Black Boston Politics
 May 1, 2013 - Linda Dorcena Forry wins First Suffolk Senate District primary election. She is now positioned to control the South Boston neighborhood that had been the domain of Irish-American men.
Forry's campaign is endorsed by fellow elected officials Rep. Russell Holmes, Rep. Carlos Henriquez, Sheriff Steve Tompkins, Rep. Liz Malia, City Councillor-at-Large Ayanna Pressley, Rep. Linda Forry, Senator Sonia Chang-Diaz, City Councillor Tito Jackson, City Councillor-at-Large Felix Arroyo, State Rep. Byron Rushing and other organizations.
A final election between her and an oponent will be held June 25th .
Follow this link to connect with the eleven members of the Massachusetts Black and Latino Legislative Caucus.
Race for Mayor Obervations
20,000 votes will pick winners. Felix Arroyo is among the favorites in the race for a new Boston mayor. Mr. Arroyo could become the first Latino mayor in Boston history. But are Boston minority voting residents outnumbered?
Black, Hispanic, and Asian voters, while increasing in number, do not yet represent a significant percentage of Boston’s voting electorate because many of them are immigrants or under the age of 18 opines Lawerence DiCara in his where the votes are analysis co-written with James Sutherland and published by Commonwealth Magazine.
Marty Walsh and Mike Ross are the front runners" declared Emily Rooney on the WBUR radio talk show hosted by Jim Braude and Margery Eagan. The Black Reverend Eugene Rivers was quoted as saying no minority candidate is ready to run for Mayor of Boston.
In Boston's black newspaper an article titled Black leadership positioned to sway Hub mayor’s race by Kevin Peterson was the news of the day. It closed by saying "the black leadership must responsibly act in the interest of closing the painful gap that exist between blacks and whites in Boston."
A likeable Latino running for major of Boston has advantages especially if minorities turn out to vote. 20,000 votes will do it says the pundits. Twenty thousand votes.
 Wed April 24th - John Barros issued a press release to announce his candidacy from the Haley House Bakery Café in Roxbury. Mr. Barros is the co-owner of Restaurante Cesaria, a Cape Verdean restaurant in Boston, a grad of Dartmouth College and a candidate for a Masters in Public Policy from Tufts University, says his bio on the Dudley Street Neighborhood Initiative staff page where he works as Executive Director.
Earlier - Black Boston has a mayor but it needs a new one now that Mayor Menino is retiring. The next Boston mayoral election is Tuesday, November 5, 2013. It would be ideal for a candidate to have a million dollars on hand for the race. The Menino Committee ended 2012 with $613,000 banked. The mayor recorded another $13,000 from donors in March alone.
Several African-American candidates have declared their intent to run for mayor of Boston and they are Charles Clemmons and Will Dorcena at the time of this writing. Others expected in the mix may include all the current members of color of the Boston City Council, but time will tell. Expect to see Chinese voters put forward a fire-walled voice and you'll also find an interesting remix of the Rainbow Coalition at work.
The Boston Phoenix won't be stirring things up this election so look forward to seeing alternative voices like Greg Selkoe-backed efforts surge into the mainstream. Boston generates $380 billion in economic output each year. The city's annual budget is a bit near ten percent of that. What kind of person do you want running the City of Boston with this much cash flowing through it? After all, politics is the control of a limited amount of resources.
Jose Maria Pereira Neves, Prime Minister of the Republic of Cape Verde was in town March 31st and received a commendation from Boston City Councillor Charles C. Yancey at the Dorchester House. Elected President of the “Partido Africano da Independência de Cabo Verde (PAICV), Neves was cited for his leadership and for steering his country through the financial crisis.
The first African American Computer Culture Symposium was promptly branded an interactive Niagra Movement when the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation and American Visions magazine convened black people from across America to plan for their cyber-connected future.
Michelle Wu begins Candidate for Boston City Council At-Large quest. michelleforboston.com 2014. WU TRAIN impact noted. Here's what people were saying abaout her campaign kickoff bash April 2, 2013.
John Connolly @JohnRConnolly - candidate for Boston Mayor 2014
"Kickoff for Michelle Wu for City Council jammed with Sen. Warren intro. Wow. @wutrain @elizabethforma #bospoli" pic.twitter.com/EDn43xgF84
@ColettePhillips: - PR Strategist
"Michelle Wu Kicks off Citywide Council Campaign to thunderous applause and more then 200! Rock on Michelle!"
Carlos Henriquez @RepHenriquez - Massachusetts Legislator
"You've never seen so many electeds at a kick-off that didn't have Menino headlining. At @wutrain aka Michelle Wu kickoff w/ @natalia22u"
Matthew J Shochat @MJShochat - affiliation?
"Just met @titojackson at Michelle Wu's campaign kickoff #wu"
Gintautas Dumcius @gintautasd tweeted this #WU kickoff coverage:
Rep. Rushing, summing it all up: 'I'm going to stand out as the only person not running for mayor.' #bospoli
Sen. Chang-Diaz of Jamaica Plain, also at Wu kick-off, says she's not ruling out a run for mayor #bospoli
MT: Councilor Tito Jackson reiterates he's 'strongly thinking' on mayoral bid, says he would be 'only candidate' w/ econ development background #bospoli
A hearing about City of Boston minority staff hiring and its vendor contract practices was convened by Councilor Yancey. It is his position that Boston simply isn't hiring enough black people and minorities in key positions to run the government. Minority-owned business contract vendors feel that improvements can be made in their sector. Meanwhile, the Mass Convention Authority seeks proposals to build new hotels on Boston Harbor.
 ROXBURY DISTRICT COUNCILLOR Tito Jackson, appeared with Outreach Director for the Warren Campaign, Steve Tomkins on CityLine5's post-election special public affairs tv show, along with Latino organizer Oiste to discuss local grassroots campaign efforts and their impact on pushing Senator-elect Elizabeth Warren and President Barack Obama into elected office.
He cited the work that was being done block by block long before the election was held and praised Elizabeth Warren for being focused on issues such as foreclosure, hiring local campaign workers and making numerous appearances in Black Boston. Catch another side of the story in a live stream from Basic Black on GBH2.
Nationally, the NAACP stated it registered 432,000 voters and moved 1.2 million to the polls for the 2012 Presidential Election said Ben Jealous, President of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. His organization purchased a database of voters in all 50 states and went to work on it. In The Root article titled "Ben Jealous, Elections's Unsung Hero." Now, the four things the NAACP wants from OBAMA are: job creation, mass incarceration, child education and health care protections.
On November 2, 2012 the majority of Boston City Councillors approved a new redistricting map required by Census results that will remove people of color from some voting districts and place them in others.
Black councillors Tito Jackson and Ayanna Pressley along with Latino councillor Felix Arroyo were part of the 11-2 decisive vote. Councilor Charles Yancey, who has held elected office longer than any of his African-American colleagues, voted no and said "The new map fails to create a fifth District of Color in the City of Boston." read more ...
Watch Boston City councillor Charles Yancey, analyst Kevin Peterson and supporters make points about creating five voting districts of color. 10/24
(Video) from Chris Lovett, NNN News
Boston Neighborhood Network News videos
Massachusetts Senate Race - Who will join Senator Elizabeth Warren as the second and only two Massachusetts Senators to go to battle for the state? An election is being held to fill the seat left by U.S. Senator John Kerry who was recently confirmed U.S. Secretary of State. Policy wonks are suggesting the race is Congressman Ed Markey's to lose.
June 16, 2012 - The Supreme Judicial Court has sided with Chuck Turner when it ruled that the Boston City Council removed Councilor Turner from office illegally.
The new SJC decision could entitle Turner to back pay. "It’s a moral and legal victory," said Turner’s lawyer, Chester A. Darling, who added, "Whenever a government abuses its authority, someone should push back." When the council convened to vote, Councilor Charles Yancey was the only one who went against the council's wishes when it moved to remove Turner from office by an 11-1 vote. Turner left City Hall the next day. The full story is available in the Boston Globe newspaper.
 Only one legislator of color holds a leadership position in the Massachusetts Congress. His name is Byron Rushing (in the photo). He has been appointed Assistant Majority Leader by the Speaker of the House of Representatives. More info is available on the Massachusetts Legislature leadership page. He is a presistent community leader and black history expert.
 Basic Black on channel WGBH 2 is a Boston gem.
The television show is broadcast on air while viewers can interact with show panelist online. The Basic Black series covers issues affecting the black community.
View Basic Black episodes online. All previous shows can be viewed in their entirety. Programs air Friday night at 7:30 p.m. Eastern on PBS 2 and affiliated networks. Featured panelists are: Latoyia Edwards, NECN anchor; Phillip Martin, 89.7 WGBH Senior Investigative Reporter; the host is Callie Crossley and Kim McLaurin, author and adjunct professor at Emerson College appears on the show with special guests.
REMEMBERING NOV 3, 2009 night of - the nerve of Boston's intellectual elite was captured that year, when editorial page authors of neighborhood-focused newspapers advised readers to VOTE for two African Americans, and one Latino candidate for three of four possible Boston City Council at-large open seats. Elections are over, and the winners have emerged. An African-American woman won an at-large seat on the Boston City Council for the first time ever. Close by in Newton, Massachusetts an African American male was elected Mayor - the first popular-elected black mayor in Massachusetts history!
Courtesy of the National Museum of American History
Smithsonian photographers created this composite image of the Star-Spangled Banner in 2004 from 73 separate photographs. The flag's large size (30-by-34 feet) prevented photographers from capturing it in one image while conservators worked on it in the specially-built conservation lab.
 Bruce Bolling, (April 29, 1945 – September 11, 2012) was a politician and businessman in Boston, Massachusetts. He served as the first black president of the Boston City Council in the mid-1980s.
Bolling served as a racial healer in the aftermath of Boston’s busing crisis in the 1970s. He was instrumental in urging for calm during the Charles Stuart case in which a white man sought to blame the murder of his wife and son on a fictional black man in Roxbury. The case caused a national racial uproar and led to police and community tensions that remain until today. As a city councilor, Bolling opposed efforts by some radicals in the black community to create a separate city called Mandela which would have led to so-called minority neighborhoods succeeding from Boston based upon perceived racial bias.
- source:Boston Banner newspaper
http://www.baystatebanner.com/local11-2012-09-13
 Andrea J. Cabral, J.D. is the current Massachusetts Secretary of Public Safety and was named to the post by Governor Deval Patrick the 12th of December, 2012. She took the post in 2013 after resigning her rein as the first black female Sheriff in Massachusetts over the Suffolk County jurisdiction. She was appointed to the sheriff's position in 2002 by former Governor Jane Swift, elected to a full term in 2004 and re-elected in 2010.
In 2010, Sheriff Cabral was appointed to the Science Advisory Board (SAB) by United States Attorney General Eric Holder. The SAB is comprised of 18 experts - scholars and practitioners in criminology, statistics, sociology, criminal justice and juvenile justice - and was created by the DOJ's Office of Justice Programs to help bridge the divide between research and practice in the criminal justice fields. Sheriff Cabral is a graduate of Boston College and Suffolk University Law School.
 Watched Ted Kennedy's last motorcade pass by ... The first company this webmaster worked for was his own at 83 Commercial Street in the North End. There were union workers there, lining streets to pay their respects to the Honorable Senator Edward Kennedy. On August 27th at 4:15 p.m., his funeral motorcade came down Atlantic Ave near The Big Dig. It rode past the Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy Greenway where Ted Kennedy's personal investment initiated the building downtown greenway parks.
 In 1974, Bill Owens became the first African-American elected to the Massachusetts state Senate. Dianne Wilkerson was the first African American woman elected to the Massachusetts Senate. Running on the Democratic party ticket, she took office in 1993 and lost the 2008 Primary election by a bit over 200 votes to challenger Sonia Chang-Diaz.
The Honorable Edward Brooke, was the first African American to be elected by popular vote to the United States Senate when he was elected as a Republican from Massachusetts in 1966. In 1866, the first African-American legislators in New England were elected.
Ralph Martin was the first African-American elected (1992 to 2002) Suffolk County (Boston) district attorney while Andrea J. Cabral was elected in 2004 when she became the first Black female Sheriff of Suffolk County. There are three African American Boston City Councilors currently in office. Charles Yancey represents Mattapan (zip code 02126) and parts of Dorchester (zip codes 02120-02125), Ayanna Pressley is a city-wide councilor at-large and Tito Jackson represents Roxbury (zip code 02119).
Updates about the first Massachusetts African American politicians in Massachusetts are available.
We recommend The Boston Banner newspaper archives where the oldest black media source stores news and information going way back. The Massachusetts Black Legislative Caucus is another source of information.
A HISTORY SHORT ABOUT BOSTON BLACK POLITICS: Ward 9 was home to Laurence Banks, Boston’s first black city councilor. Shag Taylor's drugstore on Tremont Street was the headquarters of Democratic politics in the black community going back to the days of Mayor James Michael Curley, noted the Banner archives.
NAACP Niagara Movement (1905-1909)
The NAACP celebrated 100 years in Boston in 2007 and we want you to have a souvenir keepsake you can download here.
It has rare photos and NAACP movement history.
The Niagara Movement 1905-1909, established the modern civil rights movement and led to the founding of the NAACP. The third of its five meetings and the largest was held in Boston in Faneuil Hall in 1907. The movement’s membership, led by W.E.B. Du Bois, was made up of some the most accomplished African American businessmen, teachers and clergy of the day. It was intended to counteract the inequity and the social and political ills impacting African Americans at the time. The late 1800s saw the demise of the Reconstruction Period. In 1896 the Supreme Court Decision of Plessy vs. Ferguson created government approved segregation.
Boston NAACP phone number (617)427-9494.
BCIC Boston's Black Community Information Center | blackinfonow.org
Letters from Mayor Menino - current copy
Directory - of all Boston City Councilors
Job Description for Massachusetts Governors
The Governor is head of the executive branch and serves as chief administrative officer of the state and as commander-in-chief of the Massachusetts' military forces. His or her responsibilities include preparation of the annual budget, nomination of all judicial officers, the granting of pardons (with the approval of the governor's Council), appointments of the heads of most major state departments, and the acceptance or veto of each bill passed by the Legislature.
Several Executive Offices have also been established, each headed by a Secretary appointed by the Governor, much like the president's Cabinet.
Source: Citizens Information Service
The Governor may recommend new policies for Massachusetts, new legislation, and changes in the administration of departments that conduct the government from day to day. He or she has the power to order out the National Guard to meet domestic emergencies, and is Massachusetts chief spokesman with the federal government.
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