When Leon Correy III ran for elected office last year, he hoped to quietly break a longstanding color barrier in Fairhaven politics.

The town, which shares a busy fishing harbor with the diverse city of New Bedford, is close to 95% white, according to the latest Census Bureau estimates. In his campaign for the Select Board, the town’s highest elected office, Correy said he avoided discussing race at debates or while he was canvassing. 

“It was just recognizing there was a degree of professionalism and a business approach that was needed,” Correy said of his campaign messaging, which portrayed frequent clashes between Select Board members as a distraction from more important civic issues. 

“Being that I’m not from Fairhaven, I felt like I could be neutral and just assess each thing on its own merit,” Correy said, rather than dwelling on “experiences I had with them in high school and grudges I’ve held since seventh grade or whatever it might be.”

But Correy said his first year and half in office has since revealed an undercurrent of racism in Fairhaven politics, which Correy said many town residents seem to expect him to endure quietly. 

Correy announced on Facebook in late October that he will not seek re-election this spring.

“The time has come for me to stop taking time away from my family to serve people who either don’t want me here or aren’t willing to stand up to their friends and call out the racist acts that are happening in front of their face,” Correy said in the announcement.

In a recent interview with The Public’s Radio, Correy outlined the series of encounters that convinced him to leave public office. 

After the annual Town Meeting in May, Correy said a resident called him “uppity” – a term loaded with racist connotations – during an argument on their way out of the meeting.

“In my 46 years of life, I have never heard a white person referred to as uppity,” Correy said. “When you use uppity, it’s usually Black or the n-word that follows it.”

Over the summer, the Select Board held a hearing to address a series of complaints against former Conservation Commission member Gary Lavalette, including one from a Black woman who described racist and belittling remarks Lavalette allegedly made while inspecting landscaping work on her property. 

Correy oversaw the hearing in his capacity as chairman of the Select Board. Lavalette later reported Correy to the State Ethics Commission for allegedly failing to disclose personal ties to the woman who complained.

“He opened up this investigation strictly because there were two Black people in the same room who both live in Fairhaven, and so we had to have some sort of a connection to each other that made it inappropriate for me to oversee that hearing,” Correy said. 

A spokesperson for the Ethics Commission declined to comment, but Correy and Lavalette both said the investigation has concluded. Correy was not fined or reprimanded for any ethics violations.

“We just felt that there was a connection there and whether it was or wasn’t, the matter has been settled,” Lavalette said. “But that is small potatoes compared to what is going on in town.”

Lavalette said Correy has upset voters by introducing race into civic conversations where it previously went unmentioned. 

“Race shouldn’t be even discussed anymore,” Lavalette said. “That’s all gone away. But Leon has picked up on it and we really don’t understand, to be honest with you. I think a lot of it is made up in his head. And he thinks everybody’s after him.”

Though Correy is one of few people of color with a leadership role in town government, he is not the only one to speak out about facing racist treatment. Town Administrator Angie Lopes Ellison, who is Black, said she and Correy regularly experience microaggressions and other encounters where residents fail to notice the offensive racial connotations of their remarks and actions. 

Then, this November, Ellison described an incident as the “straw that broke the camel’s back,” causing both her and Correy to question the town’s willingness to grapple honestly with even the most overt forms of racism. Town officials found the words “Fuck n—-rs” spraypainted on the wall of a vacant school building. Many residents and some town officials, Ellison said, quickly dismissed the incident as “kids being kids.”

“The town is not willing to sit in discomfort and acknowledge that there is a racial issue here,” Ellison said.  

Following Correy’s announcement about his plans to leave office, some Select Board members have rushed to make more deliberate efforts to condemn racism at public meetings. On Monday, Dec. 18, the board will take up a resolution related to diversity, equity and inclusion. Several members have urged Correy to remain in office, including Select Board member Stasia Powers.

“My experience has been that Fairhaven is an amazing place to live and raise a family, but I recognize that I have the privilege of being a white woman in a 95% white community,” Powers said in a statement. “Our town is not free of racism, we should all call it what it is and have real discussions about it.”

But their actions have not persuaded Correy to remain in office. He said he hopes that publicizing his complaints about racism will trigger a reckoning over how people in Fairhaven think about town politics. Correy described a strain of localism that he said makes it difficult to support diverse leadership in Fairhaven. 

“You need to be from here,” Correy said. “They need to know everything about you, where you went to high school, and they have to have these relationships or connections to you in order for them to feel like you even belong involved in the town in any capacity.”

South Coast Bureau reporter Ben Berke can be reached at bberke@thepublicsradio.org.