Aug 25, 2006  |  By: LOU CHIBBARO J  | COMMENTS     

A gay campaign worker for D.C. mayoral candidate Linda Cropp denounced Adrian Fenty, Cropp’s main rival, for hiring a controversial civic activist who some have accused of using anti-gay and racist tactics to discredit gay D.C. Councilmember Jim Graham.

David Meadows, the Cropp campaign’s gay outreach director, noted that Fenty appointed Ward 1 activist Sinclair Skinner as field coordinator for his mayoral campaign less than six months after Skinner circulated posters and fliers depicting Graham as a devil with horns gloating over the lynching of a black man.

“It’s quite sad that Adrian knows of his past and still keeps him on his campaign staff,” Meadows told the Washington Blade. “Mrs. Cropp would not allow someone like that on her campaign payroll.”

Both Cropp and Fenty have been strong supporters of gay rights and each has recruited large numbers of gay volunteers to their respective campaigns.

Gay activist Christopher Dyer, a volunteer on the Fenty campaign, called Meadows’ comments misleading. Dyer said he and other gays working on the Fenty campaign have worked closely with Skinner and have never seen any signs of anti-gay sentiment.

“I know Sinclair Skinner, and I can say he is not homophobic,” said Dyer.

Meadows’ comments came less than two weeks after the Cropp campaign began to aggressively attack Fenty on a variety of issues. Cropp’s attacks began after the Washington Post released the findings of a public opinion poll showing Fenty leading Cropp by nearly 10 percentage points among residents likely to vote in the Sept. 12 primary.

The Post poll shows the other three major candidates competing in the primary running far behind Fenty and Cropp, with less than 10 percent of the vote. They include former telecommunications executive Marie Johns, lobbyist and Democratic Party activist Michael Brown, and Ward 5 Councilmember Vincent Orange.

Cropp has disputed charges by Fenty supporters that she is waging a negative campaign, saying she is raising legitimate concerns about Fenty’s record on issues such as crime, education and his ability to manage the city government.

The Cropp campaign announced it would launch TV and radio ads this week that would continue the campaign’s attacks against Fenty.

 “The Cropp campaign is acting in desperation,” said Fenty spokesperson Alex Evans. “These types of attacks don’t represent her well.”

Fenty’s critics have raised concerns about Skinner since Fenty first hired him as his campaign field director in the fall of 2005. The Skinner issue surfaced again earlier this month when the Washington City Paper published a prominent story about Skinner and his attacks against Graham.

‘Gramzilla’s neighba’

Skinner’s posters and fliers, which referred to Graham as “Gramzilla,” emerged in the midst of a 2004 and 2005 campaign by Graham to shut down three nightclubs in Ward 1 that had been plagued by shootings, stabbings and fights among customers that often spilled out into the streets.

Skinner accused Graham of targeting the clubs because they were black owned. In 2005, in his role as president of the Lower Georgia Avenue Business Association and executive director of the Black U Street Association, Skinner charged that Graham was part of a gentrification effort to disrupt black neighborhoods and close black-owned businesses.

Graham said he and a coalition of black and white residents of Ward 1 asked city officials to close Club U, Between Friends, and Kili’s nightclubs solely because they were prone to violence. The city’s Alcoholic Beverage Control Board revoked the clubs’ licenses last year, citing repeated violent acts on their premises.

In an interview this week, Graham said it was the City Paper that suggested Skinner’s cartoon posters and fliers played on Graham’s sexual orientation as a means of attacking him.

 “That was their interpretation,” Graham said. “I never saw it that way.”

The City Paper story pointed to two effeminate-looking men in one of the cartoons who are depicted standing in front of Graham while Graham is shown sitting on a pedestal. The same cartoon shows a black man hanging by the neck from a noose with the words, “Trouble making neighba” written below that scene. The cartoon is entitled, “Gramzilla’s Plantation: The Gramification of the Ward 1 Black Neighborhoods.”

Fenty campaign spokesperson Evans said Skinner has said he never used anti-gay prejudice to criticize Graham in his controversial cartoons and writings.

 “He apologized for these things and has not made such statements since he came onboard the Fenty campaign,” Evans said.

“There is no truth to the accusations of Skinner being homophobic,” Evans said.

According to Evans, Skinner shares Fenty’s views in support of gay rights. Skinner did not respond to Blade inquiries by press time.

Dyer and gay Fenty supporter Clark ...