By Antonio D. French
Filed Wednesday, April 04, 2007 at 9:52 AM
Jennings is a city which has an 85% African-American population, yet has never elected a black mayor. In fact, it has very few black police officers and even less black firefighters. In short, it's like South Africa before Mandela was freed, minus the diamonds and tourism. Labels: Jennings
Yesterday, voters had a choice between the incumbent Mayor Ben Sutphin (who is white) and two black candidates, Yolonda Fountain-Henderson and Herman Barnes, Jr. Here are the results:
Sutphin — 48.06% (792 votes)
Henderson — 33.98% (560 votes)
Barnes — 17.96% (296 votes)
With a voter turnout of only 17.5%, by less than half of the total vote, Mayor Sutphin won re-election.
What are the lessons here?
