1 month ago
15
You have a preview view of this article while we are checking your access. When we have confirmed access, the full article content will load.
The mayor is losing support from a crucial cohort whose members say he is damaging the political prospects of other Black officials.
March 1, 2025Updated 8:44 a.m. ET
The speech by Mayor Eric Adams of New York City, in the closing week of Black History Month, seemed to be hitting all the right historical notes.
He outlined the lineage tying together Nat Turner, Marcus Garvey, Rosa Parks and Barack Obama and connected the dots between David Dinkins, the city’s first Black mayor, and himself, the city’s second.
Then Mr. Adams reached for a comparison of biblical contortion.
“When Jesus was on the cross, he said, ‘God, forgive them for they know not what they do,’” Mr. Adams said earlier this week, drawing a murmur of recognition from the invited audience at Gracie Mansion. “All these Negroes who were asking me to step down, God, forgive them. Are, are you stupid?”
Mr. Adams, the only mayor in the city’s modern history to be charged in a federal indictment, has often framed his mayoralty in us-versus-them terms, portraying himself as a working-class Black leader subject to unfair, race-tinged criticism from the political elite in New York.
He has continued to do so in the face of assertions that he agreed to a quid pro quo with the Trump administration: In exchange for the Justice Department’s moving to drop his case, Mr. Adams would help the president enforce his immigration policies.
Yet as the mayor seeks to rally support behind his uphill re-election bid this year, many Black leaders in New York have turned against Mr. Adams, saying that his crises have not only jeopardized his future, but also threaten the political prospects of other Black leaders.
