‘No one’s giving them the torch’
Inside effort for Black city council members
An effort is underway to bring Black representation back to the City Council that governs the nation’s fifth most populous municipality — home to more than 150,000 people who identified themselves as Black in the 2020 U.S. Census.
For decades, Black community leaders in south Phoenix successfully pipelined Black candidates to run for City Council. But frustrations were percolating among Black political organizers of a younger generation who felt shut out of the pipeline and process of advancing candidates.
The generational schism showed itself in 2013, the year Warren Stewart Sr. lost the District 8 runoff, leaving the City Council without a Black member for the first time in four decades. The rift appeared again in 2018 when a Latino activist, Carlos Garcia, won the seat over a well-known Black candidate.
As District 8, which includes south Phoenix, parts of downtown and an area just east of downtown, heads towards a runoff election on March 14, the question of whether the district’s Black candidate pipeline has been repaired will be put to the test. Garcia, the incumbent council member, faces challenger Kesha Hodge Washington. Both candidates received about the same number of votes in November and it seems the race could tip in either candidate’s favor.
District 8 has always been seen as the best shot to elect a Black council member. It has the highest percentage of Black residents among the eight council districts at 14%. District 8 is also the only Phoenix district that has elected a Black candidate, although that could change this year if Kevin Robinson wins his runoff race against Sam Stone to represent District 6, which includes parts of north-central Phoenix, Arcadia, the Biltmore area and Ahwatukee Foothills.
Ann Hart, a former state education official turned education consultant and former president of the Maricopa County NAACP, is one of the community leaders working to revive the District 8 pipeline of Black council candidates.
In Hart’s view, Hodge Washington is the start of that revival. But Hart said she isn’t deploying the same strategy as years past when a self-appointed group held “clandestine” meetings to usher in new leaders.
Instead, Hart is trying a new playbook, and she’s got the backing of several political heavyweights.
2013: The Black candidate pipeline falls apart
Morrison Warren Sr. was the first African American elected to the council in 1966. Then Calvin Goode in 1972, who stayed 22 years. Goode mentored Cody Williams to replace him in 1994, who then paid it forward to Michael Johnson in 2001.
History showed that coalescing support behind one candidate and
mentoring him was an effective strategy in ensuring Black representation on the mostly white council. In 2013, that playbook fell apart.
As Johnson approached his term limit, a handful of candidates threw their names in the ring to run.
Johnson called a meeting at the George Washington Carver Museum and Cultural Center. There were some 30 attendees. He pulled together a list of potential candidates and let others add to it, he said. Attendees voted for their preferred candidate, and while the losers weren’t formally told to drop out, the unspoken consensus was they should.
The list of potential successors was cut to two finalists: Stewart Sr., the pastor of First Institutional Baptist Church, and Lawrence Robinson, a young law professor. Stewart Sr. ultimately won.
Robinson, the young lawyer who was also openly gay, blamed some of his loss at the meeting on his sexuality.
In 2013, as marriage equality for same-sex couples was being hotly debated, differences of opinion on gay rights and candidate electability divided the older and younger Black leaders of south Phoenix. The group fractured by the end of the meeting, Johnson said.
Robinson decided to continue his run despite losing at the meeting.
In total, five candidates faced off in the August election. Kate Gallego came out ahead with 47% of the vote. Stewart Sr. was next with 22% and Robinson was third with 16%.
The two top vote-getters advanced to a runoff. Gallego won with more than 60% of the vote.
2018: ‘No one’s giving them the torch’
After a comfortable win in 2013, and with the power of incumbency behind her, Gallego ran unopposed in 2017.
But one year into her term, Greg Stanton resigned the mayoral seat to run for Congress and Gallego vacated the District 8 spot to run for mayor. A special election was called.
Wary of repeating 2013, older Black leaders in District 8 opted not to endorse anyone. Not Johnson, who threw his hat in to seek another term. Not Robinson, who ran again. And not Warren Stewart Jr., the pastor’s son who was running for the first time.
Four other candidates joined Johnson, Robinson and Stewart Jr. on the ballot. Johnson and Garcia won the most votes, sending them to a runoff.
Garcia, an immigrant rights activist who made a name organizing protests against then-Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio, had never run for public office. He beat Johnson by less than 400 votes.
In taking a more hands-off approach, the older Black leaders in District 8 had hoped for a less hostile yet still successful outcome. Instead, the contest resulted in 3 more years of a Phoenix council without a Black representative.
Stewart Jr., who has since moved away from Arizona, said he was in the race to win and the problem was an unwillingness of the older generation to step aside for new leadership. He said he was angry that Johnson never bowed out, and chalked it up to no strategy at all.
Johnson disagreed there was a succession problem. But the younger candidate hopefuls weren’t the only ones feeling sidelined.
Hart, a self-described progressive Democrat baby boomer who watched 2013 and 2018 unfold, felt like women had also been discounted.
She stands on the side of younger people trying to make a name for themselves in community leadership, too.
“Then you have the younger generation, the millennials. No one’s giving them the torch,” she said. Johnson’s loss in 2018 was the final straw for her. “I thought, how could we resurrect this? And I said, I think we can do this by having a Black woman to consider running for this office,” Hart said.
She called Hodge Washington and invited her to lunch.
2023: ‘This is a new playbook’
Hodge Washington, 44, moved to Laveen from the Virgin Islands in 1999 to study law at Arizona State University. She would become a civil and commercial litigator, dealing mostly with fraud and insurance claims.
She met Hart through the Phoenix alumni chapter of Delta Sigma Theta, a historically Black sorority.
In Hodge Washington, Hart saw a woman who is smart and energetic. Someone with an impressive resume who could appeal to the masses and inspire unity.
“I think this is a new playbook, and I’m hoping that it will bring more millennials together who can be a part of the leadership in our community and utilize the O.G.’s for consultation and mentoring,” Hart said.
Since the council lost its only Black member, Hart said, that sounding board for the Black community has been absent.
“We just don’t have that ear. We’re not at the table like our other minority individuals and groups have been because their numbers are larger,” she said. “We feel left out.”
Hodge Washington didn’t need much persuading. She typically prefers to operate in the background, but she said she aspired to run for office since she was young.
Hart’s suggestion “re-watered the seed,” Hodge Washington said.
Hodge Washington’s strong outcome in November boosted Hart’s confidence and gut feeling that she had picked the right candidate. Hart tied Garcia with 40% of the vote. Two other candidates walked away with the remaining 20%. After the election, support for Hodge Washington started stacking up ahead of the March 14 runoff. Mayor Gallego endorsed her, along with U.S. Rep. Stanton. Johnson backed her, too.
“This is like crossing into a new domain of letting the old guard — it’s time for you all to sit down. Support us. And I don’t mean that in a derogatory manner,” Hart said. “But you’ve taken the city, through your efforts, as far as you can take it.”