| Analysis: More than black support put new mayor in
office Staff Writers Last update: 06 November 2003 |
|
DAYTONA BEACH --Voter registration drives in the black community --
along with citywide core white support -- combined to elect the city's
first black mayor, according to an analysis of Tuesday's votes and
interviews with local black leaders.
Black political groups submitted more than 1,000 new voter registration
applications during the fall campaign, said Walter Fordham, chairman of
the political action committee for the Volusia County-Daytona Beach Branch
of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.
"We had a total new group who committed to the impact of the vote,"
Fordham said. "We really targeted new voters, persons who had never
participated in the process."
Yvonne Scarlett-Golden beat Mike Shallow in Tuesday's election to
become the first black mayor in the city's history and only the second
woman elected to that post.
Support among black voters, while crucial to Scarlett-Golden's win, was
only part of the story. Scarlett-Golden drew at least 23 percent of votes
in all 26 polling precincts, including 10 in which blacks comprised less
than 10 percent of registered voters. She also won three white-majority
precincts in the central part of the city.
Shallow, despite winning 15 of 26 precincts overall, failed to overcome
Scarlett-Golden's support among blacks. He drew less than 20 percent of
votes in eight precincts -- all with black majorities.
Shallow won just one black-majority precinct, made up of residents near
Beville Road.
He won most precincts outside the black community, picking up 71
percent of votes at beachside polling places and 58 percent of mainland
precincts where blacks were not a majority of registered voters.
The voter registration effort by Scarlett-Golden supporters included
visits to 23 churches and booths at 18 businesses in the black community.
Organizers, Fordham said, laid out the stakes: Not only could voters
elect the first black mayor, they could also help to create the first
black majority on the City Commission.
And voters responded, sending Scarlett-Golden to the mayor's desk and
two other blacks -- Charles Cherry and Dwayne Taylor -- to the commission.
A third black commissioner, Gwen Azama-Edwards, won in Zone 4 on the
city's western edge, where white voters outnumber blacks 5,088 to 272.
"The greater issue is the broader community, the vision and strategy to
move the city," said Bishop Derek Triplett, pastor of Hope Fellowship
Church and chairman of the Black Community Leadership Council.
"We have the opportunity to meet the issues of our community that are
difficult and meet them head on together," he said. "I see this as a
government of
inclusion." |
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