Naptown’s First Black Mayor

Friends and Constituents,

What a week! On Monday, we came out in the hundreds to oppose the Google data center in Franklin Township - and won. This was perhaps the first defeat for Google in the United States, and earned some attention from populist leaders across the country:

But the very next day, I responded to the requests of my constituents to attend another meeting about data centers - this one a much smaller and less environmentally-devastating one being proposed for Martindale-Brightwood, just a few blocks away from District 13.

I was only at that meeting to listen - Councilor Ron Gibson represents the area, and thus has all the rights under our local government systems to support or oppose the project. But even just as a listener, I could hear Martindale-Brightwood residents crying out clearly.

Around 60 people showed up to the community meeting, and I think likely around 50 of them were outright opposed to the development; most of the others saw it as a net neutral for the neighborhood and simply wanted to be sure the developer came up with some sort of community benefit agreement.

Speaker after speaker clearly enunciated what local folks want most: attainable jobs, development that didn’t intensify gentrification, and local businesses that actually served local residents.

The people of Martindale-Brightwood want development, but it needs to be development that builds up the local community - not the kind that drains it of resources and displaces its residents.

The developer seemed mystified by the residents' request. Their representatives continued to emphasize that the way their project would benefit the community was by paying local taxes that could then be reinvested in the local community, but my experiences living in the 46218 zip code for the last 17 years have all taught me better. Reinvestment is not equal.

Black People Pay More and Get Less

Historically, a bigger tax base has not benefitted Martindale-Brightwood. Working class people pay far more than their fair share of taxes but do not get the benefits of a larger economy. Too often, parasitic property developers take advantage of low real estate prices and drive up property values, causing longtime residents to be displaced and replaced by a younger, whiter crowd from elsewhere.

Black people in Indianapolis have not had a political system that stands for them and their needs in this city - ever. Historic maps of my neighborhood from the 1930s indicate in bright colors that predominantly Black neighborhoods should not be targets for investment.

Then, in the 1960s and 1970s, white policymakers rerouted the expansion of I-65 and I-70 through Black neighborhoods, sparing their more affluent white neighbors. At the same time, my alma mater IUPUI displaced Black communities and destroyed much of the neighborhood infrastructure that supported Indiana Avenue Black-owned businesses.

Lest you believe this is ancient history, I will remind you that Black residents are worse off now, in many ways, than they were in 1970. Black homeownership rates in Indianapolis are currently lower than they were in 1970. The average net worth of a Black person in Marion County is also a horrifying one-tenth of the average net worth of a White person. Black people, who represent 30% of Marion County residents, make up 56% of the county’s homeless population. Black people are currently facing eviction rates much higher than their share of the renting population. The crisis is still here.

If we want to reverse racist redlining, a system where the white elite has drained the Black working class of its resources, we need leaders who are going to name and attack that system head on.

We need Indy's first Black mayor.

At the Martindale-Brightwood data center meeting, I was approached by a pastor I had worked with in the past.

The pastor talked to me at length about his disappointment in the way our City and its leaders responded to the needs of the Black community. We collectively bemoaned the fact that among the top 50 biggest cities in the United States, Indianapolis and Louisville are the ONLY ones that have never elected a Black or female mayor.

From this pastor’s perspective, we need a Black mayor to break the color barrier before we can ever hope to address the long history of systemic racism in Indy politics.

But I will take that sentiment one step further: Black people have been waiting long enough, and deserve more than “Black faces in high places.” We need a Black mayor who is going to unapologetically fight for the lives and well-being of Black people in this city.  

Bold, local action on housing

Our Black Mayor of Indianapolis would not sit silently on the sidelines while Black homelessness rose and Black evictions skyrocketed; instead, he or she would lead coalitions to reverse these longstanding housing trends. Despite the Statehouse’s racist and despotic preempting of policies that would help tenants, there is so much that a Black mayor could accomplish, along with a more activist City Council. Together, we could pass rent control ordinances locally. We could institute a vacancy tax, encouraging out-of-state or absentee property owners to develop their land or sell it to someone who will. Indianapolis could enforce the currently-toothless landlord registry we already have on the books. We could insist on providing escrow accounts, and could provide more legal aid to tenants. We could put City money aside to help support tenants’ unions and aggressively sue bad landlords. We could build public housing. We could refuse to let the Indianapolis Housing Agency slowly die, and leap in alongside the agency to get vouchers flowing.

Focus on affordability and access to transportation

A Black mayor would work to alleviate the transportation crisis as well, which robs our community of economic and social opportunity. He or she would absolutely refuse to allow IndyGo to raise their fares by 57% overnight, given that IndyGo admits their average rider is a Black mother riding the bus to and from work. A mayor who cared about Black people would raise taxes on the wealthy if necessary before allowing this tax on the poor to pass.

Address the cost of living crisis

Linda, the Black retiree who sat behind me at the meeting to discuss AES’s proposed 15% increase to electric bills, had her electricity turned off this summer for nonpayment by the monopoly, investor-owned utility company. Neither Joe Hogsett or Vop Osili testified against raising electric bills. Neither Hogsett nor Osili signed my letter demanding more opportunities for the public to testify. A mayor who fought for Black people would have attended every hearing, rallying the community and pushing back publicly against AES as they attempt to raise electric bills astronomically for working class people.

Make it so: Black Lives Matter

Our first Black mayor could ask the Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department some hard questions and insist on some reforms. In 2021, when the IndyStar won a Pulitzer Prize for reporting on the massive overuse of K9 units in Indianapolis, Mayor Hogsett was silent. When regular people in Indianapolis rose up demanding justice for Black lives, a Mayor fighting for Black people would have been on the front lines calming the public and listening to their pleas - rather than disappearing as the situation devolved into riots.

Public data available today appears to suggest that IMPD uses far more force against Black people than it does against other residents, including force deployed by the K9 division. Hogsett was silent again when in 2024, the State of Indiana mandated a return to a more deadly use-of-force policy.

By the same token, our first Black mayor would understand that public safety is vital to Black neighborhoods, and police must serve the whole community equally. My recent Affordable Housing townhall made it clear that Black seniors are at disproportionate risk of violence and danger in their public housing units, even while the Indianapolis Housing Agency totally collapses in slow motion.

Our first Black mayor would not just protect their first line deputies, but insist on substantial raises for the City departments that employ working class Black people - especially those doing grueling physical labor at the Department of Public Works. A Mayor fighting for Black people would not tolerate a state of affairs where Black people are overrepresented among the lowest-paid city employees, and underrepresented everywhere else. Such a Mayor would not force their own “Action Center” employees to unionize in order to receive respect and a living wage.

Make Indy beautiful: for Black and non-Black folks alike

Black residents of Indianapolis routinely live with the worst public infrastructure in longstanding neighborhoods that feature high densities of Black residents. Destroyed alleys, ancient sidewalks that have crumbled to dust, streets that pond water after each rain, and people forced to walk in the pothole-ridden streets to get to and from their jobs. District 13 is doing what we can to reverse this trend: we collectively chose to spend the one million dollars that each Councilor received in 2024 on sidewalks and drainage in historically Black neighborhoods. There’s humongous amounts of work still to be done, but the cost to build sidewalks and walking trails and tear down derelict buildings would be far cheaper than building a mega hotel or giving away prime real estate to the Indiana Fever. We can make different choices. It’s not a matter of money, it’s a matter of political will.

Extend economic opportunities to Black residents

Intentional, local investment in development can bring more prosperity and safety. Black people in Indianapolis, especially women and young people, have a vastly higher unemployment rate than the average Hoosier. Our first Black mayor could partner with the building trades to allow journeymen to supervise new workers learning to pour sidewalks, design and install landscaping, clean up job sites, do demolition work, and otherwise dip a toe into the building trades to see if they wanted to pursue the career path. More jobs means fewer people turning to illegal ways to make money. More jobs means fewer deaths of desperation. More jobs means more freedom and opportunity for everyone in the city. Many of the most promising apprentices could quickly move on to more skilled and higher-paying jobs.

Our first Black mayor should also insist that Black people own successful businesses, not just work at them. Indianapolis does far better than the national average in terms of Black entrepreneurship when it comes to founding new businesses. But many of these business owners spend their resources and energy fighting hard against the systems that are stacked against them. They have an extremely hard time getting off the ground and surviving. Our first Black mayor must build on the excellent work that David Fredricks and his Office of Minority and Women Business Development has undertaken, and match his leadership with commensurate resources and funding. The City of Indianapolis should be buying vacant retail sites in Black neighborhoods and operating business incubators in these sites, not just at downtown locations like the Stutz or 16 Tech. Our first Black mayor could sit and lead monthly roundtables from new business leaders to discuss what barriers are getting in their way, and could lead the charge on knocking these barriers down.

Save IPS from dismantlement, and fully fund public schools once and for all

In the realm of education, a Black Mayor would champion a fully-funded, fully-public education system that looks at high-performing, majority-Black public schools like James Whitcomb Riley School 43 for inspiration and dedicates sufficient resources to let every school follow their lead. Naptown’s first Black mayor would not be selling off public assets to charter schools within Center township or authorizing new charters across the city. The Black mayor should sit down openly and publicly to discuss education, not collaborate with Republicans at the Statehouse to prevent the public from observing education meetings.

Desegregation was supposed to result in equal opportunities for Black students, but because of white flight, has perpetuated a grossly unequal education system of haves and have-nots. Black students don't need experimentation and “innovation.” They need the same things they've always needed, the same things that white upper-class kids have always had: a stable, fully funded, community-run public schools system. That's exactly what a Black mayor should champion.

Fight back against racist State lawmakers

The unacceptable state of affairs facing the Black community are being caused by a disproportionately white Republic Statehouse with open disdain for Indianapolis’ urban population centers. These legislators, who also happen to be housing profiteers and proponents of harsh anti-tenant laws, want to rig the system even more. Statehouse leaders are now openly contemplating intentionally gerrymandering the few areas of the state that consistently elect Black representatives, in order to further their oppression of urban areas.

The supermajority Republican Statehouse wants us to think that we have no choice but to capitulate. These reactionaries want to drag us backwards, to a time when the Ku Klux Klan ruled our state. We need a Black Mayor to be visionary, leading the resistance to the racism of the past and towards an equitable future. A Black mayor cannot stand alone, but must be someone who can rally the people to defeat the regressive old guard, inspiring Hoosiers to struggle for a new type of politics that can change lives for the better. A visionary politics of hope could double the 27% turnout in Mayoral election years, and would likely drive a significantly higher turnout in Congressional, Statehouse, and Presidential elections as well. Very soon, the mayor would create a new political coalition that broke the Republican majorities at the Statehouse and won real victories for working people.

A Mayor of Indianapolis that fought this hard for Black people and Black issues would also be making the city a better place for all of the rest of us. As Martin Luther King, Jr., said so eloquently: “In a real sense all life is inter-related. All men are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly. I can never be what I ought to be until you are what you ought to be, and you can never be what you ought to be until I am what I ought to be… This is the inter-related structure of reality.”

A rising Black tide lifts all Indianapolis boats. Every policy and practice mentioned in this letter would benefit Black people tremendously, but wouldn’t benefit Black people exclusively. All of us who want a more fair deal in politics and in the economy - the 99% - would benefit from a leader of and among the working class, demanding justice and racial equity. Only a multiracial coalition of working class people fighting together could achieve this Black policy agenda in the face of the economic elites who use racism to divide us.

I’m ready to vote for this kind of a leader. What about you?

In love and solidarity,
Jesse