Word: blacks
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...more than two decades, blacks in New York City watched longingly as African-American mayors took control of a score of major cities. Though they constituted Gotham's second largest ethnic group, blacks had not won a single citywide office. Last week they finally exulted in a triumph of their own. Drawing support from what he called a "gorgeous mosaic" of black, Hispanic and white voters, David Dinkins edged out former U.S. Attorney Rudolph Giuliani to succeed three-term Mayor Edward Koch...
Except for his race, the former Manhattan borough president was hardly a bold choice for a city accustomed to setting trends. Courtly, cautious and unfailingly polite, Dinkins, 62, is a classic clubhouse politician who spent 35 years loyally trudging up the Democratic Party ladder while more dynamic black leaders overshadowed him. Seemingly content to forge a career based more on amiability than activism, he had never displayed the ruthless ambition and toughness most New Yorkers thought it took to reach the top. Says his old friend and former Deputy Mayor Basil Patterson: "David was always showing...
Giuliani claimed that Dinkins was seeking to evade taxes in a murky sale to his son of stock in a black-controlled broadcasting company. He followed up by disclosing that Dinkins had not listed on required financial-disclosure forms a vacation trip to France paid for in part by a close friend. Though Dinkins provided plausible explanations for the lapses, the explanations were slow in coming. With more time, Giuliani might have been able to capitalize on his reputation as one of the nation's toughest lawmen. When the candidates squared off in televised debates, Dinkins complained that Giuliani...
There is no more fitting place than Montgomery, Ala., site of the epic 1955-56 black boycott to desegregate the bus system, to memorialize the nation's decades-long struggle for civil rights. Last week 5,000 black and white Americans gathered there to dedicate a black granite sculpture engraved with the names of 40 particularly unforgettable men, women and children -- an honor roll representing the untold numbers of people who have died in violent racial confrontations...
...with a Virginia political trailblazer named Douglas Wilder. Back in 1975, when Wilder was the only black in the state senate (and the first since 1890), he gave voice to his overarching aspirations, a notion of empowerment far beyond what seemed plausible amid the genteel conservatism of the Old Dominion. "If people will elect you Lieutenant Governor," Wilder predicted with startling prescience, "they'll elect you Governor. I would think it would be an interesting test somewhere along the line for a black to run for one of those positions so as to put prejudice right on the line...