Local activist turned author describes The Battle for Boston under Mayor Flynn
By Sandra Storey / Special to the Gazette
The mayoral administration of Ray Flynn set a progressive tone and agenda that has lasted until today in Boston and around the country, according to The Battle for Boston: How Mayor Ray Flynn and Community Organizers Fought Racism and Downtown Power Brokers, by Jamaica Plain resident Don Gillis.
Gillis, with a doctorate in urban sociology and the sociology of education from Boston University now, was and is a political activist and community organizer who became a senior advisor to Flynn in those days.
“Flynn helped establish enduring foundations in neighborhoods, racial equality, and principles of sharing growth,” Gillis said in an interview early this month. “Ending racial violence was important to him,” Gillis said. “On the cultural level, racial tranquility made everything possible.”
Affordable housing was a strong component of Flynn’s administration, Gillis reports. Flynn, who was a City Councilor before he became mayor, had all departments that dealt with housing come together regularly to make sure permitting was getting done. “Linkage was the brew that kept it all together,” Gillis said.
Flynn’s care and respect for neighborhood people of all different groups comes through clearly in the book. He hired many local activists and community organizers to work for him, and he listened to them. Peter Dreier, Lisa Chapnick, Jovita Fontanez and Gillis himself were some examples.
Because of their progressive, new ideas, they got called “Sandinistas.” after the successful revolutionaries in Nicaragua in the late 1970s.
Flynn created Neighborhood Councils, which still exist today, to advise about City policies and actions in the neighborhoods. He appointed the original members. Now, most, including in JP, are chosen by neighborhood-wide election.
Flynn and his administration created quite a few other important departments, programs and policies during his service as mayor from 1984 to 1993 that remain in Boston government today. Gillis describes them and their inceptions in the book.
They include the Mayor’s Office of Neighborhood Services (MONS), Safe Neighborhoods, the Boston Neighborhood Basketball League, equity restrictions on affordable housing purchases, and a Community Disorders Unit in the police department to deal with race-related crimes.
Flynn had a strong hand in furthering linkage and inclusionary zoning to also create affordable housing out of market rate development.
Boston Mayor Michelle Wu praised Flynn on the book jacket. Five other politicians and scholars—including President Bill Clinton and Bill de Blasio, former Mayor of New York City and author of the foreword—have praised The Battle for Boston.
“After taking office during a time of financial crisis and deep division, Mayor Flynn helped bring people together to solve problems and advance the common good across the city’s neighborhoods. His administration made Boston better, fairer, and stronger,” Clinton wrote.
“The Battle for Boston helps us understand the challenges in urban America today and the role of progressive leadership in city politics. It is a must-read for students of urban politics and lovers of cities. It proves that progressives can win and put their vision into action,” de Blasio wrote.
Asked what motivated him to write the book, Gillis said, “I want people to learn why Boston came to be the way it is, how progressivism came from community organizers and a mayor working together.
“People expect to be listened to,” he added. “The progressivism [of the Flynn administration] offered a new set of expectations, a new set of responsibilities. People have to understand how we got where we are and how to sustain the progress.”
The Battle for Boston was released by Fordham University Press on May 6. Gillis is giving book talks in several neighborhoods this month: June 13, 6:30 p.m. Frugal Bookstore, 57 Warren St., Roxbury, in conversation with Mayor Ray Flynn. June 14, 2 p.m. Jamaica Plain Branch Library, 30 South St., Jamaica Plain, in conversation with City Councilor Ben Weber and Enid Eckstein. June 16, 6 p.m. Codman Square Branch Library, 690 Washington St., Dorchester, in conversation with Bill Walczak. June 17, 6 p.m. West End Museum, 150 Staniford St., Suite 7, Boston. For more information, visit battleforboston.com.
Sandra Storey is publisher emerita of the Jamaica Plain Gazette. Before becoming a journalist, Storey was appointed to the first Jamaica Plain Neighborhood Council in 1985 and was elected by the group to be the council chair