Former New York Mayor David Dinkins said in a memoir due for release at the end of the summer that he lost his re-election bid to Rudolph W. Giuliani for one reason, and one reason alone: racism.
Mr. Dinkins, who was the city’s first black mayor, barely scraped by with a win in 1989 and then lost in 1993 to Mr. Giuliani.
“I think it was just racism, pure and simple,” he writes in his book, The New York Times reported.
The book is called “A Mayor’s Life: Governing New York’s Gorgeous Mosaic,” and is scheduled for release in September.
In it, he calls Mr. Giuliani a “cold, unkind person” who “apparently has some difficulty apologizing for anything,” The New York Times reported. He also accused Mr. Giuliani of spying on his campaign and said the ex-mayor ran a campaign with this racist message: “The city is in terrible financial straits. Do you really want a black man presiding over it in this time of trouble?”
Mr. Dinkins, 86, also writes that he tries to maintain perfect grammar and diction when speaking in public because “I want to be heard as a man, not as a black man,” The New York Times reported.
• Cheryl K. Chumley can be reached at cchumley@washingtontimes.com.
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