Proving the more things change, the more they stay the same.
January 26, 2005
Linda Dorcena Forry is running for Tom Finneran’s seat in a March special election. I can only guess that since there wasn’t any coverage, there was no one from the Globe at the gathering of 300 supporters in Dorchester on Tuesday night. This is unfortunate, because had the Globe come, they would have seen the “New Boston” that caught the pundits by surprise when Andrea Cabral won election as Suffolk County Sheriff. Lest the media be caught by surprise again, you should know that the crowd was about half black and half white and half male and half female. There were many seniors, and many young people. There were straights and gays, OFD (originally from Dorchester) people and newcomers. I met people who identified themselves as being from particular parishes, an affectation we’re famous for here, and people who have no idea of parish.
The identities of event co-Chairs speak volumes about what New Boston represents. Representative Marie St. Fleur, the first Haitian-American to hold an elected seat in Massachusetts shared honors with Ed Forry, Linda’s father-in-law, and the publisher of the Reporter Newspapers. His family’s twenty plus years of community service include publishing The Dorchester Reporter which (along with the Boston Banner) is one of the best, most vital community newspapers in the country, as well as the Boston Irish, Haitian and Mattapan Reporters. Linda received the support of groups whose common endorsements signify changing times, like the Carpenters Local 67, Caribbean-American Political Action Committee and DotOUT, a community group of gay and lesbian voters. Present were public servants like former Attorney General Bob Quinn, Department of Neighborhood Development Director Charlotte Golar Ritchie, former Representative Paul White, Cabral, St. Fleur and many more. Some of them were Old Boston. All of them are New Boston.
Unfortunately, I can’t vote for her, because I live in one of the contested precincts in the overblown Finneran redistricting controversy that you did cover extensively. This means that instead of continuing to vote with the neighborhood in New Boston with which I most strongly identify, I am represented by an elected official I’ve never seen at a community meeting. That’s Old Boston.
Joyce Linehan
Dorchester, MA