David Dinkins, three decades later: Learning from the mayor’s unlikely victory

David Dinkins, three decades later: Learning from the mayor’s unlikely victory

By Errol Louis
New York Daily News
January 9, 2020

On New Year’s Day 30 years ago, New York’s first black mayor took the oath of office, following one of the most extraordinary grass-roots campaigns in the city’s history — one that contains valuable lessons for today’s leaders and would-be candidates.

At a time when many self-promoting politicians are driven by personal vanity and pride, Dinkins stands as an example of how far political selflessness and quiet strength can take you. In 1989, he performed the unlikely feat of defeating a sitting mayor, Ed Koch, in the Democratic primary, and went on to beat another political titan, Rudy Giuliani, in the general election.

When I asked him about it recently, Dinkins — with characteristic modesty — gave the credit to others.

“I do remember being able to say, I beat Rudy and Koch, and what an accomplishment,” Dinkins told me. “Not because of me, but because of everyone around me.” (Our conversation is online at You Decide, my podcast.)

In some ways, the most amazing thing about the 1989 campaign is that Dinkins — who was Manhattan borough president at the time — wasn’t even sure he wanted to run, until a diverse group of political leaders talked him into it.

The emerging coalition — painstakingly cobbled together by Bill Lynch, a legendary labor and political organizer — included black officials, white and Latino progressives, labor leaders and community activists.

Many of these groups and individuals fought bitterly among themselves before the campaign. But they came together for Dinkins, spurred by a growing sense that the Koch administration, tarnished by a spectacular corruption scandal and growing racial tensions, had run its course.

“It was a rough period in New York City,” says Ken Sunshine, who worked on the campaign and later became chief of staff in the Dinkins administration. “The economy was terrible, there was a lot of unemployment. It was also the crack epidemic: kids were mugging grandma for money for a quick fix. The subways were really dangerous and New York frankly looked like it was falling apart. Politically, it was time for a change.”

Change meant challenging Koch, who at that point was one of the best-known politicians in America. It also meant simultaneously defeating two other Democrats in the race: Jay Goldin, the city controller, and Richard Ravitch, who had served as MTA chairman (and decades later would become lieutenant governor).

“[Koch] had been a very liberal, progressive member of the City Council and the Congress, and we all supported him,” Dinkins said. “There came a time when we felt he had moved more and more to the right. The deal was, somebody needs to run against Koch. And they suggested that I should run. I said, ‘You’ve gotta be kidding — do you know how hard I worked to become Manhattan borough president?’"

Dinkins had won the borough presidency — at the time, one of the most powerful posts in city government — in 1985 after two unsuccessful efforts. Now his allies were asking him to risk everything by taking on Koch.

“In a sense, I was drafted,” he said.

On the day Dinkins announced, a campaign aide, Barbara Turk, accompanied him to the Lesbian and Gay Community Services Center on 13th St.

“He got out of the car, and then all these flashbulbs went off. It’s so clear to me, to this day. I was like, this is different,” Turk recalls. “There’s a lot of hope riding on this campaign, this man.”

What I remember most about volunteering on the campaign was the feeling that it was an experiment with a high likelihood of failure.

Everybody on the campaign was upbeat — especially the wisecracking volunteer coordinator, a tall, skinny kid named Bill de Blasio. But nobody was sure that a motley alliance of outsiders — blacks, gays, Latinos, union members and white liberals — could win a big race.

But Dinkins proved that they could. A lesson worth remembering.