Darcy Davis who was elected to the Elkhart Community School Board in 2020.
Darcy Davis who was elected to the Elkhart Community School Board in 2020.
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NEW ALBANY – Having successfully made her way onto New Albany Township’s board shortly after moving there in 2015, Ann Carruthers last year threw her hat in the ring as a candidate for a seat on the more visible New Albany-Floyd County school board.

Though the district’s population is more than 76% white, according to the Indiana Department of Education, Carruthers, who is Black, believed it was important to maintain a minority presence on the board to represent the interests of those who may fall through the cracks because of issues related to race.

But on Nov. 3, she lost her race by 800 votes.

“I think the fact we are closer to Louisville contributes to some bias about Black people,” she said.

As municipalities, counties and school corporations throughout the state gather for their organization meetings, there is visibly less diversity. In Madison County, for instance, not a single Black candidate — incumbent or newcomer — won an election.

At the state level, Black candidates fared somewhat better with most incumbents being reelected.

Several sources interviewed for this article attributed the lack of success to the national mood in which some voters have felt more comfortable in the 
expression of white supremacy as well as continued voter suppression nationally.

Carruthers ran for the township seat as a couple with her husband, Shawn Carruthers, who serves as a Floyd County commissioner. She hesitates to chalk up her loss entirely to being a Black woman in a majority-white area.

“The average person who knows me and Shawn think the world of us,” she said.

But she believes the reduced diversity on the school board could be a detriment to all students.

“I think (voters) limited themselves and their children,” she said.

“I think you limited the opportunity for your children to see people who are different.”

Carruthers said she believes more Black candidates should file and run for office up and down the ballot in all communities where they live. But the mental health professional suspects fear of failure prevents many potential leaders from taking the leap.

“I guess I look at the fact that hurdles are a challenge, but sometimes you win,” she said.

Even so, Carruthers said she doesn’t want to be perceived as just a Black candidate.

“I want to represent everybody. I’m mainly bipartisan,” she said.

Julia Vaughn, policy director Common Cause Indiana, said communities need individuals from various walks of life to represent them, and Black and brown candidates need to make themselves more visible.

“Indiana is not monolithic in terms of our culture, but you wouldn’t know that though if you looked at our elected bodies,” she said.

Both main parties need to do a better job of courting and supporting Black candidates because there are many barriers that prevent them from running and coming out on top, Vaughn said. One of the biggest, she said, is fundraising.

“Unfortunately, it takes money to run a successful campaign. If you don’t have your own money, it can be very difficult, especially for people new to politics,” Vaughn explained.

The best way to level the playing field, she said, is to follow the lead of Arizona, Connecticut and Maine, which offer public financing for political campaign to those who collect small qualifying contributions.

“I think public policy like that goes a long way toward inviting diversity,” Vaughn noted.

But that would be a long shot in Indiana because Republicans, who have held a comfortable majority in the State House for decades, have no incentive to replace the currently wide-open contribution system, which has no limits for individuals and political action committees, in favor of more equitable measures, Vaughn said.

The majority of Black candidates in Indiana run as Democrats.

“The people who have been elected now have figured out the status quo, and it’s working for them,” Vaughn said. “For incumbents, there isn’t a whole lot of incentive.”

Special interests win and the public loses, according to Vaughn.

“It creates a real dark shadow over your statehouse or your municipal government building,” she said.

The under-representation of Black residents does a disservice to all Hoosiers, Vaughn believes.

“I think we have a less representative government. We need to have representation at the federal, state and local level that looks like Indiana — and that means all of Indiana,” she said. “When people are truly represented they are more likely to participate as voters.”

District 26, which includes the east side of Marion County, where there is a large Black population, as well as Greenfield and the more rural areas of Hancock County is a prime example of how even a relatively large minority population can have its will overshadowed by the majority, Vaughn said.

“It’s easy to understand how the voters in the Marion County area of the district feel it’s hard to get their feelings across to someone who is supposed to represent them but doesn’t really share their interests,” she said. “Indiana is not a state of just middle-aged and older white men, which are very well represented in our system.”

Dacey Davis, who has been sworn in as the only African-American on the Elkhart Community school board, is one of the few Black candidates in the 2020 election to prevail at the polls. But unlike New Albany, Elkhart’s student population is 36% Hispanic, 16% Black, with 8% who identify as multiracial, which can include some with Black heritage, according to the Indiana Department of Education.

The issues that drew Davis into the race include low graduation rates and disproportionate discipline of African-American male students. She said she intends to be a data-driven leader who will follow the district’s equity plan.

“I know I’m the only one who looks like me and am the only one who has this experience,” the corporate trainer and life coach said. “I want to see what I can do to reduce the gap between Black students and white students.”

A product of the Elkhart school system, Davis believes she was able to win over white, conservative voters in what is supposed to be a nonpartisan race with a strong social media presence. Feedback from voters, she said, indicated she was very relatable, her platform was clear and she addressed issues other people cared about.

“Some of the videos I created got thousands of views, and that was something I did not expect,” the first-time candidate said. “I didn’t realize how seriously people took the school board. It almost felt like I was running for mayor or something.”

But Davis already feels the weight of being the only African- American to have a certain voice or opinion.

“I can feel the pressure already, but I don’t take easily to pressure,” she said.
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