Race Relations: Drawing the Line

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Boston has weathered racial storms before, but until now it had never faced a proposal that would literally split the city. Next month, Boston voters in ten mostly black legislative districts will decide whether they want to secede from the city and establish a separate municipality called Mandela, after jailed South African Nationalist Leader Nelson Mandela and his wife Winnie. Covering 12.5 square miles in the center of town, Mandela would be home to about a fourth of Boston's 600,000 people, including most of its blacks.

The nonbinding resolution is the handiwork of GRIP (Greater Roxbury Incorporation Project), a group of black activists who felt that they were losing their neighborhoods to gentrification. Polls indicate that the referendum is headed for defeat, however, partly because several Boston officials have claimed that an independent Mandela would face a first-year tax deficit of $135 million.