The Battle for Newark
Sharpe James vs. Cory Booker

--BY Shakti Bhatt and Mark J. Magyar

Cory Booker did not have high expectations for his visit to the Kretchmer Homes in Newark's South Ward. This was Sharpe James territory, and no matter what Booker said or did, on May 14, the vote out of the manila cinderblock meeting room, also known as South Station Voting District 49, would belong to James. "I can't really tell what the vote will be, but people here are happy with Mayor James," said Nannie Fitts, president of the Tenants Association. Nevertheless, for Booker, it would be one of the most memorable afternoons of his long campaign for mayor.

Booker had attended the Tenants Association's meeting the month before, but only James had been allowed to speak. Fitts, who had lived in the Kretchmer Homes senior housing facility for 20 years, had made sure he was invited back for his turn this month.

Of the 30 people in the room, however, only a few applauded politely when Fitts introduced Booker. Several city officials, wearing blue "Sharpe James for Mayor" stickers on their suits, continued talking loudly in the back.

"When my father came up from North Carolina, he worked on Ken Gibson's campaign," Booker said, seeking a connection with the audience. It had been 10 years since the Yale Law School student had come to Newark as a volunteer, four years since he had been elected to the City Council, but his privileged suburban upbringing and education were a hurdle to overcome whenever he spoke in places like the Kretchmer Homes.

"I'm the beneficiary of a lot of struggle ‹ people like Ken Gibson, people like Ivy Turner, people like Sharpe James who fought for our rights as African-Americans," he said. "They did a lot of good things, but it's been 32 years since Ken Gibson and Sharpe James were elected. It's time for new leadership."

Booker could barely be heard over the cacophony of loud conversations, shouted interruptions, the chanting from the hall outside, and the constant blaring over a bullhorn of a woman who insisted that she too was running for mayor and deserved to be heard just as much as Booker.

The Housing Authority officials with the stick-on Sharpe James badges watched with pleasure. When Booker tried to talk about his early years as a resident activist driving the drug dealers out of the Brick Towers housing complex, an older man in a Yankees jacket started shouting, "They tore the building down! What did you protect? You can't sell drugs on dry land!"

"I still live in Apartment 6C," Booker insisted. In fact, Booker had held a press conference that morning in front of the Brick Towers. But the man in the Yankees jacket kept insisting that the towers were no longer there and continued to shout Booker down, pausing only when he could no longer be heard himself over the insistent demands of the woman with the bullhorn.

A security guard stood holding the arm of the man in the Yankees jacket, but made no real attempt to move him out of the room.

"Let's have order!" Fitts urged, and Booker kept talking, although few were listening.

Then, to the surprise of all but the Housing Authority officials who had called him, Sharpe James strode into the room, fresh from his official announcement speech. "The Real Deal," he said, pumping his right fist and intoning the new campaign slogan Governor McGreevey's campaign consultant, Brad Lawrence, had coined for him. "The Real Deal. For Newark."

The woman with the bullhorn kept blaring, "I'm a candidate for mayor too. I'm running too."

Continued