OLD RIVALS: Mel King (left) and Ray Flynn (right) had more in common than voters acknowledged. Today, they can look back on their role as a joint accomplishment. |
Barack Obama's presidential candidacy was a seminal event in American race relations. To be sure, racism still exists. But the distance our culture has come in 50 years — from blacks fighting for basic civil rights to a black man running for the White House — is remarkable.
Twenty-five years ago, Boston had its own politico-racial catharsis. In 1983, a mayoral battle pitting black against white seemed like the last thing Boston needed, but that's what it got. Following Judge Arthur Garrity's 1974 court order to integrate Boston's public schools, the city teetered on the brink of all-out race war for years. In truth, few people liked the busing solution or the logistical disruptions that came with it, but anti-busing sentiment quickly turned so ugly — epitomized by the infamous 1976 attack on black lawyer Ted Landsmark by a flag-wielding protester — that most African-Americans and liberals felt compelled to defend Garrity's ruling.
By the time four-term incumbent mayor Kevin White decided not to seek re-election, the tension surrounding busing had been toned down, but the issue remained on everybody's mind. That year's mayoral contest — between candidates too easily adopted as symbols of the warring community factions — could have pushed simmering racial antagonisms over the edge. Ray Flynn, a populist from South Boston, the epicenter of anti-busing sentiment and working-class Irish anger, who'd once publicly opposed busing, faced Mel King, the imposing, charismatic, African-American progressive from the South End.
In the end, though, the potentially volatile contest proved to be a good thing. To say it healed race relations in Boston would be an overstatement. It did, however, facilitate the healing process. Flynn and King had their differences, but they also had significant affinities, including an intense interest in public education and a penchant for grassroots politicking. And rather than playing dirty — or getting incendiary — they waged a professional, mutually respectful campaign.
These things alone would make the '83 mayor's race noteworthy. But factor in the slate of high-power candidates — including Boston City Council President Larry DiCara and former Boston School Committee president David Finnegan — whose names appeared on the preliminary election ballot, and the huge level of public participation (nearly 70 percent of Boston voters came to the polls on Election Day that year, the most since 1949), and a strong case can be made that that election marked a high point in Boston's storied political history.
Recently the Phoenix spoke with Flynn (who won the election and served as mayor until 1993, remaking Boston's school-governance structure in the process, before becoming ambassador to the Vatican) and King (who ran for Congress in 1986, then turned decisively from electoral politics to community activism after the election) about the race, its effect on Boston, and what's changed — and remained the same — in the intervening years, as Boston has gone from a city that's two-thirds white to one in which whites and "minorities" are equally populous. An edited transcript follows; for more of the King-Flynn Q-&-A, go to thePhoenix.com.
What do you two think about the state of race relations in Boston today? What's improved and what's still problematic?
FLYNN: Look at the vote Deval Patrick got in Boston. He had the mayor against him, he had all the politicians against him; they were all supporting Tom Reilly. And look at the vote Obama's going to get in Boston. It's unbelievable.
I think the issue of race made an enormous level of progress in the '83 mayoral campaign. It wasn't contentious, it wasn't divisive; we discussed the issues on their merits. As mayor, I was able to support a human-rights ordinance. I was able to integrate public housing in South Boston. I don't take credit for it, believe me. I give credit to Mel King. I give it to the people of the city who were tired of the division of the past. We had just gotten over school busing, which was the most contentious, divisive period of time in this city's history. People forget that, because they weren't around at the time. But as far as I'm concerned, the city's come a long, long way.
You know what I think? I think that the issue of economic disparity between the wealthy and the poor is such a big issue now in Boston. The poor can't afford to live in the city. . . .
KING: Race is always — that's a strong word — either an issue or related. The proportion of people who are low-income is higher among folks of color. And so the history of denial, the problems with the schools — the majority of the students in these schools are young people of color.
