CANDIDATES BUILD CASE IN RACE
Wu, Essaibi-George aim to gain appeal from key Black voters
Michelle Wu and Annissa Essaibi-George have some serious ground to make up with Boston’s Black voters to become the city’s mayor.
Voters in the Boston neighborhoods with the largest portion of Black residents, including Dorchester, Hyde Park, Mattapan and Roxbury, largely supported two of the three Black candidates in the mayoral primary last week: Acting Mayor Kim Janey and City Councilor Andrea Campbell.
Although Wu, who topped the ticket, had strong support throughout the city, she didn’t fare as well in the most heavily Black areas of Boston, including Roxbury, Hyde Park and parts of Dorchester.
That was even more pronounced for Essaibi-George, whose support was strongest in some of Boston’s whitest neighborhoods, including the North End, South Boston, Charlestown, the coastal areas of Dorchester and West Roxbury.
When asked about their plans to attract Boston’s Black voters — who many political watchers view as a key swing constituency in the Nov. 2 general election
between the pair — the two remaining candidates had different approaches.
Essaibi-George, who spent years as a teacher in Boston Public Schools, said in Chinatown Saturday that as a city councilor, she has been “making sure that every
school is a high-quality school, that we are investing in all of our schools, and that kids have access to rigorous academic programs, supportive special education programs, we’re working on high school redesign and access to those high-quality
schools,” she said.
She touched on work around homelessness, and mentioned the thousands of Boston Public Schools students who are experiencing homelessness and her work engaging mental health providers because “our communities
of color are disproportionately impacted by a lack of access to appropriate mental health care.”
She also listed other issues facing Black Bostonians, including the racial wealth gap and the homeownership gap, but did not delve into further specifics.
When posed the same question, Wu instead chose to focus on “how the big bold vision rests on details that city government is uniquely positioned to deliver on,” she said at a South End campaign event Saturday. Wu said focusing on causes like “transit justice,” or her plans for free public transit, climate, housing policy and closing the racial wealth gap will make the biggest differences.
Wu noted her experience working with then-Councilor Ayanna Pressley to pass an ordinance that created an accountability system for the racial makeup of the city’s contract awardees. She also noted the “once-in-a-generation opportunity” to invest federal COVID-19 relief funds into home ownership and stabilization programs, “especially in Black and brown communities,” she said.
Wu also mentioned her “Green New Deal” for the city, which includes “tangible” plans to plant trees to cool down the hottest neighborhoods in Boston. She cited the 10-degree difference between some of the leafiest neighborhoods and some of the most asphalt-laden, many of which are communities of color.