The op-ed of a Black mayoral candidate’s father in Springfield, Massachusetts, is under fire by several of the city’s Black leaders after they were called “Uncle Toms” and “Black Judases” in the article and portrayed as yes-men to the city’s white leadership.
In “The Worst Article I Ever Wrote” by Frederick Hurst, published in the African American Point of View newspaper, Hurst pitched a lengthy argument against 11 of Springfield’s Black leaders who he claimed chose to forego supporting his son, Justin Hurst, in a recent mayoral race to maintain a social and political status quo that would benefit white people in the town.
Frederick called out several people like city councilors Melvin Edwards and Lavar Click-Bruce, state Rep. Bud L. Williams, and Vietnam veteran Bernard McClusky for alleged “roles they played in sabotaging Justin’s mayoral election” and a so-called “unnecessary sin of abandoning their own.”
“Justin’s campaign was merely the beginning. The people have decided. And the Black Judas’s who strive so hard to thwart the future can be assured that they can’t avoid their inevitable fates,” Hurst wrote in the article. “The older ones are on short time and will soon face their maker. The younger ones are out of step with their own future. Change will come without them, and they will be left behind.”
Justin Hurst, a veteran councilman who has served on the city council for 10 years, ran a campaign that landed him second in the preliminary race for mayor. He ultimately lost to incumbent Mayor Domenic J. Sarno, who is white and the city’s longest-serving mayor.
Hurst’s father claims that the Black leaders he named in his op-ed are working on behalf of Sarno to further his agenda. He also purports that an “Irish/Italian conglomerate” politically dominates the town and “worked to divide the Black community against itself.”
Hurst claimed that the leaders he named misled the Black and Brown communities in Springfield for “their own personal or political gain” and “have long ago been compromised by money and the mere illusion of personal and political power and their obsessive love of White people, even though their behavior means delaying the time for their own majority-minority community’s ascent to the role of governing itself.”
“They will never stop serving their ‘master’ because some are simply weak by nature, and others think money is God and ‘master’ controls the money, which, in their minds, means “master” is God. Neither of these types of folks will ever go away. We generally refer to them as ‘Uncle Toms,'” Hurst proclaims in his piece.
According to Mass Live, several of the leaders mentioned in the piece hosted a press conference at Springfield City Hall last week where they openly challenged Hurst’s article, calling it “tasteless,” “disturbing,” “infantile,” and “vitriolic.”
The group called for a boycott and requested local businesses to stop running advertisements in the paper and for local churches to halt their monthly distribution.
“We are calling for the publisher of this paper in his next month’s issue, or even prior to that, to issue a public apology, a retraction of this article,” said Archbishop Timothy Paul Baymon. “If he does not, we are prepared to boycott.”
“I think Justin ran a good race, I really did. I thought he was qualified, but he didn’t win it. When you don’t win, you start attacking, and I don’t think that’s right,” Springfield Board of Police Commissioners member Robert C. Jackson said. Jackson was identified as Cee Jackson in the piece.
“This article, this attack, this slander by Rick Hurst is an extension of the Hurst campaign,” Springfield NAACP President Bishop Talbert Swan said. “It is an act of a senior man who is behaving like a petulant child because his son lost an election.”
Justin Hurst proposed that people read his father’s piece before jumping to any conclusions.
“I encourage those interested in its contents to get a copy of the Point of View newspaper and read it for themselves,” Hurst said. “And once they finish, they should read it again to make sure they have a thorough understanding of it.”
Hurst’s father echoed the same sentiments.
“Just read my article. It is pretty clear,” Frederick Hurst said. “I’ve said everything I wanted to say in the article. I’ve written hundreds of articles, and I will write more.”
