"Harold Washington has white folk scared around the country." Bolling added to shouts from the audience. "There's no reason white folks should be scared of us."
King, who appeared visibly moved by the most vocal support he has received so far in this campaign, termed the rally "an incredibly beautiful sight," before calling for an end to racism and stating his support for affirmative action and Boston Jobs for Boston People, a program that would require contractors hired by Boston to employ a certain number of local residents.
From Grove Hall it was on to the last stop a King fundraiser at the nightspot Satch's in the Back Bay, where the mayor and the candidate exchanged platitudes for the last time before Washington returned to the Windy City.
Impact
While Washington's whirlwind six-hour tour of Boston garnered much publicity its eventual impact remains unclear.
If the goal was voter registration, then the visit can be called a qualified success. According to Operation Big Vote Project Coordinator Jean Ewing, a little more than 300 people were signed on Sunday afternoon. But yesterday, even without the mayor's help, the group collected more than 200 names at Dudley Station in Roxbury, Ewing said.
About 18,000 voters have been registered through Big Vote since January. Ewing said, adding that the group's goal is between 15,000 and 25,000 registrants by the preliminary election--which may or may not happen in September, depending on whether the City Council can redraw outlawed district lines in time.
The visit, however, was definitely the biggest event in an otherwise dull mayor's race and the endorsement ranks among the most important garnered so far.
But some of King's opponents yesterday called the visit inconsequential, saying it would have little impact on the race. Candidate Robert R. Kiley said the endorsement and visit would have a "marginal" effect on the race because. Washington's visit was so short.
Frank Costello, a spokesman for candidate Raymond I. Flynn, pointed out that King and Washington had never met before and that the Chicago mayor may have endorsed King only on "ethnic grounds."
And Mark Johnson, a spokesman for candidate Lawrence S. DiCara '71, said that King will not be as successful as Washington because he is "more of a protest leader, more of an ideologue. We don't expect Mel King to do much better than half [of the Black vote]."
But, according to King spokesman Marsha Waters, the visit was a "shot in the arm" for the campaign, which, she said, has already gained a great deal of momentum.
With seven weeks to go until the preliminary elections--if they run on time--King still trails poll leader Finnegan, who finished behind King in the 1979 preliminary and is neck-and-neck with Flynn, who may take away a substantial portion of the Black vote from King.
In order to make it to the two-man runoff, King may need to tap into the national Black political scene more often if he wants to convince local voters that he is more than just another angry ideologue.
Jacob M. Schlesinger contributed to this report.