For years now we have struck the keynote, over and over again, that the disengagement of African-American political leadership is largely responsible for the problems we have with other elected officials. Our community has the latent political power to fight its way to the decision-making table and stay there. It would take a courageous, far-sighted set of leaders who supported one another, at least most of the time,
a constructive agency and it would take a Democratic Party newly mobilized and reformed from the grass roots to get out the black vote. But it can be done.
We know it can be done because we have seen it done. The population density of African Americans in the city of St. Louis and even St. Louis County makes it possible. The critical importance to the Democratic Party of black voter turnout and engagement make it possible. The importance for statewide elections of voting returns in this metropolitan area makes it possible. And the reality of Missouri as a battleground state that neither major party can take for granted or ignore makes it possible.
These facts, which we consider beyond dispute, explain many things about politics in St. Louis. To pick a favorite example, it explains the fundraising ferocity, intimidation by proxy, and temperament of forever running scared that typifies the Francis G. Slay phenomenon. Slay and his handlers know full well that a giant sleeps in St. Louis politics that could knock their game completely out of balance and force a much more equitable sharing of power and decision-making than what we have now. This awareness on their part does much to explain the benign neglect or subtle sabotage that characterizes Democratic Party politics at the cellular level in St. Louis – and the continuing usefulness to the status quo of the entrenched party funtionaries.
But the dull grinding of this improvised, petty political machine that supports Slay would be a sideshow, and soon an historical relic, if more black elected officials in this city and metropolitan area got focussed on something a little more encompassing – and risky – than keeping a primary challenger out of their backyard.
This goal requires black political leaders to collaborate with progressive non-black leaders to bring the reform this city needs. The civil rights movement would have been stuck without this collaboration and more recently so would the successful passage of Propostion A in St. Louis County.
Not long ago, St. Louis lost to the more vibrant politics of the nation’s capital one young African-American strategist with the premise of a plan for changing this game. Brandon Davis was mapping out a plan to raise money and invest in stronger candidates for Democratic committee positions when Ward Connerly stormed into Missouri, and Davis’ plans to start a political action committee for his grass roots project was set aside to defend affirmative action in Missouri. Davis also was passed over for state party leadership, no doubt in large part because as a young brother he was a little too on-the-ball for some of the entrenched elements in the conservative Missouri Democratic Party, which (in a familiar pattern) made Missouri skies look like a glass ceiling for the young man’s political ambitions.
But the idea of strengthening the party base from its cellular structure could be revived despite Davis’ absence. And some soul searching – sharpened by a vigorous challenge from their constituents or even perhaps from a more courageous challenge for their position – might yet shape up, and wake up, the African-American political leadership in St. Louis.
