Most major law firms lack Black partners. Greater Boston has only one Black leader of a major union, and the power group of chief executives known as the Massachusetts Competitive Partnership has no Black members (Wen et al, 2017).
Nonetheless, Black political representation is on the upswing in the region. In 2018, Boston
City Councilor Ayanna Pressley was elected to Congress. In Brockton, political representation is trying to catch up, but Whites hold 85% of the political seats. In 2010, Jass Stewart became the first person of color on Brockton City Council. Since then, Brockton sent a Cape Verdean and a recent Haitian immigrant, as well as a Black female to the City Council. Both communities are also seeking office at higher and higher levels. Moises Rodriguez, a Cape Verdean immigrant, became the first mayor of color the city has ever had when he was selected to replace the late mayor, Bill Carpenter who died in office in 2019. Jimmy Pereira, who is Cape Verdean, and Jean Bradley Derenoncourt, who is of Haitian heritage, were both in their twenties when they ran for the Mayor’s position in 2019. Derenoncourt’s story is especially illuminating of the Black immigrant story. After settling in Brockton, following the 2010 Earthquake in Haiti, Derenoncourt learned English through an ESL program at a branch of the Brockton Public Library. Then he earned his GED, and completed his bachelor’s degree at Suffolk University in Boston. Unfortunately, both Derenoncourt and Pereira lost the election to a white candidate, former city councilman, Robert F. Sullivan.
Black and African American elected figures are calling for needed change in Roxbury and
Brockton. Kim Janey, on Boston City Council, is addressing gentrification in Roxbury, arguing for a property tax on new luxury buildings to help Roxbury residents keep their homes. In Brockton, elected officials are seeking ways to bring Black immigrants into the political core. In her dissertation research on political incorporation of immigrants, Victoria Show interviewed Brockton’s Cape Verdeans. Respondents noted that “[t]he new immigrants are not part of the story Brockton tells …” (Show, Victoria, 2016), and that “the European immigrants of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries were … seen as the real Brocktonians.” And that is clear in Brockton’s fixation on boxer Rocky Marciano, who is Italian, as the city’s favorite son. (Show, Victoria, 2016).
Black immigrants continue to assert their presence through inter-ethnic community
coalitions to influence Brockton politics, and, in Boston, they are gaining greater and wider visibility and influence.
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