Sarah Palin

“Blacks don’t have the levels of access to the governor and state commissioners as with past administrations,” said attorney Rex Butler, an Alaska resident since 1983. “It seems the posture of (Palin’s) administration with blacks is: Don’t need them — don’t worry about them.”

Eleanor Andrews, board chair of the Anchorage Urban League, said she is unaware of any programs or outreach to Alaska’s African American community by Palin.

“It’s not a disengagement, it’s just no connection. She does not have relations with African-Americans,” said Andrews, a businesswoman and 44-year resident of Alaska.

Alaskan African Americans fault Palin for not hiring African Americans for her administration, dismissing African Americans from government posts and spurning repeated requests to meet with African American leaders to discuss issues of concern.

Palin’s increasingly rocky relations with Alaska’s African American community seeped down to the “Lower 48” weeks ago, following an Internet posting by Gwendolyn Alexander, the president of Alaska’s African-American Historical Society. Alexander detailed controversies such as Palin’s staffing practices, including an allegation that Palin once stated she “doesn’t have to hire any Blacks” for major projects and her refusal to attend that state’s major African-American celebration — Juneteenth.

Palin has said she never told African American leaders that she did not intend to hire African Americans in Alaska, where African Americans comprise 4 percent of the population.

Palin, through spokespeople, defends her staffing record, citing that top aides and advisers include a Filipino, a Korean and a person of mixed African-American ancestry.

“I’m African American and I am a big rebuttal to those charges,” said Bill McAllister, Gov. Palin’s press secretary and former broadcast journalist.

“She is not averse to hiring African Americans,” said McAllister, who joined Palin’s staff two months ago. McAllister said Palin’s office “never” compiled statistics on minorities in her administration.

The Rev. Alonzo B. Patterson, who’s worked closely with previous governors, mayors and other elected officials during his 45 years in Alaska, feels Palin has “totally departed from the past practices” of previous Alaska governors.

“Past administrations have had black administrative assistants to the governor, state commissioners and department leaders,” said Patterson, who served as chair of Alaska’s Board of Paroles for 13 years.

While McAllister said Palin “hires on the basis of merit” not ethnicity, gender or race, one frequently cited example of Palin’s crony-based appointments is her elevation of a high school classmate to the $95,000-a-year post heading the State Division of Agriculture. Palin defended that appointment citing this real estate agent’s childhood love of cows.

McAllister termed the agriculture appointment as “not major” because Alaska does not have much agriculture. McAllister said Palin’s hiring of political opponents for important posts shows she does not hire only “within a circle of friends.”

Earlier this year, Patterson participated in a meeting of Black leaders with Palin. This meeting followed months of requests to Palin.

“We gave her a list of concerns and have received no response,” said Patterson, pastor of Shiloh Missionary Baptist Church in Anchorage.

Concerns presented by this group included hiring minorities at all levels of state government plus contracting and employment practices in major projects like the planned new pipeline construction project.

This group also invited Palin to participate in a town meeting during the summer with other racial and ethnic minorities in Alaska to discuss issues of common concern including economic growth, educational deficiencies, family disintegration and young gang problems. Palin spurned that invitation.

“She has not met with us since that March meeting,” said Patterson, who heads the American Baptist Churches of Alaska and that state’s Martin Luther King Jr. Foundation.

Bishop Dave Thomas, a spokesman for Juneteenth — a state holiday since 2001 — in Alaska, faults Palin for both failing to attend the annual celebration and issuing a proclamation as specified law.

“Where past governors have attended (this celebration) Gov. Palin has refused to attend or even send a staff member. They could have sent a gardener as their representative but they didn’t,” said Bishop Thomas, pastor of the non-denominational Jesus Holy Temple in Anchorage.

“This governor does not deal with minorities well,” Thomas said. “We have to examine how she will act as vice president and if by chance she becomes president.”

(Linn Washington Jr. reports for the Philadelphia Tribune.)