A mayor's race proves that 'building the pipeline works'

3 years ago

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November 3, 2021

Good morning, Broadsheet readers! COVID vaccines are approved for kids 5 and up, the DOJ sues to block Simon & Schuster’s acquisition, and we trace Boston’s path to its first female mayor of color. Have a wonderful Wednesday.
-The pipeline works. This morning, the U.S. is taking stock of the results of yesterday’s off-cycle elections—including a Boston mayoral race that elevated the first-ever woman of color to lead the New England city.
Michelle Wu, a 36-year-old progressive and Elizabeth Warren mentee, won the seat decisively. Wu is Asian American, with parents who immigrated to the U.S. from Taiwan. The New York Times has a compelling profile of the mayor-elect and her family here.
One of the most interesting aspects of the race for Boston mayor was that, no matter who won, it would have been a historic outcome. Annissa Essaibi George, Wu’s opponent, is also a woman of color, a first-generation Arab-Polish American.
So, how does a city that has never been led by anyone other than white men find itself with not one, but two strong candidates to break that streak?
According to this insightful piece from The 19th, it all goes back to the Boston City Council. For years, the 13-person council didn’t reflect the diversity of the city it represents. (Boston is a majority minority city—i.e. more than half of its citizens are people of color.) It wasn’t until 2009 that the first woman color (now-U.S. Rep. Ayanna Pressley) was elected to the body. Today, the council is majority women and people of color. The city’s mayoral primary in September featured four non-white women who serve on the council, including Wu and Essaibi George.
One of the factors that has helped drive that transformation, according to The 19th, is a local chapter of Emerge, an organization that trains Democratic women to run for office. (Pressley helped start the Boston chapter in 2008.) Emerge Massachusetts says it has since trained nearly 500 women, more than 100 of whom are serving in the state’s government, Wu and Essaibi George among them.
“For me, it’s not surprising that we’re going to see Boston with its first elected woman mayor, woman of color mayor, and that woman will be an Emerge alum of Massachusetts no matter who wins,” A’shanti Gholar, president of Emerge, told The 19th. “This is how building the pipeline works. It really starts with that one woman who makes change but then continues to lift as she climbs into new roles.”
She continues: “This work does take time. Change doesn’t happen overnight.”
There’s a lesson here—and one that has implications that extend far beyond politics. To alter who’s at the top, you have to start much farther down the ladder, making a long-term commitment to change. Yes, it takes time, effort, resources, patience—but ultimately you end up with something much larger than any one person, or even any single “first” like the one notched by Boston last night. You get a future filled with new faces, ready to rewrite the course of history.
Kristen Bellstrom
kristen.bellstrom@fortune.com
@kayelbee
The Broadsheet, Fortune’s newsletter for and about the world’s most powerful women, is coauthored by Kristen Bellstrom, Emma Hinchliffe, and Claire Zillman. Today’s edition was curated by Emma Hinchliffe.

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PARTING WORDS

"I made the decision to make the performance about a real woman and not about the idea of a bad woman."
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