The 1989 White – Forbes race for Cleveland mayor showed the Caucasian political power structure that American Negro voters controlled the city
CLEVELAND, OH – For some odd reason political thinkers have attempted to compare Cleveland’s 2021 campaigns for mayor to the 1989 campaign that featured veteran Council President George Lawrence Forbes against his protege, State Senator Michael Reed White, in the general election. That year two American Negroes prevailed in the mayoral primary election for the first time in the city’s history. From my perspective it was a campaign which clearly affirmed that American Negroes living in Cleveland no longer had to call themselves “minorities” as the city’s largest ethnic demographic. The Forbes-White matchup was the first dramatic display of the…
