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Racial Milestone in York, Pa.

Decades After Riots, First African-American Poised to Be Mayor

(See Corrections & Amplifications item below.)

YORK, Pa. -- Forty years after race riots erupted on its streets, this city in the southeastern corner of Pennsylvania is about to elect its first African-American mayor.

Both the Democrat and Republican candidates are African-American, with Democrat Kim Bracey, York's former director of community development and a relative newcomer to politics, the favorite to win in a city where Democratic voters outnumber Republicans by nearly 2 to 1.

Republican Wendell Banks failed to appear at the only scheduled debate earlier this month, later saying that he was ill. He couldn't be reached to comment.

In 1969, police warn volunteer firefighters not to head to a fire because of a sniper during riots in York. The city was slow to heal in the years that followed. ENLARGE

It has taken a long time for this city to heal from the racial strife, in part because of lingering echoes of the riots. More than 30 years passed before any charges were brought -- after new evidence came to light and an investigation was revived -- in the 1969 killings of a white police officer and an African-American woman during weeks of violence between white and black youths.

In 2001, York's mayor, who had been a police officer during the unrest, was charged with murder for allegedly inciting white gangs involved in killing the African-American woman. The mayor resigned before being acquitted in 2002. Others were convicted of murder, in separate cases, of the woman and the police officer.

"It took a while to clean that slate," said John Brenner, York's current mayor, adding that the coming election "is something for us to celebrate."

Civil-rights historians say the election is an important symbolic shift for the city and credit decades of antidiscrimination initiatives and the more recent influx of minorities, particularly Hispanics, who have eroded the dominance of white voters. Those gradual changes received a boost from last year's election of President Barack Obama, which energized the African-American community here and led to increased voter registration.

Larger cities such as Detroit, Cleveland and Newark, N.J., which were torn by the racial upheaval of the 1960s, elected African-American mayors decades ago. The fact that York took much longer is partly a function of its size and demographics. The city has a population of 40,000, and only recently has its relatively static ethnic makeup been altered by the growth of its Hispanic population. Terry Madonna, a political-science professor at Franklin & Marshall College in nearby Lancaster, Pa., said other cities with growing minority populations elected black mayors sooner because white leaders had included more African-Americans in their administrations, giving them a platform to run for office themselves. York, he said, long had a "white governing structure...around these minority communities."

Ms. Bracey, who won a contested primary against three other candidates, is "riding a wave left over from the Obama experience," said Jeffrey Lynn Woodyard, a York native and former African-American studies professor. Mr. Woodyard, who had been teaching in Florida, returned to York last fall and has offered campaign advice to Ms. Bracey.

The Republican Party has all but conceded the race to the Democrat. "Kim Bracey will be the first African-American mayor, and I think she's a good candidate," said A. Carville Foster Jr., chairman of the Republican Party of York County.

Ms. Bracey had little political experience before being named to head the city's community-development department. She had previously run a nonprofit community organization assisting the poor, and had served in the Air Force.

Ms. Bracey acknowledged that she will have to deal with some continuing racial tensions. Recently, vandals painted "KKK" on signs leading to a community housing development. "Racial progress in the city is definitely improving," Ms. Bracey said. "Obviously there's work left to be done in York in terms of equality."

Back in 1969, riots erupted in York after a white gang member shot and wounded a black youth. During one week, Henry Schaad, a white, 22-year-old York police officer, was shot while patrolling the city in an armored truck, and Lillie Belle Allen, a 27-year-old African-American visiting from Aiken, S.C., was shot to death after her car stalled near a roadblock where armed whites had gathered. Mr. Schaad died soon after. Two small granite benches bearing their names now sit facing each other in a city park near the shootings sites.

Barry Schaad, who was 24 when his brother Henry died, said having two African-American candidates running for mayor "is a step forward" for the city. "Hopefully, York will start to be a better place."

The next mayor will face challenges beyond race relations. York, a red-brick city with a long industrial history, is struggling from the loss of manufacturing jobs and rising crime, and it is one of the poorest cities in Pennsylvania, with a median annual income of $27,640.

Write to Kris Maher at

Corrections & Amplifications:

Median household income in York, Pa., is $27,640. An earlier version of this article incorrectly stated that median annual income was $13,000.

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