Harlem after Rangel: Will the evolving neighborhood remain a political powerhouse?
When U.S. Rep. Charles Rangel stopped by “Meet the Press” or “Our Voices” to talk about apartheid in South Africa or his latest legislative agenda, it seemed like he was representing advocates and blacks across the globe – at least that’s how Afua Atta-Mensah interpreted it growing up as a child of Ghanaian immigrants in the Bronx.
“It was understood – Charlie comes on, and he is speaking for and on behalf of the black world, but also people on social justice issues. That seat has been made larger than the diminishing population,” said Atta-Mensah, now a housing attorney and a district leader candidate in Harlem. “I hope whoever gets it understands the enormity of what they’re carrying. He or she is carrying us all on their shoulders.”
Yet when Rangel's term ends in 2016, he will not be retiring from the Harlem-centric district that propelled him to Washington, D.C., four and a half decades ago. Younger and more affluent blacks and whites have moved into Harlem, as well as immigrants from West Africa. Redistricting has extended his seat up through northern Manhattan and into Bedford Park, Norwood and other Bronx neighborhoods, giving it a Latino majority. These shifts have accentuated concerns that Harlem’s aging traditional black base lacks successors and is losing influence. Others see an opportunity in the changes to capitalize on Harlem’s identity and the newer black residents it has attracted.
While discussing his upcoming retirement, Rangel suggested he may not be the best person to weigh in on who will eventually take the reins from the mostly older likely candidates vying to represent Harlem – a large group that includes Assemblyman Keith Wright, state Sen. Bill Perkins and Adam Clayton Powell IV.
“You don’t expect me, at the age of 85, to answer that question, do you? There are young people all over Harlem,” said Rangel, who was elected to Congress at age 40. “I’m 85, and don’t spend a lot of time concerning myself with political changes and the census.”
Harlem’s black political life is likely to be “confused” when Rangel steps down, according to Christina Greer, assistant professor of political science at Fordham University. Generations of Harlemites have been waiting for a chance to pursue an open congressional seat. The political machine limited competition for years, creating somewhat of a vacuum, Greer said, because Harlem’s leaders, like many of their counterparts, have not taken pains to mentor the next generation of politicians. All of the currently declared candidates are in their 50s or 60s, and competing in an era when “superstars” have emerged out of nowhere, so those pursuing elected office are less inclined to wait their turn. Still, Greer said it is unclear newcomers will be palatable to old timers or successful in culling votes from newer and wealthier residents, who have tended to be less loyal voters. “There will be lots of political jockeying for quite some time, especially since Rangel hasn’t really anointed anyone a successor,” she said. “Charlie Rangel also represents, in many ways, the rise of black politics ... so we’re watching the changing of the guard of the first, full cycle of the generation into the second full cycle.”
Rangel himself described his initial ascent to Congress as coming amid a void, too. As an assemblyman, Rangel said he implored then-U.S. Rep. Adam Clayton Powell Jr., in person, to return from the Bahamas, where Powell had camped out while facing a warrant for an unpaid slander settlement. Powell, New York’s first black congressman and the chairman of the Committee on Education, was an unabashed activist when it came to civil rights and empowering African and Asian countries overcoming colonialism. But he began facing criticism for the frequency of his travel, supposedly putting his wife on the payroll, and the slander case. When it became clear Powell would not return, Rangel said he decided to pursue his seat.
Rangel rose through the ranks and became the first African-American to lead the Ways and Means Committee. He founded the Congressional Black Caucus, steered millions to Harlem via legislation creating economic empowerment zones, pushed for the low income-housing tax credits and orchestrated a tax policy that compelled several American businesses to pull out of South Africa during apartheid.
Back in Harlem, Rangel helped elevate the neighborhood’s voice as part of the so-called “gang of four,” an alliance with Percy Sutton, who became Manhattan borough president; Basil Paterson, who served as New York’s secretary of state; and David Dinkins, who was elected the city’s first black mayor. Even before the quartet hit its prime, Harlem’s Hulan Edwin Jack was voted the first black Manhattan borough president in 1953. Edward Dudley, Constance Baker Motley - the first black woman to hold the position - Sutton, Dinkins and C. Virginia Fields succeeded him. (By comparison, Queens elected its first black borough president in 2001; Brooklyn in 2013.)
Loss of legacy
Three decades ago, historian Michael Henry Adams moved to Harlem because he wanted to be a part of the “African-American cultural capital” he now fears is receding and contributing to the atrophy of its political muscle. He has since written two books about Harlem architecture and design and style. As Adams watches one historic structure after another – Smalls Paradise nightclub, Lenox Lounge, the Renaissance Ballroom and Casino – be replaced, often with condominiums, Adams says he sees lost legacies contribute to the clip of gentrification. Adams fears this evolution has diluted blacks’ political power.
In the 1940s, a more heavily black Harlem afforded Powell an almost “delusional” amount of confidence – as evidenced by him talking about running for president while still a city councilman, Adams said. Rangel was likewise elected with strong black support, but he also enjoyed support from the Puerto Rican community (his father was from Puerto Rico) and won votes from the Jewish community in the Upper West Side. Over the years, his constituency has changed. The last census, taken in 2010, found 38 percent of Harlemites identified as black or African-American, down from 46 percent in 2000; 16 percent identified as white, up from 10 percent in 2000; and 38 percent identified as Hispanic in 2000 and 2010.
And in 2012, the district was extended into the Bronx, giving it a Latino majority. Since then, state Sen. Adriano Espaillat, a Dominican-American, unsuccessfully challenged Rangel twice and described his campaign as a bid to produce a “Jackie Robinson” for Dominicans in Congress. The primaries were largely seen as a showdown between the electoral might of blacks and Dominicans, with Espaillat sweeping Dominican enclaves in Washington Heights and Inwood and Rangel taking Harlem, according to Steven Romalewski, director of CUNY’s Mapping Service at its Center for Urban Research. Romalewski said it remains to be seen whether any candidates can span both electoral bases, or whether the growing white population, which has so far voted less frequently than other groups in the district, will play more of a role in future primaries.
Voting rates aside, Adams, a former Perkins staffer, said changes in Harlem’s congressional district and the relatively unstructured political landscape could mean too many black candidates split the vote and none get elected. “I worry that so many African-Americans plotting against each other in the primary could be a repeat of the situation one had when, after C. Virginia Fields had been borough president of Manhattan, you had just a host of African-Americans running for the borough president’s seat,” Adams said. “And when the dust settled, it was a white person.” He stressed he believed it would have been fairer for redistricting to create one majority black district and a second majority Latino district instead of Rangel’s current amalgamation. “Harlem is yet another part of it, as far as I see, where there is an effort made to exclude us from the process of self-determination.”
Rangel sings with President Bill Clinton, Sen. Charles Schumer and actress Ciecely Tyson.
Rangel has an audience with Pope John Paul II.
Mixed blessings
Some longtime Harlemites like City Councilwoman Inez Dickens have a more positive view of the neighborhood’s evolution. Dickens said many were fleeing Harlem in the 1960s, when she grew up avoiding vacant lots and buildings amid more prevalent drug use. Her childhood was filled with stories about civil rights movement fights, such as her father, an assemblyman, walking a picket line with Powell and others pressuring Con Edison to hire blacks. Harlem has since grown more stable, Dickens said, and many long-timers appreciate the safer streets and blossoming restaurant scene.
Today’s Harlem may spur a return of the city’s black power base, according to Lloyd Williams, the president of the Greater Harlem Chamber of Commerce. Williams, whose grandparents emigrated from Jamaica, said that Caribbean immigrants once buoyed Harlem’s economic strength because, typically, only those with an education or employment opportunities were able to relocate to New York. As whites fled parts of Brooklyn and Queens in the 1960s, Williams said, many Caribbean-Americans moved away from Harlem and invested in the apartments and homes they left behind. Today, the neighborhood is growing wealthier again, he said, which means more affluent blacks may return. “A lot of the political strength and economic strength moved to Brooklyn, and then to Queens,” he said. “It will shift again. It’s a cycle.”
Still, Dickens said it has been difficult to recruit a new, politically active generation. Rising costs of living and college tuition rates have impeded her and her colleagues’ ability to draft younger party members or hire younger government staffers. (A WNYC analysis of median incomes in Central Harlem determined they grew 6 percent from 2007 to 2012, though this coincided with an estimated 90 percent jump in rent paid by those who moved to Harlem from 2002-2015, according to the Community Services Society.)
“There has been the problem in minority communities in trying to get younger participation,” she said, noting many in her community have large loans and cannot afford to work for free as a district leader or take lower-paying jobs with the government. “When I went into office in 2006, I started then looking, trying to pull them in. ‘Come in and intern, come in and work, come into the club … see what it’s about.’ … You know something? I’m still looking.”
Cultivating newcomers
Atta-Mensah, the housing attorney running for district leader, is at 35 one of the younger Harlem residents who is politically engaged. She said some of the neighborhood’s political establishment has missed opportunities to court the growing immigrant communities and could do more to reach younger residents. Atta-Mensah said that like generations before her, she moved to Harlem to join a “tradition of black excellence.” She has since noticed little effort to reach out to immigrants from Senegal, Mali and the Ivory Coast, as evidenced by the absence of French speakers in elected officials’ offices. “If African businesses fold, the only thing you’ve got is some bodegas, a liquor store and Make My Cake. African businesses run 116th Street,” Atta-Mensah said. “Assuming they are focusing on courting black votes … it should behoove you to look at the only black vote that’s growing.”
Meanwhile, the African immigrant population has been growing in Rangel’s district. Recent American Community Survey data estimate 7.3 percent of south Central Harlem residents and 8.1 percent in north Central Harlem residents have sub-Saharan African ancestry. In the Bronx, African immigrants now make up about 10 percent of the population, and they have begun fielding candidates – in 2013, four candidates that identify as African ran against City Councilwoman Vanessa Gibson. One of the clusters of Ghanaian immigrants, near DeWitt Clinton High School in Bedford Park, falls inside Rangel’s district, too. While every subgroup has its own distinct needs, Atta-Mensah said the communities of Harlem face many shared issues. For instance, she said, police wouldn’t halt amid a stop-and-frisk and say, “Oh, you’re from Mali, you’re cool.” Atta-Mensah said she would like to see the predominately older candidates expected to run for Rangel’s seat discuss how they will work with the various ethnic groups and younger generations to preserve Harlem’s political power.
Rangel also appears to be looking for a successor who will unite the different groups. The congressman said he hopes to endorse someone who can unify all the communities in Harlem – and his district at large. Rangel listed several potential rivalries – “white against black,” “Caribbean against southern blacks,” “Puerto Ricans against Dominicans” – and said he worked to ensure there was never a “racial fight in my congressional district.”
“Therefore, I’ve made it abundantly clear that the candidate that can come up to maintain that coalition, politically, of mutual respect, is where my endorsement will be going,” the congressman said. “That hasn’t been done.”
Editor's note: This story has been updated to include Constance Baker Motley in a list of several black Manhattan borough presidents.