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Grand Rapids remains predominantly Calvinistic, and white, with non-whites comprising 11% of the population. There is a distinct attitude of tolerance. The present mayor, Abe Drasin, is a Jew; his predecessor was a black. Says Drasin, as he gazes from his office in Vandenberg Center: "This is a city of contrasts. It is a bastion of the radical right, and yet there is a substantial liberal population." Lyndon Johnson, for example, took 57% of the vote in 1964, v. 43% for Barry Gold water. In 1972 Richard Nixon beat George Mc-Govern by almost exactly the same margin. All the while, Ford kept his seat with majorities of 60% or more. Even so, Jerry Ford's successor in Congress is a Democrat, Richard Vander Veen.
Typically, the city has a growing blight of porn shops and very blue movies. Parts of the black ghetto are spreading into decaying white neighborhoods, and unemployment is high among the city's Latinos and blacks. Yet Grand Rapids also boasts cultural accouterments that would be the envy of many a larger city: a fine symphony orchestra, directed by Spanish-born Theo Alcantara, a ballet troupe and a civic theater. Jerry and Betty Ford buy season tickets, but they are used by his half brothers, Jim, an optometrist, and Richard, who works as manager for the Ford Paint and Varnish Co., which the Ford family sold to Standard Detroit Paint Co. in 1970.
Grand Rapids is the home of several colleges, including Calvin College, mecca of Christian Reformed scholarship. There are almost more churches than anyone can count (479 Protestant, 42 Catholic and two synagogues). One stanza of a song glorifying Grand Rapids rhapsodizes:
Sunday morning bright and early Streets of maple, oak and birch Populate themselves with people On their quiet way to church.
Among Grand Rapids residents, perhaps the most frequently heard praise of the city is that it is a good place to work, bring up children and get an education. Under a voluntary integration plan, which is going fairly smoothly, some 2,000 to 3,000 of 30,000 children are bused to achieve integration. Though 29% of the children are black, all but six of the 51 elementary schools are well integrated. There is a special school for highly talented kids, an environmentally focused school at the zoo, a high school completion program in which 12,000 people are enrolled. Says Superintendent Phillip Runkel: "Programs like this turn alienation around."
Lutheran Martin Marty, an associate editor of the Christian Century, attributes the city's equanimity to a special combination of poise and pride. "Grand Rapids chic is not worrying about what New Yorkers think chic is. and not talking about it, hoping and knowing it will soon go away," he writes. "Grand Rapids chic is not knowing that anyone else cares about chic."