Unless yet another “Herenton shock” has occurred between the writing
of these words on Tuesday and the mayor’s scheduled leave-taking from
his duties on Thursday, the city of Memphis is finally about to enter
onto new and uncharted paths. It has long been presumed by the political
cognoscenti that Shelby County mayor A C Wharton — conciliatory
where Herenton is challenging; smooth where the outgoing Memphis mayor
has been peremptory — will accede to the job of city mayor. But
we have been through multiple surprises of late, and we’re not about to
take anything for granted.
The special mayoral election, certified by the City Council and
scheduled by the Election Commission, will take place on October 27th.
We’ll know who wins it when they’re finished counting the votes —
and not until — although there is reason to believe that Wharton
may have ranked prohibitively high in the poll that city councilman and
erstwhile mayoral prospect Jim Strickland recently commissioned, only
to decide against running upon receipt of it.
In summing up the 18 years of Mayor Herenton, it would be unfair to
judge the man only, or even mainly, by the conflict-of-interest
questions that have swirled up around him in recent years, or by the
increasing cronyism of his administration, or by his manifest boredom
with his job, or even by his ominous evocations of the race issue as he
revs up for an apparent run against 9th District congressman Steve
Cohen. The word “racist” as an epithet to describe his critics surfaced
only last week, when the mayor chose to be offended by public
questioning of his on-again, off-again timetable for leaving, so we
fear we shall hear it again as a counter to all sorts of future
questions.
Yet this is also the man who provided a reasonably seamless
transition in 1991 between all the years of white-dominated, even
segregated, city government that preceded him and the generation of
slow but real racial accommodation that has followed. Yes, there has
been “white flight” (and middle-class black flight, as well), but
personal and professional relationships across the old racial barrier
have multiplied since 1991, and Herenton is entitled to some credit for
that — as he certainly is for his vaunted conversion of
dilapidated public housing into some of the showcase projects that now
dot the city’s landscape.
In other words, things could have been a lot worse. We at the
Flyer named Mayor Herenton “Man of the Year” for 1997 for his
resourceful, even heroic defense of the city’s growth prerogatives
against the encroachments of the infamous “toy town” act that would
have balkanized Shelby County and hemmed in Memphis. Without Herenton’s
pressing the issue, the act might never have been tested by the state
Supreme Court and declared unconstitutional.
In any case, we wish ex-Mayor Herenton (though not necessarily
candidate Herenton) well as he enters the next phase of his life and
career. He has been a titanic influence in our affairs, and his
reputation can only grow if he comports himself with dignity — or
sadly sink if he does not.
