ABSTRACT
The city's white electorate seems to have been aroused and enthusiastic, while its African-American electorate lagged well behind the turnout rates that it had achieved in the mayoral elections of 1983 and 1987. The mayor's unwavering and virtually unanimous support among African-American voters had served to hold in line several African-American aldermen who felt more comfortable pursuing machine objectives than they did reform goals. The circumstances under which Eugene Sawyer became acting mayor shaped his administration. The network of activists and community organizations that had played so vital a role in the drive to register African-American voters and to elect a reform candidate as mayor remained in place during Washington's administration. The memories of past battles over integration issues remained alive, cutting across party lines, organizing political blocs, shaping mass reactions, and constraining efforts to enlarge the city's fledgling biracial coalition.
