Williams buys home, talks about blackness

 

 By Robert "Rob" Redding Jr.

Publisher

Nov. 17, 2008, 12 a.m. - During his tenure as the two-term mayor of Washington, D.C., Anthony A. "Tony" Williams made it clear he wasn't all that concerned about what his predominantly black constituency thought of him.

     Even when some accused him of trying to push poor blacks out of the city in a headlong effort to barge ahead with a business and economic development plan, he didn't flinch.

     But when it came to picking a house this spring, nearly two years after leaving office, Williams divulged to The Washington Post that he had been listening to his critics' whispers all along.

     "Politically, it was hard trying to pick an area," the Democrat told the newspaper.

     In February, the 57-year-old decided on a $1 million apartment near Union Station, paid for with money from his job as head of a real estate investment trust.

     His recent investment is a stark contrast to comments made during Williams' mayoral reign.

     As he was leaving office in November 2006, Williams proclaimed that he was not all that concerned about relating to blacks, many of whom are now his neighbors. His new home sits just a few blocks away from H Street - a corridor torn apart by the riots of the 1960s.

     "I don't try to speak in a way I can't speak," the bow tie-wearing mayor replied when asked, just before leaving office, about his "awkwardness" in relating to the black community. "I don't try to do things I can't do," he concluded.

     Many consider Williams an elitist -- in the same class as Democratic presidential hopeful Barack Obama -- due to his law and master's degrees from Harvard, earned after obtaining his bachelor's degree from Yale.

     He rose to his unlikely position as mayor after serving under then-Mayor Marion Barry as the District's chief financial officer. The financial guru has also worked as CFO for the Department of Agriculture and community development organizations in St. Louis and Boston.

     His accomplished background has earned him a reputation as "detached" and "a sellout" by some in the black community - largely because he gave incentives to big business investment and shuttered the District's only public hospital. He has since said that he "regrets" closing the hospital.

     Now Williams lives in what is left of the black community that was not burned in the riots, bulldozed or taxed out of existence - partly due to his own bid to revitalize the corridor.

     Still, prior to leaving office, Williams said he agrees with the sharp rhetoric of Bill Cosby, who has chastised the black community for contributing to its own ills and has encouraged individuals to take responsibility.

     "It is incumbent upon people to take the initiative," Williams said.

     Williams also defended his blackness.

     "I am married to a black woman," he said. "We have always had divisions in our community and there has never been one way to be African American."

     That diversity is on display in his new neighborhood, where Williams will have the opportunity to relate to the likes of not only average blacks, but also his neighbor Sheila Crump Johnson, co-founder of Black Entertainment Television and a mini-celebrity.

     But it is not likely he will be home much. Arlington-based Public Properties Trust, of which Williams is the co-founder and chief executive officer, keeps him on the road.