While at Dartmouth, John Barros '96 gained a reputation as an advocate for social change. Upon graduation, he turned his talents toward revitalizing some of Boston's poorest suburbs. Now, his social work has culminated in a campaign for Boston mayor, which he launched in a Roxbury coffee shop last month.
Barros added his name to a list of 23 other potential candidates. After announcing a run, a candidate must gather 3,000 signatures from registered voters to gain ballot access. A preliminary election will be held on Sept. 24. According to The Boston Globe, roughly a dozen candidates are expected to gather enough signatures to make the September ballot.
The two candidates with the most votes in the September election will face each other in a final election on Nov. 5. Current mayor Thomas Menino, the city's longest-serving mayor, has decided not to run for a sixth term. The large number of potential candidates is a result of the popular incumbent's decision to step down, said Jeffrey Berry, a political science professor at Tufts University.
Campaigning until September will be "frenetic," and candidates without name recognition will not be able to acquire the required signatures, Berry said.
He predicted that Barros will be among the candidates to make the ballot because he has "some name recognition."
Barros is a member of the Boston School Committee, the governing body of Boston's public schools. He has dedicated the past 13 years to the Dudley Street Neighborhood Initiative, a community building nonprofit.
As a student, Barros, who is of Cape Verdean descent, worked to improve race relations on campus. An African and African-American studies and economics double major, Barros served as president of the Afro-American Society, worked as a liaison for Cutter-Shabazz and performed in the Black Underground Theater Association.
While he was chair of the African and African-American studies department, French and Italian professor Keith Walker knew Barros, and described him as a "clever and inspiring young man of practical intelligence."
"Barros demonstrated even then a charisma that emerges from an observable authenticity of character and a genuine commitment to hard work and problem solving," he said.
As Afro-American Society president, Barros tried to cultivate relationships with other minority groups on campus, including those in La Alianza Latina. In a 1996 article in The Dartmouth, Barros said that his goal was to create a "large collective voice" of minorities on campus to express their opinions.
Barros found that Dartmouth struggled with problems of racism and that students should be mindful of these issues.
"There really is no escaping racism," Barros said in a 1996 interview. "Many put academics first, but racism is just as important."
He faces a wide array of potential opponents for the mayor's seat. In the pool of 24 potential candidates, there are four women and several African-American and Hispanic candidates. Because there are a number of minority candidates, no candidate can expect to exclusively win the votes of a minority bloc, Berry said.
Some candidates, like Bill Walczak, also have backgrounds in community service and organizing and could draw from the same pool of voters as Barros.
Reuben Kantor, Walczak's campaign manager, said he does not know how the dynamic will play out.
"I don't see it in terms of two nonprofit candidates," Kantor said. "I think voters in Boston will get the chance to learn more about the candidates and learn that Bill has a great vision of transforming the community."
In the 2013 Boston mayoral poll published in The Boston Globe yesterday and conducted in March, 38 percent of voters said they would like to see a mayor with a community activist background, compared to 13 percent who want the mayor to have city council experience. The poll also showed that 16 percent want the mayor to have a business background.
The poll revealed that voters believe Boston's biggest problems include crime and underfunded schools. Other important issues in the race, Berry said, are "quality of life" concerns and the expansion of casinos within the city.
Barros and representatives from his campaign could not be reached for comment.
