Suppressing Black political growth behind Cleveland’s charter changes since 1937
CLEVELAND, OH – When Carl Stokes tested the Cleveland mayoral waters in his first campaign for the job in 1967, Call & Post Publisher William O. Walker, Jean Capers and Charles Carr paid attention to the city’s demographics. Politics is “ethnic” not “racial,” and the city’s Black political leaders knew they had an ethnic voting base of 37 percent. They also knew their Black ethnic brothers and sisters were the city and county’s largest demographic group and voting bloc then as they are today. So instead of competing with the white ethnic candidates from the Democratic and Republican parties, they…
