Apartheid. USA 1988

November 30, 1987:

Co-op City, the huge integrated apartment complex in the northeast Bronx in New York City is about to begin a marketing campaign. The objective is to persuade more white people to live there. ‘This decision,’ reported the Times, ‘is not without irony.’ When it opened 19 years ago, Co-op City emerged as a symbol of refuge for whites leaving other neighborhoods in the borough following an influx of blacks and other minority groups. Gradually, however, minorities began renting apartments in the 15 000 unit buildings and presently Co-op City is populated by 40 percent blacks, 15 percent Hispanic people and therefore less than half whites. The community's 15-member board of directors, which includes 4 black members and 1 Hispanic member decided to spend money on advertisements aimed primarily at white audiences to bring in again more whites.

Some black and Hispanic residents voiced philosophical reasons for supporting efforts to maintain the white population at Co-op City. Many said that with a sizeable white population, such basic services as maintenance and sanitation, as well as the quality of schools, would be less likely to decline. ‘White people get listened to more,’ said Patricia Carden, a black post office clerk.^177.

On November 25, Harold Washington, the first black Mayor in Chicago, Illinois, the third largest city in the United States died at 65 in his office of a heart attack. His untimely death ushered in the next chapter in the evolution

177. The New York Times, from a report by Sam Howe Verhovek

[p. 143]

of black political power, what the late Mayor called, ‘The Movement.’ Mr Washington's successor, who is expected to be black, is not likely to face the same kind of hostility from white aldermen, but neither will the next Mayor enjoy the same kind of monolithic, almost revered support, from blacks. Indeed, as the 50-member City Council prepares to select an Acting Mayor who will serve until the spring of 1989, the city's black political leadership has divided into rival camps for two black aldermen. The efforts of the Reverend Jesse Jackson, who entered the fray in the hope of creating a consensus has been unable to bring the two sides together. ‘Blacks have tasted political power,’ said Melvin Holli, a professor of history at the University of Illinois, ‘and now they are realizing there are some internal differences over how to utilize that power. Matters of ideology, and not solely race, are coming into play.’

The city's 18 black aldermen and 4 Hispanic aldermen were huddling behind closed doors on the South Side of Chicago, while 22 of the 28 white aldermen met privately on the North Side.^178.

178. The New York Times, from a report by Dirk Johnson