In a move aimed at garnering support in the Haitian community, former state Rep. Marie St. Fleur Tuesday endorsed Boston City Councilor Andrea Campbell’s bid for mayor on Tuesday.
“She gets what the city needs right now," St. Fleur said of Campbell. "We are multi-racial, multi-ethnic, multi-cultural, and you need to understand all of that in order to represent all the people.”
St. Fleur, the nation’s first Haitian-American elected to a state legislature, represented the Fifth Suffolk district from 1999 to 2010. Prior to that, she served as an assistant district attorney in Middlesex County and an assistant attorney general in state government.
St. Fleur spoke at The Voice of the Gospel Tabernacle in Mattapan, the Boston neighborhood with the greatest concentration of Black residents, both American-born and immigrant, including Haitians — who, according to the Boston Planning and Development Agency, constitute the city's third largest immigrant group after residents from the Dominican Republic and China.
Seven years ago, St. Fleur and state Sen. Linda Dorcena Forry helped deliver Haitian votes to former Mayor Marty Walsh, who took office in 2014 and stepped down this year afte he was nominated for U.S. labor secretary.
With all six of the major candidates for mayor identifying as people of color, topping the Black vote could be an important step for whoever wins the September primary.
St. Fleur's endorsement came on Haitian Flag Day, which celebrates the island nation's liberation from French colonial rule.
