Blacks In Boston Deserve Redistricting As A Form of Reparations
By Kevin C. Peterson
Redistricting is underway across the United States as legislative leaders begin shifting and reconfiguring political districts in ways that cohere to population size and racial justice.
Redistricting — or reapportionment — is mandated by the U.S. Constitution. Black voters across the South are poised to take a beating as the lines for state and congressional offices are redesigned by Republican-dominated legislatures. Those districts are subject to racial gerrymandering, which block the electoral power of communities of interest and amounts to a form of voter suppression.
In northern cities, like Boston, Blacks may continue to suffer on the short end of a white controlled redistricting process. In 2001, Boston’s Black state senate district was split along racial lines in what has been called a civic “experiment” to create two Black senate districts. It was an experiement that failed. In 2011, local organizers, led by The New Democracy Coalition, sought to reunite the Black community into a solid senate seat, without success.
As the battle over drawing districts mounts in Boston in 2021, the city’s Black community is pushing for more political power as conditions related to poverty, health morbidities and public safety continue to decimate its residents.
For this reason, Black advocates believe that redistricting is key to their future and represents a promise toward the reconstruction of Black civil society in Boston — a city’s whose economy was build upon the slave trade. In the wake of 2020 census returns, Boston is prime for a strong state senate seat and could hold significant voter sway in an additional senate district that can be located in the historic Roxbury community. The proposed senate maps now place Black political and cultural power in the communities of Dorchester, Hyde Park and Mattapan.
Senate redistricting leaders should focus intently on the electoral demands of Boston’s Black residents during the current redistricting process. By creating two districts around Black voter power the senate redistricting team will effectively level the electoral playing field. They would relinquish what the Black community needs and deserves: political repair, reparations.
Bill Owens became the first Black elected to the Massachusetts Senate in the early 1970s after a protracted battle with the white liberal and democratic political structure at the state house who had divided the Boston’s Black community across five state senate districts seats. Black power, at the time, was diluted.
Owens’ election allowed for representation in the senate that sought direct redress from the city’s Blacks around social and economic conditions disproportionately suffered by them. It allowed for the expression of Black grievance and reform on behalf of the state’s most vulnerable citizens. It allowed for open competition for resources relating to housing and higher education.
As the redistricting process continues into the fall, state lawmakers in Massachusetts must listen primarily to residents and organizations rooted in Boston’s Black community. That includes its church and faith leaders and proven grassroots organizations. Their voices must be elevated over ambitious political incumbents, who are mostly self-serving and susceptible to protecting their re-election advantages.
Lawmakers should also avoid the voices of organizations funded primarily by white interest who support the civic status quo. They should ignore the so-called advocates who are less than fully committed to electoral justice through the redistricting process for Boston’s Black community.
