Vote Power

Shouting, dancing Negroes weaved wildly through six downtown blocks of Gary, Ind., blocking the city's major north-south artery for nearly four hours. It was not a riot but a rip-roaring victory celebration; their chant was not "Black power!" but "We beat the machine!" Through the nonincendiary power of the ballot box, Gary's Negroes had ousted the corruption-ridden regime of Mayor A. Martin Katz (TIME, April 29, 1966) and nominated one of their own race as the Democratic mayoral candidate in next November's general election. With their support, Richard Hatcher, 33, a bright, articulate lawyer and city councilman, had indeed beaten the machine.

In contrast to Mayor Katz, who fought a demagogic battle for the nomination (his opponent was "a radical, extremist, and advocate of black power") Hatcher ran a smooth, cool campaign, carrying his appeal to white as well as Negro neighborhoods, promising equal treatment to both. Though a fraction (4.5%) of the city's white voters did cast their ballots for him (as well as 10% of the Negroes), Hatcher indirectly owed his victory to the white-backlash that gave George Wallace the overwhelming support of Gary's white voters in the 1964 presidential primary. Openly appealing to anti-Negro voters, a third candidate, Bernard Konrady, siphoned off more than 13,000 votes that would most likely have gone to Katz--five times as many as the mayor would have needed to wipe out Hatcher's minuscule (2,462) majority.

If Hatcher were white, he would be certain of victory; the machine has made Indiana's second biggest city a Democratic fiefdom for more than 50 years. As a Negro, he must campaign on ability and personality. He has both, and already has firm plans to wipe out the prostitution and gambling that have made "Steel City U.S.A."--as its boosters like to call it--synonymous with vice in a large section of the Midwest. "I hope to give the people of Gary an administration of which they can be proud," Hatcher says without a trace of braggadocio. "I'm going to be the best mayor Gary has ever had."

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