South Bend, Ind., city councilman Henry Davis Jr. on
Thursday accused presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg of making life worse for
African-American residents as the city's mayor.
"It just has not been a good ride. South Bend needs
a do-over," Davis said during a Democracy Now! interview.
Davis criticized Buttigieg's handling of the shooting of
Eric Logan, a black resident, and the demotion of Darryl Boykins, South Bend's first black police
chief.
"He didn't handle it. And if he did handle it, it
was a fumble," Davis said.
Highlighting problems with the police force, housing,
schools, and more, Davis warned viewers about letting Buttigieg move up from
the South Bend mayoralty to the White House.
"This is not a student-council race, this is for the
presidency of the United States of America," he said.
Davis said Buttigieg "chose not to deal with"
issues facing African-American residents of South Bend.
"You're talking about double-digit unemployment.
You're talking about a very high poverty rate, over 40 percent. You're talking
about high crime. You're talking about schools shutting down and closing,"
he said.
Davis also detailed how Buttigieg's "a thousand houses in a thousand days" program led to
houses being demolished without adequate replacements or even any plan for what
to do with the resulting blight.
"Some of those homes didn't need to come down,"
Davis said. "There was no affordable housing program that came
behind it. And so, now we're still dealing with empty lots, high weeds, and a
lot of varmints that are living in those empty lots."
These comments about Buttigieg come as the former
mayor struggles to gain African-American support in the 2020
Democratic presidential primary. Davis has served as councilman of South
Bend's second ward since 2008. Buttigieg served as mayor from 2012 to
2020.
Buttigieg holds the most delegates in the primary so far, having won the Iowa
caucus and finished second in the New Hampshire primary.
