The op-ed of a Black mayoral candidate’s father in Springfield, Massachusetts, is under fire by several of the city’s Black leaders after they were called “Uncle Toms” and “Black Judases” in the article and portrayed as yes-men to the city’s white leadership.
In “The Worst Article I Ever Wrote” by Frederick Hurst, published in the African American Point of View newspaper, Hurst pitched a lengthy argument against 11 of Springfield’s Black leaders who he claimed chose to forego supporting his son, Justin Hurst, in a recent mayoral race to maintain a social and political status quo that would benefit white people in the town.
Frederick called out several people like city councilors Melvin Edwards and Lavar Click-Bruce, state Rep. Bud L. Williams, and Vietnam veteran Bernard McClusky for alleged “roles they played in sabotaging Justin’s mayoral election” and a so-called “unnecessary sin of abandoning their own.”
“Justin’s campaign was merely the beginning. The people have decided. And the Black Judas’s who strive so hard to thwart the future can be assured that they can’t avoid their inevitable fates,” Hurst wrote in the article. “The older ones are on short time and will soon face their maker. The younger ones are out of step with their own future. Change will come without them, and they will be left behind.”
Justin Hurst, a veteran councilman who has served on the city council for 10 years, ran a campaign that landed him second in the preliminary race for mayor. He ultimately lost to incumbent Mayor Domenic J. Sarno, who is white and the city’s longest-serving mayor.
Hurst’s father claims that the Black leaders he named in his op-ed are working on behalf of Sarno to further his agenda. He also purports that an “Irish/Italian conglomerate” politically dominates the town and “worked to divide the Black community against itself.”
Hurst claimed that the leaders he named misled the Black…
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