St. Louis blacks urge unified vote

ST. LOUIS — A generation after St. Louis elected its first black mayor, many in the black community were convinced that unchecked egos cost them the chance to regain leadership of the racially divided city.

Lyda Krewson, 64, a white alderman, defeated black city Treasurer Tishaura Jones by fewer than 900 votes in Tuesday’s Democratic primary. St. Louis is heavily Democratic. The general election is April 4.

Krewson dominated in mostly white south St. Louis, while Jones and two other black candidates split the vote on the predominantly black north side, an outcome that black political hopefuls have seen before in major U.S. cities: Pitting black politicians against each other can jeopardize the chances of any one of them winning against a strong white contender.

“Overall I felt like ego, patriarchy and sexism were the things that were leading the other candidates not to want to get out of the race,” Jones said in an interview. “At some point we have to stop fighting each other and try to come together, because now we are looking at four more years of policies that we all claim that we didn’t want.”

Krewson had been endorsed by four-term Mayor Francis Slay, who is white and chose not to seek a fifth term. Jones, 45, surged over the campaign’s final days, thanks in part to celebrity endorsements from the likes of actresses Jada Pinkett Smith and Issa Rae and Jones’ scathing letter rejecting an interview request from the St. Louis Post-Dispatch and decrying racism in the city.

In the end, Krewson carried 32 percent of the vote in the seven-person race to Jones’ 30 percent. Aldermanic President Lewis Reed was third with 18 percent, followed by Alderman Antonio French with 16 percent. Reed and French are black. Blacks make up 49 percent of St. Louis’ 316,000 residents, whites 44 percent.

Some black leaders saw early on that unity was their best hope. In December, Donald Suggs, publisher of the St. Louis American, a black weekly newspaper, called a meeting of the black candidates and urged them to unite behind a single candidate. The appeal had little effect.

Marc Morial, president of the National Urban League and former mayor of New Orleans, said the lesson from St. Louis is that blacks must act more strategically if the election of a black mayor is important to them.

“There’s got to be some political give-and-take and compromises made,” Morial said. “A candidate who’s serious has to have the political skills to clear the field — or at least diminish it.”

Jones agreed.

“This is insane,” she said. “We cannot continue to tear each other down and expect a different result.”

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