Campbell ’04: first-time candidate for Boston City Council

Andrea Campbell ’04, a first-time candidate running for Boston City Council, is leading in the preliminary polls against incumbent Charles C. Yancey.

Yancey has represented the city's District 4 since the district was created in 1983. Campbell beat him 58 to 34 percent in the Sept. 8 preliminary election, and voters will ultimately decide who the representative will be when they return to the polls for the municipal election on Nov. 3.

Campbell explained that she did not always aspire to run for political office.

“Never in a million years did I think I would be doing this,” she said of being in the race.

Campbell used to work as a lawyer in the office of Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick. The death of her twin brother Andrein pre-trial custodywhen they were 29 years old spurred part of her career trajectory change, Campbell explained.

“When life happens, and what I mean by that is when you go through things in life, whether it's deaths in your family or other tragic circumstances, sometimes they pull you in different directions,” Campbell said.

Her brother had been a pre-trial detainee for two years in Massachusetts. Having been diagnosed with an scleroderma, an autoimmune disease, six years before his arrest, he was not getting the medical care he required, Campbell said, and he passed away while he was in custody. Campbell said she had been advocating for increased medical attention for him.

“As his next of kin – both our biological parents are deceased – I was the one bearing the burden advocating for him, I was the one who was responsible for advocating for him to get appropriate medical care,” she explained.

The death caused Campbell to reflect on their upbringing as siblings.

“When something like that happens and you’re going through the bereaving process, you begin to look back and ask questions,” she said. “And so for me, the questions I asked myself were, 'How do two twins born and raised the city of Boston have such different life outcomes?'”

Campbell attended what she described as the prestigious Boston Latin Grammar School, earned a bachelor's degree at the University and then attended the University of California at Los Angeles law school, while her brother cycled in and out of court.

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After leaving her job as an attorney in Patrick's administration, Campbell decided to make the run for city council.

“I left the private sector to go into the public sector,” Campbell explained.

At the University, Campbell majored in sociology and wrote a thesis titled “The Representation of Conflict, Competition and Consensus Between Blacks and Jews in Black New York Newspapers Between 1950 and 1979,” about black-Jewish intersections in urban life. She made the switch to sociology from mathematics after her father passed away in her sophomore year. His death made her reconsider her path and realize she should be pursuing her actual passions, she said.

Campbell noted that she decided to pursue the academic interests most important to her, even as she recalled sometimes being the only person of color as well as the only non-Jew in her classes.

“I was taking classes in sociology, black and Jewish relations in urban settings," she said.

Campbell said one of the challenges of her University experience was traveling regularly back to Boston, where she maintained an apartment she had inherited from her parents.

“I was an independent spirit. I wasn’t in any of the eating clubs. I played rugby for a little while. But, I found myself really focusing on academics," Campbell added. “One of the things that makes Princeton great are the expertise and the passion of the professors."

Sociology professor Patricia Fernandez-Kelly, who taught Campbell as an undergraduate, said she is very proud of her.

“She was an excellent student. She was very dynamic and extremely focused and oriented towards public service. It does not surprise me that she is now a beautiful and young political candidate," Fernandez-Kelly said.

Sahtiya Hosada Hummel ’04, an English major, current doctoral candidate at the University of Virginia’s Curry School of Education and Campbell’s sophomore through senior year roommate said Campbell was a determined and ebullient person throughout all of her difficult experiences.

“She still maintained her time at Princeton,” Hummel said. “She was determined to get through and get finished and do it on time. She always continued to focus on what she wanted to do.”

Hummel added that Campbell was good friends with a number of different people on campus. “She never fell into any of the cliques you sometimes see with undergrads at Princeton."

Classmate Jason Clark ’04, who majored in American History and is the Assistant Attorney General in the New York State Attorney's Office, said Campbell reached out to others in a unique and active way. He remembered a saying his dad used to tell him, that the way people think of you has to do with the way you make people feel, always reminds him of Campbell.

“She had this strong energy about her and it made people gravitate to her,” Clark explained.

Campbell said that some of the best moments in her run for council have been when women have stepped up to support her. More women are needed on the political scene, she added.

“There are still challenges that women have to go through when running for office," Campbell said. “If you see a man, it is not really looked down upon, and when you see a woman be aggressive, it has its connotations.”

Correction: Due to a reporting error, an earlier version of this article incorrectly stated the title of Campbell's thesis. It was "The Representation of Conflict, Competition and Consensus Between Blacks and Jews in Black New York Newspapers Between 1950 and 1979." The 'Prince' regrets the error.