Wednesday, March 27, 2013
By: Peter Gelzinis

Try as I might, I simply cannot imagine my former state senator, William M. Bulger, ever gathering supporters for a standout at the intersection of Geneva Avenue and Bowdoin Street, the ground zero of Boston’s often turbulent inner city.

But times change.

Nick Collins, the 31-year-old Southie state rep running to fill the seat Bulger owned for almost three decades, stood before a crowd of young black men holding green COLLINS signs in the heart of Bowdoin-Geneva.

Asked about the decision to endorse Collins over his House colleague, Linda Dorcena Forry, a daughter of Dorchester with Haitian-American roots, former Boston Police Superintendent William Celester said: “It’s not about black or white anymore. It’s about who’s the right person to work with us.”

“I’m a product of busing,” said Larry Ellison, president of the Massachusetts Association of Minority Law Enforcement Officers, “and I am standing here with Nick Collins to say those days are over. It’s only about who we feel will be there to stand up for us.”

If you’re looking for a symbolic equivalent to what happened yesterday at the intersection of Bowdoin and Geneva, then you might expect Linda Dorcena Forry to show up at, say, the intersection of L and East Broadway with her own flock of supporters in Irish knit sweaters.

The race for the 1st Suffolk District is about being able to make that short journey into an adjoining neighborhood, separated by a rainbow of different cultures.

It’s not the kind of challenge that Billy Bulger ever had to wrestle with.

“We want our own waterfront,” said Leonard Lee, of Communities United and former Massachusetts state director of Youth and Violence.

“What we need is a screamer,” he added, “someone who won’t be shy about screaming for the needs of this community. This kid (Collins) has shown us he’s willing to do just that. I mean we grilled him long and hard before we made our choice.”

Is it the dawn of a new day, or simply a new shade of the old kind of bread and butter politics?

As the event was breaking up, Minister Don Muhammad of the Nation of Islam showed up with his wife.

“What I’m looking for out of this race,” he said, “is having both an activist and a politician serving the needs of this district. And that’s not a matter of skin color. It’s a matter of determination. The man has made it his business to cross over the boundary that may divide South Boston from Bowdoin-Geneva, and work with us. And that’s something, I believe, that we need.”