Five African Americans and two white candidates contested in the 2017 St. Louis Democratic mayoral primary election. The five African Americans received a total of 36,031 votes and lost. One white candidate, Lyda Krewson, received 17,111 votes and won.
Prior to the election, two major white candidates dropped out of the race. A sixth African American, state Senator Jamilah Nasheed, correctly read the political tea leaves and refused to enter the race.
In December 2016, I called all five African American candidates. I invited them to meet with me to review data from my 40 years of experience in city electoral politics and jointly arrive at a consensus candidate.
Antonio French did not return my call. Lewis Reed and Jeffery Boyd agreed to meet. Virvus Jones returned my call on behalf of his daughter Tishaura O. Jones, but refused to meet, claiming his daughter would win based on his analysis. Jimmie Matthews refused to meet because he “received a message from God” that he would win the election.
My meeting never happened. Better efforts by others to secure a consensus candidate also failed.
Instead of uniting around a progressive agenda and a candidate, most of these African-American candidates resorted to self-righteous castigation of the others. By so doing, they dashed the hopes of our beloved community. As the election results indicate, these candidates either underestimated the role racism continues to play in St. Louis City or they were determined to block the election of a progressive African American. This is disheartening.
There are three lessons we must learn.
First, an election campaign is both a science and an art. The science covers the fundamentals and the persistent hard work that must not be ignored. The art covers strategy, issues, candidate selection, relentless pursuit of unity, inspirational stump speeches, wise deployment of resources, focused grassroots organizing, and selection of staff and consultants based on experience and fitness. Candidates who ignore any of these factors merely guarantee defeat.
Second, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch played a destabilizing role in this mayoral election. The Post knows that scurrilous, racist and yellow-bellied journalism is wrong. Yet it allowed some of its journalists to resurrect the discredited practices of the defunct St. Louis Globe-Democrat and conduct a despicable smear campaign against Tishaura Jones.
While major cities across the country raised the minimum wage to $15 an hour, the Post selectively ignored Alderwoman Krewson’s vigorous opposition to raising this city’s minimum wage to $13 an hour. It was unfair.
Jones should be commended for running a campaign that gathered momentum and attracted thousands of progressives. In a campaign, time is the most treacherous resource. The Post accomplished its goal by forcing Jones to spend valuable time defending herself against baseless smears and innuendos.
Third, the political, civic, labor and religious community in St. Louis is seriously divided and out of sync with an insurgent progressive movement. There are no serious leadership consultations, deliberations or planning around a coherent agenda to unite, guide and energize this community.
Opportunities for taking African Americans and this city to the next levels of empowerment and development are routinely squandered. The self-righteous declarations and lack of strategic unity reflect a very poor understanding of power, how to get it and more importantly, what to do with it. Often, ceremonial fluff has become the substitute for an exercise of substantive political or agency power.
We must be clear. The convergence of bloated egos, arrogance, petty jealousies, delusional politics and racist media is toxic for our community.
The time has come for our political, civic, labor and religious leaders, agency appointees and progressive organizations to engage in a relentless pursuit of unity and to build coalitions strong enough to sustainably advance the vital interests of working families, youth, seniors and businesses in our City and State.
Walle Amusa is an organizer, trainer and speaker on Twitter @WalleAmusa.
