Latino-Black Alliance Seems to Be Forming

Polls and endorsements suggest that a historic alliance of blacks and Latinos is taking shape behind the mayoral campaign of City Councilman Antonio Villaraigosa. But political strategists say anxiety among some blacks about supporting a Latino for mayor could make that alliance tenuous.

Driving the anxiety, the strategists say, is a sense of rivalry over political power and jobs that has intensified amid a surge in the Latino population of South Los Angeles, where most of the city’s African Americans live.

Villaraigosa campaign aides say they still must overcome voter misgivings before he faces Mayor James K. Hahn in the May 17 runoff election.

Some blacks “think that because it’s a Latino candidate, he’ll only take care of Latinos, and therefore African Americans will somehow be left out of the picture and diminished,” said Anthony Thigpenn, director of campaign field operations for Villaraigosa.

“It’s a big challenge for Villaraigosa,” said Thigpenn, an African American who has worked for years to strengthen political ties between the two groups. “It’s a big challenge for L.A.”

Blacks, who composed 16% of those who cast ballots last month, are one of the voting blocs that strategists for both candidates have described as up for grabs in the runoff. Initial signs point to an edge for Villaraigosa, who lost the mayor’s race to Hahn four years ago.

A Times poll this month found that African Americans favored the councilman over Hahn by 20 points -- but were less likely than Latinos and whites to believe that he would pay equal attention to all ethnic groups.

Interviews with about three dozen black voters in South Los Angeles found ambivalence about a Latino mayor among both supporters and opponents of Villaraigosa.

Devon Dunning, 38, a vendor on Crenshaw Boulevard, said he was dissatisfied with Hahn and leaned toward Villaraigosa. But he had misgivings. “I’m not really sure he has the benefit of our community at heart,” he said of the councilman.

For Hahn, a crucial goal in the campaign’s final weeks is to recapture his family’s once-formidable African American political base, built over decades by his late father, county Supervisor Kenneth Hahn. His biggest obstacle: The mayor has yet to recover from the African American backlash against his push in 2002 to oust a black police chief, Bernard C. Parks.

Many issues beyond race are sure to drive the black vote -- among them crime and education. And many black supporters of Hahn say race has nothing to do with their choice.

“He’s done some good things, and I just like his style,” said George Williams, 82, a retired postal worker.

But racial divisions have long been central to Los Angeles mayoral campaigns. Most notably, Mayor Sam Yorty stirred racial fears in 1969 to defeat his challenger, Tom Bradley, an African American who went on to oust the white incumbent in 1973.

“There was a lot of anger, and there was a lot of prejudice,” recalled Geraldine R. Washington, a Bradley volunteer who heads the Los Angeles branch of the National Assn. for the Advancement of Colored People.

She drew a parallel between fears that some whites had about Bradley, the city’s first black mayor, and qualms that some blacks have about Villaraigosa.

“Some people are afraid that this means that they will not be able to hold on to what they have,” she said.

More than 30 years have passed since the acrimonious Bradley-Yorty campaigns. Hahn’s media strategist, Bill Carrick, said the mayor would not seek to exploit racial fears -- an accusation leveled by some critics against Hahn during the race four years ago.

“People should vote for who they think is the best candidate, and they shouldn’t be considering what somebody’s ethnicity is,” Carrick said.

Latino and black politicians and community groups have increasingly worked together in recent years on matters of mutual interest in California, and Villaraigosa has long championed those efforts. Latino-led organized labor backed the elections of Councilman Martin Ludlow and Assemblywoman Karen Bass (D-Los Angeles), both African Americans and staunch Villaraigosa supporters.

Villaraigosa has faced direct questions from African Americans about whether he would favor Latinos. In response, he has invoked Bradley’s legacy and pledged diversity at City Hall. He has also touted the endorsements of an array of influential black residents: former basketball star Magic Johnson, Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Los Angeles), county Supervisor Yvonne Brathwaite Burke, now-Councilman Parks and pastors of major black churches.

To broaden his one strength among blacks from four years ago -- younger voters -- Villaraigosa has paid frequent trips to African American churches. Many of those visits occurred long before the current contest hit its stride.

“I’m running for mayor like Tom Bradley did 30 years ago: to be a mayor for all the people,” Villaraigosa said at a debate held by the Los Angeles Sentinel, an African American newspaper.

That message has reached voters such as Kennon Dawson, 37, a barber at Curry’s Hair Parlor on Florence Avenue. He said Villaraigosa would “help not just his people, but all of us.”

“Why not give Latinos a chance to lead?” he added.

But to those African Americans who worry about Latino ascendance, the black political power symbolized by Bradley’s 20 years as mayor now seems fleeting -- especially given the scant progress in improving conditions in South L.A., said Regina Freer, head of Occidental College’s politics department.

“It’s not lost on African American voters that the unemployment rate in the African American community is so high,” she said. “There’s a fear that there will be no will -- by anybody -- to address it.”

The 17.7% jobless rate for blacks in Los Angeles County last month was more than quadruple the 4.3% rate for Latinos, state figures show.

Over the last generation, dramatic demographic shifts have swept across South L.A. From 1980 to 2000, the black share of the city’s population south of the Santa Monica and Pomona freeways dropped from 41% to 24%, while the Latino share grew from 29% to 53%, census figures show.

Latinos’ political influence has grown accordingly. In 1980, they held just six of the most significant elected offices in the county; by 2004 they had 30, according to the Center for the Study of Los Angeles at Loyola Marymount University. Over the same period, the number of blacks holding significant elected posts in the county dropped slightly, from 15 to 14.

Those trends are apt to accelerate when political maps are redrawn after the 2010 census. For African Americans, it will be harder to maintain dominance in increasingly Latino districts now represented by black elected officials, such as Assemblyman Mervyn Dymally (D-Compton) and City Councilwoman Jan Perry.

“It’s going to get more competitive,” said Alan Clayton, a redistricting expert who has worked to expand Latino representation.

Larry Aubry, a Sentinel columnist, described the prevailing attitude among black voters as “fear and resentment” toward Latino political progress. He called it “a visceral thing, an emotional thing.”

“Unfortunately, the areas of commonality tend to be minimized, or not dealt with sufficiently,” said Aubry, citing poverty, racial bias and substandard public schools as concerns of both blacks and Latinos.

Racial divisions were apparent in a poll of Los Angeles County residents this year by the Public Policy Institute of California. It found that just 40% of African Americans viewed immigrants as a benefit to the county and 46% saw them as more of a burden because of their use of public services. By contrast, 81% of Latinos saw immigrants as a benefit. Whites were almost evenly split on the question.

At a Florence Avenue dry cleaner’s last week, bus driver Bobby Whitfield, 66, voiced concerns that illegal immigrants from Latin America were taking low-wage jobs and depressing pay for others.

He said illegal immigrants failed to pay taxes, depriving the city of money needed to maintain roads and trim trees. An L.A. resident since 1957, Whitfield, who is black, doubts that Villaraigosa will address the matter.

“If you just sit around and think about it, he’s going to be forced to lean toward some of the issues of the Latinos,” said Whitfield, a Hahn supporter. “That’s just a natural thing.”

More blunt was Gwen Nolan, the 68-year-old proprietor of Gwen’s Double Dip ice cream stand at 76th Street and Western Avenue. She said she had watched her competitors -- Latino street vendors -- make gains while she had to comply with strict health and safety codes. She called Hahn “the last chance for blacks.”

“These Mexicans are taking over everything,” she said. “Villaraigosa ain’t going to do nothing for us.”

For Villaraigosa, a key question is whether tension between blacks and Latinos -- underscored this month by what police called racially driven brawls at Jefferson High School -- could hamper his quest to beat Hahn.

In the 2001 runoff, Villaraigosa carried just 20% of the black vote, a dismal showing attributed largely to the Hahn name’s popularity in South L.A.

Last month, Villaraigosa won even less of the black vote -- 15% -- in the initial election. He trailed Parks, who captured 54%, and Hahn, who garnered 23%. Villaraigosa surpassed Hahn in the Times poll earlier this month largely because of support from black voters who had cast ballots for Parks in the first round.

With such a short-term record of black support, Villaraigosa’s gains among African Americans could erode quickly under the scorching TV ad assault that Hahn plans to mount. But displeasure over the ouster of Parks as police chief remains a big drag on Hahn’s effort to rebuild black support.

The mayor’s attacks on Villaraigosa could also carry less weight than they did four years ago, because the councilman is better known and Hahn has been weakened by corruption investigations of his administration.

One ex-Hahn supporter backing Villaraigosa is Sam LaSan, 45, an electrician who was working on Jefferson Boulevard. He called Hahn “a backbiter” for the way he treated Parks.

Yet LaSan worries that Villaraigosa might favor Latinos over blacks. “I want Villaraigosa to help Hispanic people,” he said. “But just help everybody.”

Times data analyst Sandra Poindexter contributed to this report.