One very hot night in Charlestown last week, Boston City Councilor and mayoral candidate Andrea Campbell fielded a hot potato question from a woman who identified herself as the wife of a retired deputy superintendent in the Boston Police Department. “It troubles me,” said the woman, that with the current focus on scandal, there’s a “lack of gratitude” for what police do every day to keep the city safe. How did that fit with Campbell’s police reform agenda, she wanted to know?
In response, Campbell said she understood the need for gratitude, and has a long record of working collaboratively with police. But when it comes to police transparency and accountability, “I’m also saying there’s work to do,” she said.
As Campbell said that night, “I don’t mince words.” Which raises this question: Can a straight-talking Black woman consolidate her base and grow it enough to grab one of the top two spots in the September preliminary mayoral election? Campbell believes she can and will.
Much media coverage of Campbell focuses on the battle she’s waging with Acting Mayor Kim Janey for support from Black voters. The underlying presumption is that their skin color makes them interchangeable as candidates, and limits their appeal to one, main constituency. But as Campbell said in a follow-up interview, “I push back on the assumption that my candidacy as a Black woman would only pull in Black voters.” To make that case, she’s taking her campaign to every Boston neighborhood, she said, which means taking challenging questions like the one about police. Janey, meanwhile, is much more scripted, as she uses the power of the mayor’s office to announce things that make her look good — although she sometimes wades into controversy of her own accord, as she did when she compared proof of vaccination to slavery or birtherism.
Campbell has a powerful personal story, which is both tragic and uplifting. Her father spent half his life in prison and her mother died when she and her twin brother were five months old. Her twin died in state custody while awaiting trial at age 29. An older brother has been accused of rape. Andrea Campbell, meanwhile, went to Boston Latin School, Princeton University, and UCLA School of Law and became the first Black woman elected City Council president. That narrative resonates with voters who see “a piece of themselves in that story,” said Campbell — including voters like Melissa Brennan, who hosted the Charlestown gathering.
Brennan said she met Campbell at an event for Attorney General Maura Healey, and realized how much they had in common. Both attended the Harvard-Kent Elementary School in Charlestown, went to the Latin School, and became lawyers. “She has been through a lot and she made it. I admire that in her,” said Brennan, a committed supporter.
The question about police came from a woman named Kim, who didn’t want to give her last name. She asked the question after Campbell spoke about the reforms she championed, even before the 2020 police murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis or the Boston scandal involving Patrick Rose Sr., a police officer who served as head of the police union despite child molestation allegations. Campbell’s relentless push for transparency drew a rebuke from the Boston Police Patrolmen’s Association, which attacked her on Twitter. She tweeted right back at them, and continues to push for transparency, not just from police, but also from Janey. The acting mayor, who inherited the Rose case from former Mayor Marty Walsh, has released some, but not all of the findings of a newly established police accountability office.
Did Campbell’s answer — that respect for police can co-exist with commitment to reform —satisfy the Charlestown questioner? She said she appreciated Campbell’s willingness to engage, but wasn’t entirely sold on her response. Then again, this woman who said she was born and raised in Charlestown no longer lives in Boston, so she can’t vote. But afterward, Campbell said she was glad the issue was raised; she knows it’s out there. “I remind voters when I’m pushing for reform, it’s not just about individual officers, it’s about a system in a department,” she said. “I recognize how quickly it can become us versus them.”
Leadership, said Campbell, is about facing up to difficult issues, and sometimes telling people what they don’t want to hear — just as she did in Charlestown.
Joan Vennochi can be reached at joan.vennochi@globe.com. Follow her on Twitter @joan_vennochi.
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For Andrea Campbell, leadership means facing up to difficult issues - The Boston Globe
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