Michael Finnegan, Los Angeles Times
- The hard-fought race for a rare open seat on the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors looks like a traditional clash over a top perch of black political power in California.
But the contest between L.A. City Councilman Bernard C. Parks and state Sen. Mark Ridley-Thomas (D-Los Angeles) also foreshadows an uncertain future for black political leaders in the L.A. Basin.
Latinos outnumber African Americans now by nearly 2 to 1 in the county’s vast 2nd Supervisorial District, an area of 2 million people that was predominantly black until the 1990s. At its core are Crenshaw, Watts and Baldwin Hills; around the edges are Marina del Rey, Culver City, Koreatown, Compton, Carson and Inglewood.
