news-record.com

There's an undercurrent in High Point's Ward 2 City Council race: Beat the white guy.

He's Pride Grimm Jr., one of five candidates running for a seat from the east-central district. The other four are black, as is a fifth who filed but quit his campaign.

Ward 2 was drawn explicitly for the purpose of electing a black representative, and it always has. Ron Wilkins, the longtime councilman for Ward 2, is retiring this year.

At a time when the U.S. Supreme Court is considering a racial redistricting case from Eastern North Carolina, there's a fascinating drama under way in High Point's Ward 2.

The question before the court is whether a district configured to comply with Voting Rights Act requirements must have a "majority minority." In other words, if the goal is to elect black representatives, must the voting-age population be 50-plus percent black? If not, is a "coalition" or "crossover" district sufficient? In many cases, the black population can fall to as low as 42 percent and enough white voters will join with black voters to elect a black candidate.

But High Point's Ward 2 isn't in that category. Far from it. Its voting-age population is nearly 65 percent black. There's no question it lies safely within any imaginable parameters covered by the Voting Rights Act. Never has anyone other than a black candidate made a credible run for the Ward 2 seat.

Until now. Grimm, 31, is intelligent, speaks well and offers good ideas.

And those praises come from one of his opponents, Julius Clark, a former High Point NAACP president.

Clark was generous in his comments about Grimm during my conversation with him Monday. But he also reminded me of the ward's history dating back to the 1980s.

"The ward system was created so we would have representation," Clark said, speaking of black people.

Then, about Grimm, he acknowledged: "He lives in Ward 2. It's open to anyone to run. I would never say because the ward was created for African Americans, he doesn't have a right to run."

The problem in some eyes, however, is not that Grimm is running but that he might win.

The reason: High Point's screwy City Council election.

City leaders decided to move municipal elections, previously held in odd-numbered years like Greensboro's and nearly every other city's, to even-numbered years. The idea was to increase voter turnout.

This is the first time out. Turnout is going to be sky-high, no doubt. It's another matter how many voters, fired up by the presidential race, will even consider City Council candidates.

Even worse, because of the intense election activity, High Point did away with primaries and runoffs. The field of candidates wasn't narrowed, and a majority of votes isn't needed to win.

Let's do the math: With six names on the Ward 2 ballot, someone theoretically can receive as little as 17 percent of the vote and win.

Consider again the voter registration numbers for Ward 2, by race: 65 percent black, 30 percent white, 5 percent other or no response.

Suppose voters follow race: Grimm gets 30 percent. Maybe the other candidates divide the black vote. In that scenario, Grimm wins. For the next two years, the white minority candidate represents one of High Point's two black-majority wards.

The possibility apparently has some people very upset.

Tony Davis, another candidate, made a point in a conversation with me of expressing alarm that a "Caucasian" could be elected -- and one who's a registered Republican at that.

Grimm says Davis is sharing that concern with others as well. He accuses Foster Douglass and Clark of the same.

Clark denies it. Douglass hasn't returned my call.

Grimm says they're "trying to play the race card," adding: "If that's all they have to stand on ... I think the people of Ward 2 are definitely smart enough to see past that."

Grimm says race doesn't come up when he campaigns door-to-door whether the residents are white or black. He's visited black churches and been greeted with "nothing but openness and acceptance." He lives in a mixed-race neighborhood where people get along fine.

"I don't see a bunch of racism in Ward 2 except from the people I'm running against," Grimm told me, excluding Jerry Mingo.

I hope he's overstating the situation, although racial politics can turn ugly.

I understand the background. Before the ward system, black candidates seldom stood a chance of winning a High Point City Council seat. Most other offices were out of reach, too. Forty years ago, or even less, black voting was suppressed.

But times are changing for the better, as the likely election of Barack Obama as president will show.

High Point has changed, too. It's been nine years since Al Campbell, who is black, won an at-large City Council seat with well over 60 percent of the vote. He lost the 2003 mayor's race to Becky Smothers, but Becky Smothers beats everyone.

This year, Mary Lou Blakeney stands a good chance of winning an at-large seat. No one suggests that shouldn't happen because she's black and most High Point voters are white.

Grimm wants a seat on the City Council, and he happens to live in Ward 2. He's entitled to run, and the voters are entitled to elect him if they want. If racial voting has any legitimacy, it's as valid for the 30 percent of Ward 2 voters who are white as it is for the 65 percent who are black.

If Grimm wins, he'll have a two-year opportunity to prove he can represent all residents fairly. Then, if the black population insists on having a black councilman, it will have the chance to unite behind one black candidate.

Does race really matter that much in local politics? We ought to hope it doesn't, but the voters will decide.

Thanks for reading. You're welcome to call me at 373-7039, e-mail me at dgclark@news-record.com or comment on my blog.