by Fred Logan
Wake up Black Pittsburgh!
The bitter Los Angeles city council redistricting conflict is a wakeup call. Redistricting is a struggle for political power. That is the bottom line.
A few weeks ago, incumbent 24th district state representative Martell Covington addressed this extremely important issue during an AARP community meeting at Saint James AME Church in East Liberty.
What do we know? And what do we need to know about how redistricting has affected Black political power in Pittsburgh?
Keep in mind this power struggle also rages inside the Black community. Some ten years ago, the city school board districts were being realigned. Black political power was on the line. And a Pittsburgh Black elected official asked, in public and on the record, for the redistricting commission to reduce the PPS majority-Black school board districts by 33 percent, from three down to two majority-Black districts, that is to reduce the potential of Black political power. This was adamantly opposed by Black folks at large.
The commission rejected this Black elected official’s proposal. Now some ten years later, we find the PPS currently has six Black directors on a nine-member board.
Back in the late 1980s, the district lines were being drawn to replace the outdated at-large (city-wide) city council election system with by-district city council elections. Then US judge Donald Ziegler allotted the community organizations calling for three majority-Black city council districts two public hearings in his chambers to mobilize their supporters and make their case. The organizations could not mobilize their supporters for either hearing. The Black community must stay on the case.
Also, back then, the United Black Democratic Ward Chairmen of Pittsburgh supported the old outdated status quo at-large election system which favored the local political establishment. In a concurrent fierce internal battle, the Pittsburgh NAACP membership voted for by-district council elections and there by overturned an earlier vote of the NAACP board —reportedly etched in stone—that had endorsed the outdated at large city council system
Let’s get back to now. “A luta continua!” The struggle continues! What are the bounty lines for the local federal and state legislative districts that were enacted last year in 2022? Have you ever seen, any time, a large clearly detailed map of any of these changes?
At the recent AARP meeting, state representative Covington pointed out that in the new realigned local state house districts, Homewood, that is 13th Ward, residents who live on the north side of Frankstown Avenue now live in a different Pennsylvania state house district than their neighborhoods directly across the street on the south side of Frankstown. How did this affect the political power of the Black enclave in the east end of Pittsburgh?
How did the 2022 redistricting affect the impact of Black political power in Wilkinsburg? Wilkinsburg is no longer in the 24th state house district.
What do Pittsburgh’s Black elected officials think of the 20022 redistricting? Will they take an active role in in the current redistricting of city, and county legislative districts?
Bottom line: The Black community should demand that redistricting commission hearings be held at locations in predominately African American enclaves
In what’s left of 2022, the Pittsburgh Black community must organize its own redistricting meetings—plural—in predominately African American districts and continue next year.
In 2023, Pittsburgh’s District Nine city council seat and District One school board seat are up for election. What will these districts look like? What input will you have in the process?
Jump in. Attend and monitor other meetings. Closely monitor the redistricting commission’s proceedings. Ask the Allegheny County Election Department for very large hard copy maps on the current local legislative districts.
Go online, research the population data in the districts. Tell your family members, and associates. Take the struggle to religious institutions, civic organizations, fraternities, sororities, and social clubs across Pittsburgh’s Black community. In less than three years, the 1965 Voting Rights Act will be sixty years old. “The Black Vote,” is a central weapon of Black political struggle. Right this very moment all across the United States Black political power is under attack by the rabid, reactionary US Right. Political redistricting plays a key role, a central role in this vitriolic national struggle. Jump in the Pittsburgh redistricting power struggle and win.
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