial range of political access—accessible parties, cosmopolitan or liberal politicians, at the very least conciliatory politicians, etc.—this assumption seems less valid on closer scrutiny...

...In calling for "neopluralism" as a way to overcome the weak political status of New York blacks, political scientist Martin Shefter envisions a white "mayor who practices the politics of bargaining and conciliation, rather than the politics of [ethnic or racial] denunciation...

...Instead, Farrell, a politician of minor skills and less than stellar leadership, got the nod from the Coalition for a Just New York...

...2) the absence of a viable black presence in New York City's dominant decision-making bodies...

...An easier succession to this post by a black would have almost certainly occurred had Sutton translated his "personalistic" political clout into an instrument for the political organization of blacks...

...Why hasn't that happened...

...Gelb found that unity among black politicians in New York comes "only when a black politician is attacked with what is perceived as racial intent...

...This Democratic party behavior is typically reinforced by "backlashing" black initiatives for greater clout or independence...

...Throughout his administrations Koch innovated a unique form of what I call backlashing toward blacks, not simply on behalf of a boss-ruled organization but tinged with racist-like undertones...

...21-22...

...State and national officials elected out of New York City are also part of black New York's political profile...

...The irony is that their suspicions of him left them in the same kind of predicament of dependence on white leadership...

...Furthermore, black politicians' control over the black vote is extremely weak...

...The Factionalism Continues Black New York politics has gone down its faction-ridden roadway in the 1980s...

...But the successor regimes of Abraham Beame and Edward Koch refurbished this politics—for example, Koch's appointment of a black maverick newcomer, Haskell Ward, to his first cabinet...

...One key agency head is black, Benjamin Ward, commissioner of police...

...Nothing of the sort happened...

...6 In dealing with blacks, the typical New York white power group (or politician) frequently circumvents the politically tested and viable sectors of the black community and its leadership, and instead deals with a marginal leadership sector composed essentially of client-politicians—untested newcomers, flamboyant self-starters, etc...

...13 After a lackluster primary campaign, Sutton finished fifth in a field of seven, gaining just over 50 percent of the black vote and hardly any support from whites...

...Shefter elaborates: . . . Mayor Koch did several things that caused his relations with black political leaders to deteriorate...

...In the 1985 mayoral primary, Koch won 38 percent of the black vote—nearly as much as the 40 percent won by black state assemblymember Herman "Denny" Farrell...

...The costs of preferring a politics of client incorporation never fazed Sutton...

...Indeed, black client-politicians exercise their clout within closely circumscribed limits, set by their white brokers...

...This breakthrough from a longstanding position of weakness was facilitated by two progressive forces during the 1960s: (1) federal policies and programs generated by the civil rights movement that helped move blacks from a marginal to incorporation status...

...2 2. An absence of cohesion in the black leadership or political "class," riddled as it is with factions and feuding...

...Three years later, in the fall of 1964, Wagner again sought to reward Jones with the Democratic leadership post, and this time succeeded...

...13 Michael Oreskes, "Blacks in New York: The Anguish of Political Failure," the New York Times (March 31, 1987...

...Joyce Gelb, Black Republicans in New York: A Minority Group in a Minority Party (Unpublished manuscript, 1970...

...Black New York politicians distrust their own capacity to achieve political unity comparable to what has evolved in Chicago, Atlanta, Philadelphia, and Detroit...

...But the sway of factionalism and personalism among black politicians has blinded them to this possibility...

...Why do black politicians acquiesce in this situation...

...and (3) a faction-ridden black leadership...

...Black New York's hope for greater political effectiveness lies, in good part, with these politicians...

...178-180...

...but no such unity was forthcoming...

...A new black political leader now came forward, Percy Sutton...

...When a choice had to be made, Sutton backed the Tammany regulars more often than not...

...Third, the mayor proposed closing some municipal hospitals in black neighborhoods, and for this he was charged with being willing to sacrifice black lives for the sake of balancing the city's budget...

...Because they lack an alternative or the capacity to effect one...

...Tammany Hall squashed this initiative, but for only three years...

...The racist limits on black entry into entrepreneurial and professional roles creates an oversupply of persons seeking mobility through politics...

...An early instance of this occurred in 1939, when black Democrats, led by J. Raymond Jones, sought leadership of the patronage-rich, 95 percentblack Nineteenth Assembly District...

...Although the difference can be measured in terms of the number and proportion of elected and policy-managing officials, a more crucial indicator is the presence of skilled and astute politicians capable of simultaneously maximizing both the intra-ethnic (black) and systemic (white) sources of political clout...

...In contrast to his predecessors, Mayor Koch did not select his black appointees from among the city's black political establishment, nor did he clear his selections with that leadership group, and this they denounced as an "act of political contempt...