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What are you talking about? If that’s what you got out of that, then you are off. I’m just simply adding it to the number of mayor that are black in the Northeast. Stop being so sensitive. It isn’t that serious.
If it makes you feel better, Boston is the biggest city in the Northeast currently with a mayor that is black. Before yesterday, it was Newark(Buffalo and Rochester were 2nd and 3rd).
What are you talking about? If that’s what you got out of that, then you are off. I’m just simply adding it to the number of mayor that are black in the Northeast. Stop being so sensitive. It isn’t that serious.
Oh, don’t worry you didn’t upset me! It’s just that I think Boston having a black mayor would be (she hasn’t really entered the position yet) great independent of the Boston area’s appeal to middle class black people or relative to its comparative appeal in NYC/Philly.
Like can’t we stop arguing for a second and agree that this is a good thing, then get back into it right after?
Oh, don’t worry you didn’t upset me! It’s just that I think Boston having a black mayor would be (she hasn’t really entered the position yet) great independent of the Boston area’s appeal to middle class black people or relative to its comparative appeal in NYC/Philly.
Like can’t we stop arguing for a second and agree that this is a good thing, then get back into it right after?
To be fair the rest of the country isn't obligated to stop and celebrate something that should have happened in Boston long ago. It's mundane in other places, but I think we all agree this is a good thing.
To be fair the rest of the country isn't obligated to stop and celebrate something that should have happened in Boston long ago. It's mundane in other places, but I think we all agree this is a good thing.
Oh, don’t worry you didn’t upset me! It’s just that I think Boston having a black mayor would be (she hasn’t really entered the position yet) great independent of the Boston area’s appeal to middle class black people or relative to its comparative appeal in NYC/Philly.
Like can’t we stop arguing for a second and agree that this is a good thing, then get back into it right after?
That was the point. It was to celebrate not only that, but the other places/examples as well. To be honest, I don’t think a lot of people know that some of those places exist. Let alone have mayors that are black. So, given the context of the thread, why not show other examples in the region. That’s all.
I say this considering the city/area I’m hasn’t had one yet. It is a matter of time and the metro area has had 3 places that have had mayors that are black.
To be fair the rest of the country isn't obligated to stop and celebrate something that should have happened in Boston long ago. It's mundane in other places, but I think we all agree this is a good thing.
We do.
I just hope that the interval between the first and the second Black mayor of Boston isn't too long. (In Philadelphia, it was eight years (mayors here have been term-limited for about a century), and the second and third Black mayors served in succession. Twelve years and two mayors separate Kansas City's first and second Black mayors, and the third there, the current mayor, also followed the second directly. St. Louis' two Black mayors to date succeeded each other; there have been two mayors since then. I believe New York City is still waiting for its second Black mayor; it got its first eight years after Philadelphia and one before Kansas City, the next city on this short list to get a Black mayor. St. Louis followed KC by two years.)
And regardless how many other cities now have Black mayors, it remains a sign of progress when any city gets its first.
So, in terms of Northeastern cites it goes as such by state:
MA-Boston and Framingham
CT-Bloomfield
PA-Chester, Aliquippa, Farrell(in between Pittsburgh and Youngstown OH), Carlisle, Yeadon, Duquesne, Wilkinsburg, Braddock, Norristown(no mayor, but council president), Darby and Coatesville(city manager and council president, no mayor)
NJ-Newark, Camden, Salem, East Orange, Hillside, Plainfield, Union, Irvington, Orange, Maplewood, Montclair, Linden, Roselle, Lawnside, Atlantic City, Burlington, Glassboro and Pleasantville
NY-Buffalo, Rochester, Ithaca, Hudson, Newburgh, Mount Vernon, Peekskill and South Floral Park. Bronx and Brooklyn borough presidents are similar.
Any others I'm forgetting about?
Forgot that the community in boldface is also an item for the (Greater) Philly Black history file.
From the 1840s to the 1860s, Black farmers settled on land in Camden County, N.J., often with Quaker abolitionists assisting with the acquisition of the land.
Several small Black communities arose around these farms. Two of these were in Center Township; one of those two was substantial. (Old Jersey hands tell of a string of barbecue joints along the White Horse Pike (US 30) in this area.)
The residents of the larger community sought to form their own municipality, and in 1921, they got their wish when the New Jersey legislature dissolved Center Township. The residents voted to establish the Borough of Lawnside that year, making it the oldest Black-run municipality north of the Mason-Dixon Line.
It is home to one of the descendants of William Still, the "physician of the Pines" who also served as a conductor on the Underground Railroad. He kept records of the "passengers" he helped guide to freedom, making him the first historian of the secret road to freedom for Southern slaves.
BTW, another of those rural Black settlements became a noteworthy site in local Black history: Mount Laurel. Starting in the 1950s, Whites leaving South Philadelphia began to settle in the community, and the subdivisions built to house them soon priced many of the farmers off their land. The Blacks who remained petitioned the township to revise its zoning laws to make it possible for them to remain, but the local officials told them (in effect), "Tough. This is our town now." They sued the township; the case went all the way to the New Jersey Supreme Court, which ruled in the Black petitioners' favor. The Mount Laurel decision and its followup forbid exclusionary zoning and require every municipality in New Jersey to provide for affordable housing within its borders. (Some municipalities have opted to do this via a provision of state law where they can pay another community to provide the housing.)
Edited to add: Willingboro, in Burlington County (and thus Greater Philadelphia), should also be on the list of New Jersey communities with Black mayors. This is the New Jersey Levittown, and when Levitt & Sons built it in the mid-1950s (as the first Levittown entirely within the borders of a single municipality, whose name Levitt changed to Levittown), it originally restricted house sales to Whites, as it had with all of its other developments. A group of Black veterans who were rebuffed when they attempted to purchase homes there sued in state court, and in 1957, the state Supreme Court ruled against Levitt on the basis of New Jersey's law banning discrimination in the sale or rental of housing based on race (one of the first such laws in the nation, long predating the Fair Housing Act). Levitt complied, and by 1961, when the township opted to change its name back from Levittown to its original name, it had become majority Black. Blacks account for 72 percent of Willingboro's 32,000 residents today, and the median household income as of 2019 is $75,428.
(For purposes of comparison, Data USA gives the population of the Lawnside CDP (which I think is coterminous with the borough but may not be) as 2,897 (2018 est.) 84.9 percent of Lawnsiders are Black, and the median household income there is $65,729.)
In general, Philadelphia's South Jersey suburbs aren't as affluent taken together as its Pennsylvania suburbs are, but they do include some very affluent communities, most notably Haddonfield Borough (11,387; 1.1% Black; MHI $150,958), Moorestown Township (20,516; 6.3% Black; MHI $148,060) and Cherry Hill Township (71,245; 6.6% Black; MHI $105,022).
Collingswood Borough (13,884; 11.8% Black; MHI $73,594), next door to impoverished Camden, is located along a rapid transit line connecting it to Philadelphia and has enjoyed a resurgence over the last 20 years, with LGBT residents serving as the vanguard of the revival. It's home to what is probably the best seasonal farmers' market in all Greater Philadelphia, held under the PATCO rapid transit viaduct next to Collingswood station on Saturday mornings from April through November.
And since I mentioned it, here are the figures for Mount Laurel: Population 41,250, 11.8% Black, MHI $94,832. Fair Share Housing Development, a New Jersey nonprofit that specializes in building affordable housing in affluent New Jersey suburbs, thus helping them meet their "Mount Laurel" obligations, is headquartered in Mount Laurel, at 1 Ethel Lawrence Boulevard. Lawrence, the lead plaintiff in the lawsuits that led to the two Mount Laurel decisions, is known as "the Rosa Parks of affordable housing." Its website lists a host of benefits that accrue to low-income families who settle in "high-opportunity communities" like Mount Laurel. Edited to add further: The nonprofit's name refers to language in the Mount Laurel II decision which says that affluent New Jersey communities must provide their "fair share" of affordable housing for low-income residents of their regions.
Last edited by MarketStEl; 01-08-2021 at 07:30 AM..
So, in terms of Northeastern cites it goes as such by state:
MA-Boston and Framingham
CT-Bloomfield
PA-Chester, Aliquippa, Farrell(in between Pittsburgh and Youngstown OH), Carlisle, Yeadon, Duquesne, Wilkinsburg, Braddock, Norristown(no mayor, but council president), Darby and Coatesville(city manager and council president, no mayor)
NJ-Newark, Camden, Salem, East Orange, Hillside, Plainfield, Union, Irvington, Orange, Maplewood, Montclair, Linden, Roselle, Lawnside, Atlantic City, Burlington, Glassboro and Pleasantville
NY-Buffalo, Rochester, Ithaca, Hudson, Newburgh, Mount Vernon, Peekskill and South Floral Park. Bronx and Brooklyn borough presidents are similar.
Any others I'm forgetting about?
meh, then we gotta' add alderpersons/councilpersons... (sliding goal posts).
are these only current black mayors. last year would include newton, ma (possibly others).
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