By Greg Forester, Staff Writer
Princeton Borough Mayor Mildred Trotman told a Saturday symposium at Princeton University that she doesn’t foresee running for office again.
Mayor Trotman, who joined other current and former black mayors in a discussion titled “From the Middle Passage to the Oval Office: Defining the Black Experience,” was re-elected in 2007 and would next come up for re-election in 2011.The mayoral panel also featured former New York City Mayor David Dinkins and Trenton Mayor Douglas H. Palmer, who shared their thoughts about the election of President Barack Obama and the incredible journey his election represents for a nation that continues to wrestle with racism.
Mayor Trotman, whose unexpected pronouncement elicited a response of “never say never” from Mr. Dinkins, also recalled her early life in South Carolina, attending segregated schools and using secondhand books handed down from white students. She told of listening to her parents argue over whether or not to let some of their 12 children out on the weekends, for fear they might end up dead.
”My mother was terrified,” Mayor Trotman said.
Asked by moderator Linda Coles-Kauffman about U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder’s recent remarks about the continued presence of racism in the United States, Mr. Dinkins said he believes that prejudice continues to infect both whites and blacks. Ignoring racism, however, was a surefire way to ensure its continued existence, he said.
”We will never cure racism, as long as we don’t acknowledge it,” Mr. Dinkins said.
Mayor Palmer said that even today, after nearly 20 years in office and five consecutive terms, he continues see racism in Trenton, a city whose population he estimated to be 55 percent black. “I am still marginalized in a lot of ways,” he said.
The Trenton mayor described an incident at a senior housing complex in the city’s South Ward, following his 1990 election victory over a white incumbent in a campaign that split the city along racial lines. A blind white resident at the center complained of rheumatism, arthritis and — using the n-word— the fact that a black man had been elected to office. The man went on to blame the election outcome on the fact that the name “Douglas Palmer” must have sounded white to white voters.
Turning to President Obama’s November election victory, Mayor Trotman said she was “shocked” that he won, although she recognized the former Illinois senator’s ability to reach out to diverse groups of Americans without pitting them against one another.
Such a trend went against traditional political strategy of representing particular constituents, she said. “Usually, a politician represents (those) constituents or he won’t be a politician anymore,” Mayor Trotman said.
President Obama benefited from his upbringing and being raised by a biracial couple around whites, according to Mayor Palmer, who said he too had grown up around whites, in a predominantly Jewish neighborhood in the city’s West Ward.
Also heavily improving President Obama’s prospects for victory was the fact that he was running in an election following the presidency of George W. Bush.
”You want to know how bad George W. Bush was?” said Mayor Palmer. “The next president was black.”
Mayor Palmer said national problems — health care, the economy, and others — had also begun to weigh more heavily on the county’s white population.
”People wanted real change,” Mayor Palmer said.
Mr. Dinkins, who was New York City’s first black mayor from 1990 to 1993, said that President Obama was not elected because he was black, but because of his eloquence and ability to reach out to disparate groups.
”They say you campaign in poetry and govern in prose,” said Mr. Dinkins, noting the new president grasped the concept very well.
The work of civil rights leaders and black trailblazers also figured heavily into President Obama’s election, Mr. Dinkins said, noting the work of Malcolm X and the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., among others.
Mr. Dinkins also credited black trailblazers like Manhattan Borough President Percy Sutton who waged an unsuccessful race against Ed Koch, during the 1977 Democratic mayoral primary in New York.

