Symbols without substance are what Colin Powell and Condoleezza Rice represented for African-Americans in their high positions in the Bush Administration. Other than being "the first" blacks to hold high government policy-making positions, little can be said about what they’ve done toward the political and social empowerment of other blacks. Not so for Alphonso Jackson.
HUD Secretary Alphonso Jackson has been overshadowed in the public’s acclaim by Powell and Rice, who tends not get the attention and credit he deserves among African-Americans for having increased housing opportunities for low-income blacks and concurrent contracts for black businesses to build and develop such housing. Under Jackson, HUD is the federal government’s leading agency for contracts awarded to minority businesses. Instead of being cited for increasing opportunities for minority businesses, mainstream pundits continually have charged Secretary Jackson with acts of "cronyism".
Currently, headlines accuse Jackson of trying to strong-arm Philadelphia’s Housing Authority into transferring $2-million-dollars-worth of public property to his buddy former "soul musician" Kenny Gamble, who is now a developer. Before he founded a real estate firm to redevelop downtrodden city neighborhoods in Philadelphia , Gamble helped write such famous 1970s soul tunes as "Love Train" and "Me and Mrs. Jones". The dispute between Jackson and the Philadelphia Housing Authority should be scrutinized by African-Americans. It revolves around revitalization of the once-blighted Martin Luther King Jr. housing project. In 1999, Gamble’s nonprofit urban-development company Universal Community Homes, and a developer, Pennrose Properties, won a contract to develop 236 affordable, below-market units. As an incentive, the builders were to get a key parcel of land where they would develop 19 homes to be sold at full market rates. But the partnership finished only 80 of the units because Pennrose pulled out and the controversy started. The authority then concluded that Gamble’s company failed to deliver and it was not obligated to give Universal the vacant land where it planned to build market-rate homes. Secretary Jackson got into the firestorm when Gamble invited him to visit him in Philadelphia and tour the townhomes Universal had built. Jackson ’s "illegal act" was that he asked HUD’s Regional Director to "check into" Gamble’s complaint that the authority never turned over the vacant property.
Shouldn’t blacks expect more than they’ve been getting from blacks who’ve held high government office? When compared to Powell and Rice, and his white predecessors, how should blacks react to "favoritism" charges lodged against Jackson? Shouldn’t we take a closer look at the thousands of contracts minorities have received since Jackson has been running HUD? The mainstream media has given the impression that in three cases - in Philadelphia, New Orleans and the Virgin Islands - he helped steer no-bid and inflated contracts to friends. Its alleged Jackson arranged a New Orleans Housing Authority contract for a black contractor who was paid $500,000 as a construction manager in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. Another friend, whom protagonists say "had no experience in running a public housing agency," was paid $1 million for managing the troubled Virgin Islands Housing Authority.
Because of past patterns of government contracting, African-Americans have "no experience" among the agencies and would appreciate that opportunity. While government officials have been getting contracts to "people they know" through the years, is it fair that Secretary Jackson is being held to a different standard? Instead of accepting Jackson ’s vilification by the mainstream community, more African-Americans should take note of what has occurred for us in housing and economic development opportunities since he has been at the helm of the $34 billion agency. Before he became HUD secretary, Jackson had a long history of involvement in housing and community development. Before accepting the mainstream’s disparagement of him, blacks should take note of ways he’s helped our communities with the public housing authorities he directed in St. Louis, Washington, D.C., and Dallas.
