To Be Equal: Federal Overreach Seeks to Undermine the Success of America’s Black Mayors
“Public safety is people having a roof over their heads, good-paying jobs, strong schools, and accessible mental health care. That’s what safety looks like.”
—Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson
“The status quo has failed. We cannot police our way out of crime. We have to invest in people, prevention, and healing.”
—Baltimore Mayor Brandon Scott
American cities reflect the soul of the nation. From their skylines and cultural institutions to their small businesses and neighborhoods, cities are where American identity is built, tested, and transformed. They are global symbols of innovation, diversity, and resilience, and their leadership is central to the nation’s future.
For generations, Black mayors have shaped that future by fighting for equity, accountability, and justice. Their leadership has centered marginalized communities and expanded access to opportunity. Today, that legacy is as vital as ever.
This past week, misleading statements from national leadership describing the District of Columbia as overtaken by “violent gangs,” “roving mobs of wild youth,” and “drugged-out maniacs” evoked a familiar and troubling pattern. Once again, fear-based narratives are being used to justify federal overreach and to undermine local governance, particularly in cities led by Black mayors. These attacks are not only factually inaccurate, but they are also politically motivated, racially coded, and historically rooted.
Across the country, Black mayors are demonstrating that community-based leadership is effective and transformative. The work of mayors past and present illustrates a sustained commitment to justice, even in the face of systemic barriers and public criticism.
In the 1970s, Detroit Mayor Coleman Young eliminated the city’s notoriously violent STRESS unit and implemented one of the earliest models of community policing. He understood that policing without accountability erodes public trust.
In New Orleans, my father, Ernest “Dutch” Morial, fought to integrate city departments and create more equitable access to public services. As the city’s first Black mayor, he laid a foundation for representative governance at the local level.
During my own two terms as New Orleans mayor, our investments in innovative youth programs and a commitment to police accountability slashed the rate of violent crime in half and transformed a corrupt law enforcement agency into a national model.
Washington, D.C.’s Mayor Marion Barry expanded youth employment and education programs, launching the city’s first summer jobs initiative and establishing a precedent for municipal investment in young people.
Today, that legacy continues.
Baltimore Mayor Brandon Scott’s Group Violence Reduction Strategy, grounded in community engagement and public health, has contributed to the lowest levels of homicides the city has seen in more than 30 years. In Chicago, Mayor Brandon Johnson has prioritized early childhood education, youth employment, and mental health access, alongside a measurable decline in gun violence. Mayor Karen Bass in Los Angeles is advancing housing-first strategies to address homelessness and has pushed back against federal attempts to criminalize urban poverty and violations of the Constitution with the attempted ICE takeovers this June.
These leaders and many others are governing with urgency, guided by data and driven by the needs of their communities. They are not only responding to crises. They are reshaping systems.
This is not new. Black mayors have long served as a moral compass in American cities, advocating for marginalized populations, resisting federal overreach, and creating innovative local policies rooted in justice.
The challenges cities face, from public safety to housing, from education to economic inclusion, demand comprehensive solutions and collaborative leadership. What they do not need are politically charged narratives that undermine progress and demonize communities.
To be equal, America must trust the leadership of its cities. It must invest in their success. And it must recognize the historic and ongoing contributions of Black mayors who have turned local governance into a platform for transformative change.
Their legacy is not one of chaos. It is one of courage, care, and commitment to what is right.
—August 16, 2025
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ChildWatch: “The America That Is Yet to Come”
This month marked the 60th anniversary of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, the historic legislation President Lyndon B. Johnson signed into law at the U.S. Capitol with many of the Democratic and Republican lawmakers who had helped secure its large bipartisan victory and civil rights leaders, including Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., John Lewis, and Mrs. Rosa Parks, by his side. In his remarks President Johnson was very clear as he shared his views about the truth of American history that began in 1619 and led up to that moment:
“Today is a triumph for freedom as huge as any victory that has ever been won on
any battlefield. Yet to seize the meaning of this day, we must recall darker times. Three and a half centuries ago the first Negroes arrived at Jamestown. They did not arrive in brave ships in search of a home for freedom. They did not mingle fear and joy, in expectation that in this New World anything would be possible to a man strong enough to reach for it. They came in darkness and they came in chains. And today we strike away the last major shackle of those fierce and ancient bonds. Today the Negro story and the American story fuse and blend.”
President Johnson continued: “The stories of our Nation and of the American Negro are like two great rivers. Welling up from that tiny Jamestown spring they flow through the centuries along divided channels. When pioneers subdued a continent to the need of man, they did not tame it for the Negro. When the Liberty Bell rang out in Philadelphia, it did not toll for the Negro. When Andrew Jackson threw open the doors of democracy, they did not open for the Negro. It was only at Appomattox, a century ago, that an American victory was also a Negro victory. And the two rivers—one shining with promise, the other dark-stained with oppression—began to move toward one another. Yet, for almost a century the promise of that day was not fulfilled. Today is a towering and certain mark that, in this generation, that promise will be kept. In our time the two currents will finally mingle and rush as one great stream across the uncertain and the marvelous years of the America that is yet to come.”
After outlining concrete steps his administration would take next to do its part to fulfill this promise and enforce the law, President Johnson ended his remarks by returning to the American ideals the Voting Rights Act embodied: “The central fact of American civilization—one so hard for others to understand—is that freedom and justice and the dignity of man are not just words to us. We believe in them. Under all the growth and the tumult and abundance, we believe. And so, as long as some among us are oppressed—and we are part of that oppression—it must blunt our faith and sap the strength of our high purpose. Thus, this is a victory for the freedom of the American Negro. But it is also a victory for the freedom of the American Nation. And every family across this great, entire, searching land will live stronger in liberty, will live more splendid in expectation, and will be prouder to be American because of the act that you have passed that I will sign today.”
The contrast between that moment and this one is abundantly clear.
When the Voting Rights Act was first enacted, I was in the trenches as a young civil rights lawyer directing the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund (LDF) office in Jackson, Mississippi. As LDF and its current President and Director-Counsel Janai Nelson say, that battle has a new front today: “[W]e again find ourselves at a moment where Black people’s political power is under severe threat, and the
legitimacy of our democracy is undermined as a result. In recent years, the legislative intent of the VRA was severely undercut by two Supreme Court decisions, rendering the law unable to fully protect those it was designed to empower. When coupled with the passage of regressive voting rights laws at the state level, it’s abundantly clear that American democracy is in crisis. States with a history of race discrimination in voting are continuing to suppress the votes of our country’s most marginalized groups in a concerted effort to consolidate power and further entrench white supremacy with sanction from a majority in Congress that refuses to act . . . If we are to continue the pursuit of the multiracial democracy that the VRA set in motion 60 years ago and if we are to honor our republican form of government founded on representation by the people, we must be unwavering in our commitment to fulfill the promise of Selma, refuse to cede any further ground, and mobilize in support of equal voting rights and fair elections.”
Today LDF and Children’s Defense Fund are both among the more than 200 coalition members of the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights calling on Congress to renew the commitment to protecting the freedom to vote by passing the John R. Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act, and inviting Americans everywhere to join the same call. It is a reaffirmation of the fundamental American belief that freedom and justice and dignity are not just words and the unceded determination to fulfill the complete promise of the America that is yet to come.
—August 22, 2025
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Come back next week to read from Ben Jealous.
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