When U.S. Representative Julia Carson’s staffers announced last
week that the Indiana congresswoman was suffering from terminal
lung cancer, it finally ended a year of speculation among
congressional beat reporters, House staffers and colleagues about
her health. The reliably liberal Democrat, one of the first members
of Congress to vocally oppose the War in Iraq and renowned for
pulling out close races against Republican rivals, her constant
absences from floor votes became even more so in September, when
she took leave from Congress ostensibly to recover from a leg
infection.
But it is in Indianapolis, where Carson’s inner-city
congressional district resides, where her legacy looms largest.
Over the past five decades, the Louisville native parlayed her ties
to the United Auto Workers union and her mentor, former Congressman
Andrew Jacobs, into a political machine that helped the Democrats
take control of what had long been one of the few urban areas
controlled by Republicans. In turn, her proteges have defended her
against longstanding charges of corruption and incompetence. Said
one ally, Marion County Sheriff Frank Anderson: “She’s our queen.
We’re going to protect her.”
But for the black communities in Indianapolis she represents,
the so-called queen also represents an increasingly archaic feature
of America’s urban political landscape: the old-school black
politician who emerged during the latter half of the Civil Rights
Era. Building and maintaining power through political machines,
race-baiting, appeals to black pride and focusing on doling out
welfare to poor constituents, this group, which includes such
legendary figures as Congressman Charles Rangel of New York and the
late Coleman Young of Detroit, elevated themselves into the
American political vanguard. Their success, however, did little for
their communities.
Beginning with her first election — to Indiana’s lower house —
in 1972, Carson perfected this formula. Constituents whose
relatives had died could expect a signed condolence letter from
Carson’s office. Residents struggling with bureaucratic red tape of
the welfare state were slavishly served by her staffers, who
steered them in the right direction. Churches and unions tied into
Carson’s political machine picked up residents on Election Day to
take them to the polls and keep her junta in power.
Carson expertly exploited the race card: During a 2002
re-election campaign, she stormed off the stage during a debate,
accusing her Republican opponent, Brose McVey, of “racial
polarization” after a series of ads, including those from the
National Republican Congressional Committee, accusing her of
failing to pay her property taxes on time. But she did more than
just race-pimping. Hammered by media critics and her Republican
opponent, former auto dealer Eric Dickerson, last year over her
poor health and performance, Carson revealed his
decade-and-a-half-old arrest to the Indianapolis Star,
claiming he “beat his wife into a pulp.”
As she rose to the top of Indiana’s black political
establishment, a cadre of allies rode on her coattails. They, in
turn, became arrogant and corrupt. Last year, a group of them,
including the wife of the city-county council president, Monroe
Gray, Bill Mays — who owns the city’s leading black newspaper —
and Carson’s longtime majordomo, Center Township Trustee Carl
Drummer and city airport board chairman Lacy Johnson, opened a bar
inside a government building named for her — located in a
neighborhood already infested with alcoholism and liquor stores —
and tore out a playground on the grounds for customer parking,
despite widespread neighborhood and media opposition. Carson, known
for taking fellow Democrats to task for failing to support gay
marriage and other “progressive” issues, said little.
Meanwhile the quality of life in Carson’s district — and in
Indianapolis, in general — hasn’t exactly improved. In
Indianapolis Public Schools, the city’s largest school district —
and with significant black leadership in the ranks — 80 percent of
black and white males drop out of school, making it the
home of the nation’s most pervasive collection of dropout
factories; other school districts in the city fare no better.
Meanwhile abandoned housing and rising crime — including rates in
some categories rivaling those of New York — plague the very
impoverished, mostly-black, neighborhoods Carson claimed were her
concern. Some 108 homicides were reported in inner-city
Indianapolis (the area patrolled by the now-defunct Indianapolis
Police Department) in 2005 versus just 59 homicides 20 years
ago.
Solving such problems requires a black leadership less concerned
with power, groupthink and playing the race card. It also calls for
a younger generation of black men and women, born long after the
heyday of the Civil Rights movement, who are far more iconoclastic
in their political thinking and more concerned with improving the
economic and social status of both themselves and their fellow
citizens overall. Carson and her allies, however, have eschewed
them and, more often than not, demonized those who decry their
corruption.
Carson’s impending demise will likely lead to a battle between
her old guard allies and younger leaders within the Democrat party
to eventually take her place. Sad as her death will be, it is an
opportunity to bury a style of political leadership that has done
little to serve poor urban communities.
