New Mayors Are Politicians First

Although two women mayors were at the seminar, no black mayors attended. A spokesman for the Institute said yesterday that although three black candidates had initially been invited, each of them, including one incumbent, lost in November. The spokesman said that, as far as he knew, no black mayor has come into office in a city of more than 100,000 since last January.

Racism was not specifically addressed at the conference but Jonathan Moore, director of the Institute, said Monday that "racism is an overreaching universal issue and it did come up in other ways."

One of the southern mayors at the seminar said that a discussion of race relations would have been largely "irrelevant" anyway. "I don't think the people here could have addressed the questions in my city," the mayor said.