The northern black mayor: an evaluation of Carl B. Stokes' mayoral tenure in reference to the new elective politics of black America, 1976
Marchbanks, Jackie Ramon
1976-08-01
1970-1979
The tenure of Carl Burton Stokes is examined here for what it reveals about the dynamics of municipal power configurations surrounding the ascension and performance of a black mayor in a majority white city. More specifically, Stokes' administration is examined for tendencies indicating very effective leadership, moderately effective leadership, or poor mayoral leadership. The fundamental problem of this endeavor was affecting a viable evaluative model for Stokes. Guidance, coordination, initiation, and coercion from the mayor's office were taken as the chief variables of effective leadership. To this general absolute of effective mayoral leadership, performance-related gradations were added. The "civic entrepreneur" is the mayor who has solid elite support and has overcome the problems of his administration's day-to-day survival. The entrepreneur guides and initiates city government policy. The "political broker" is much more involved with coalition-building and coalition-maintenance. Policy coming out of the broker's office is negotiated, with those who hold significant portions of municipal power. The "figurehead" eschews most of the bargaining of the broker and withdraws from visible leadership for reasons of expediency or political survival. In addition to matching Stokes' performance as mayor to the gradated scale, this thesis aims to find out whether Stokes, as a black mayor, should be evaluated on a special basis because of his blackness or whether he should be judged alongside other mayors on performance alone. Content analysis, interviewing, and long hand research are all used in the course of this paper. To an extent, former Cleveland Mayor Carl B. Stokes was the product of an era. The civil rights movement had spent itself by the middle sixties, and the more militant, left-leaning black political leadership had been stifled by democratic repression. Stokes, as a veteran politician, appeared as a workable alternative: a legitimate black leader in a riot-torn city. During the course of his tenure, Stokes relied heavily on coalition politics. However, to be successful in office he had to have the support of the local economic notables, a group usually above coalition campaigning. Stokes' support from this group vacillated and eventually faded. It was found to be crucial that local black leaders, formal and informal, be in tandem with the black mayor's administration. Dissention among black leaders contributed significantly to the destruction of Stokes' fragile web of support. The black electorate and some observers suffer from a mythical assessment of the black politician-mayor. The messianic complex, left over from the era of informal black leadership, is often attached to the black politician-mayor. This attachment skews appraisal. First and foremost, the black politician must come to grips with the system maintenance paradigm. He is an integral part of it. To evaluate Stokes' mayor-ship separately by putting a premium on his black chauvinism is laudable in terms of black sympathizing but out of context with Stokes' position. Stokes' could not adjust city government to black needs and demands; black needs and demands had to be made amenable to city government. Judged by his performance, Carl B. Stokes was a "political broker," hence, a mediocre mayor. His bargaining skills were sound, but his administrative skills were thin.
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application/pdf
thesis
Master of Arts (MA)
Department of Political Science
Clark Atlanta University
Georgia--Atlanta
http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.12322/cau.td:1976_marchbanks_jackie_ramon.pdf
http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC-EDU/1.0/
