Black Power

Lost Generation

In 1988, an ambitious and fast-rising black man arrived at Harvard Law School. Three years later, degree in hand, he left Boston to build his career and family elsewhere. Had he chosen to stay, Boston today could be starting construction on another presidential library.

Sure: Barack Obama may not be typical. But he was just one of many of his generation—a generation now in top positions of power—who turned their backs on Boston in those years. Why aren’t we retaining more black leaders?

Former U.S. Senator Mo Cowan—himself a transplant from North Carolina—agrees that Boston has lost too many potential black leaders. “Boston is a great city, but it’s not a city that has always had the best reputation as being welcoming to outsiders,” he says.

Forty years ago, the busing wars, and all that surrounded them, led a lot of upwardly mobile, professional-class blacks to shun Boston. Many who grew up here, left—either for suburbs such as Milton and Stoughton, or for other parts of the country. Some who might have relocated here chose not to, based on the city’s reputation. And a whole cohort passed through Boston for education, training, or employment, then took their talents elsewhere. It takes time to replace an entire generation. That’s part of the reason blacks make up a much greater percentage of the city’s children now, and a much smaller percentage of adults over 45.

We can argue forever about how much the city deserved its reputation for being unfriendly to blacks. But the upshot is that Boston lost a large percentage of its potential black power players because of that reputation—and, specifically, the generation of black leaders who would have been coming into power now.

Neglected Youth

The flip side of that generation’s exodus from Boston is that those who stayed behind in the city were generally poorer and less educated—and doomed to suffer through the 1980s urban crises of the crack epidemic, gang warfare, mass incarceration, and failing schools.

And the next generation of black Bostonians will have to overcome challenges nearly as formidable as the ones faced by their parents. Data show that today’s black children continue to face more obstacles than their white peers: They go to worse schools, have more health problems, get into more disciplinary trouble, and get fewer training and networking opportunities. Just this March, a report from the Heller School for Social Policy and Management at Brandeis University ranked 71 metropolitan areas in terms of their opportunities for black children. Boston ranked 66th.

According to the “State of Black Boston” report, half of white Bostonians in the labor force, but just a quarter of black Bostonians, work in “management, professional, or related” fields—the breeding grounds for power.

“There’s a young lady now in Boston who could be capable of being in that privileged elite,” the NAACP’s Curry says. “We’ll never know her name, because she’s in a bad situation. And she’s probably black or Latino.”

Tribal Roadblocks

There may be far less overt prejudice in Boston than there once was, and far more good intention. But those in power—and in positions to help others reach that level—often still don’t realize how they perpetuate the problem.

Boston’s notorious tribalism, in which ethnic enclaves help their own to succeed, has had many benefits. But it has also created a city with industries, neighborhoods, and social groups largely divided by background.

Marty Walsh, for example, seems to genuinely want to diversify his administration, but did not fully appreciate that his circles of contacts—and his contacts’ circles—do not overlap enough with talented, qualified black Bostonians.

There is also considerable skepticism among black Bostonians when the white establishment does reach out to them.

When Walsh pledged, during the 2013 campaign, that 50 percent of his cabinet would be racial minorities, “I winced,” Cowan says. He has no doubt that qualified talent is out there. But having recruited black applicants for Deval Patrick and others, Cowan knew that Walsh was unaware of the challenge he faced.

Walsh may yet benefit from Patrick’s reign. In fact, City Councilor Tito Jackson says Patrick’s success in recruiting black talent will pay off for years to come. Jackson, as political director on Patrick’s 2010 campaign, was one of many whose career trajectory was boosted by the opportunity to work for the governor. “You will see [Patrick veterans] as permanent fixtures in all aspects of public life,” Jackson predicts, comparing the influence of Deval’s network to the wide impact of those who worked for Michael Dukakis’s administration.

Aversion to the Spotlight

Dianne Wilkerson. Chuck Turner. Carlos Henriquez. The individual failings of black leaders such as these tend to take on a disproportionate weight in the media. A lesser example is Richard Taylor—he was also on the panel with Wilkerson at Darryl’s that February night—who suddenly resigned from Charlie Baker’s transition team last year after the Globe reported on his financial troubles. A transportation secretary in the Weld administration, Taylor owed more than half a million dollars in state and federal taxes. Deval Patrick survived a tax scandal early in his 2006 gubernatorial run. Marie St. Fleur, a Haitian-American candidate for lieutenant governor during the same cycle, did not: She was chased from the race after the Globe publicized her outstanding student-loan debts.

Those falls from grace, ranging from minor setbacks to career-enders, serve as cautionary tales to many leading black Bostonians who are considering public service, whether elected or not—leading many to remove themselves from the power-elite career track. High-profile jobs that enhance one’s public power, in politics or elsewhere, bring increased scrutiny. That’s true for everyone—just ask Robert DeLeo and John Fish—but there remains a perception that Boston’s media and establishment insiders love to drag down prominent black leaders.

The scarcity of black public figures in Boston means that each one tends to carry the burdens of an entire community on his or her shoulders. Black elected officials in Boston have told me privately of the weight this puts on them. They face high expectations to take the lead on so-called black issues. And they feel that any stumbles will reinforce negative perceptions and stereotypes. That sentiment isn’t limited to those seeking elected office: Mo Cowan says he had trouble recruiting black Bostonians to take on the public scrutiny even of serving on boards and commissions.

But it’s a phenomenon that’s been particularly visible when elected offices open up.

Eyebrows were raised when Ralph Martin, the former Suffolk County district attorney, chose to not pull the trigger on a mayoral campaign in 2009. Opportunities to compete for Boston’s two Congressional seats were squandered, in 1999 and 2001—the elections that went to Michael Capuano and Stephen Lynch, respectively. Many white Democrats thought the party’s 2014 lieutenant governor nomination would be easily winnable by a black candidate, but none ran.

Those I spoke with argue that influence can be gained and wielded in many less obvious ways, and that more and more black Bostonians are doing so. Black community leaders such as Darnell Williams and David Harris advise Baker and Walsh in private phone calls. Corporate leaders call upon black executives such as David Bowman, of Morgan Lewis, and Paul Alexander, of Liberty Mutual, for guidance.

But it’s also true that important things happen through the traditional modes of power—in the boardrooms and committee offices. If black Bostonians remain underrepresented there—let alone in the seats at the heads of those tables— we’re unlikely to stop discussing this problem any time soon.

Check out more of our Power 2015 coverage.