American Electoral Politics, Blacks in

By: Katherine Tate

Source:

 Africana: The Encyclopedia of the African and African American Experience, Second Edition

American Electoral Politics, Blacks in

In a 1965 article entitled “From Protest to Politics: The Future of the Civil Rights Movement,” civil rights activist Bayard Rustin predicted that the Voting Rights Act of 1965 would transform the Civil Rights Movement into formal, institutionalized party politics. Although the strategies and thrust of the movement would change, blacks, he argued, would still be engaged in a movement radically oriented toward social change. The new electoral phase of black politics would function as the “second stage” of the black Civil Rights Movement. Writing in the aftermath of the landslide election of President Lyndon B. Johnson in 1964, Rustin also predicted that an alliance between progressive groups, blacks, labor, and liberals, would emerge within the Democratic Party and that conservatives would align themselves with the minority Republican Party.

While Rustin had correctly predicted the electoral mobilization of blacks, his hope for a liberal majority, which would then work through the Democratic Party, never materialized. Blacks, indeed, are an increasing part of the American electorate, casting 8 percent of the presidential vote in 1968 to nearly 12 percent by 2000. During this same time frame, the number of black elected officials would skyrocket from an estimated 500 or so to over 9,000 by 2000 (see www.jointcenter.org). And as Rustin expected, after the 1964 presidential election, the vast majority of blacks had become Democrats. Up until 1963 only 50 to 60 percent of blacks identified themselves as Democrats in surveys. By the 1970s, over 80 percent of blacks would call themselves Democrats, and in 2004 this high level of identification with the Democratic party by blacks remains.

The massive entry of blacks into the American electorate, however, had not, as Rustin had hoped, aided progressive politics, but, rather, coincided and provoked the rise of conservative politics. Southern whites rallied to resist massively the implementation of the new civil rights laws, while northern whites grew more conservative in response to the urban riots and black militancy and as race issues moved from the South to the North in the form of busing and affirmative action. With the exceptions of Jimmy Carter's one term as president from 1976 to 1980, and Bill Clinton's two terms in the 1990s, Republicans would occupy the White House for 24 years of the 36 from 1968 to 2004. Rather than serve as an opposition party to the Republicans, Democrats strategically moved to the center ground of politics and abandoned the Left in an effort to win back votes. Thus by the 1980s, instead of belonging to a liberal-progressive coalition within the Democratic Party, as Rustin had predicted, blacks found themselves constituting a political minority, isolated and increasingly marginal within the Democratic Party and in national politics in general.

The conservatism that rebounded at the end of the Civil Rights Movement nevertheless ignited blacks politically. Since 1965 differences in black and white registration and turnout rates have diminished. In 1984, during the conservative Reagan years, the gap between black and white voter participation rates is one of the smallest ever recorded—5.6 percentage points compared to 11.5 percentage points in 1968. The black-white turnout gap in 1984 is somewhat larger if one removes the Latino voters from the white turnout rate. In 1984 more blacks turned out to vote in a collective effort to defeat Ronald Reagan. The feelings blacks had of political efficacy grew especially during the early civil rights years, 1954 to 1962. Since 1964 Americans have become more distrustful of government and more skeptical of their ability to be heard and influence government. However, this loss of confidence in government was less apparent in the black community. Although blacks are still somewhat more likely than whites to feel that they have “no say in government” and that “government officials don't care,” racial differences have diminished mostly because larger percentages of whites now distrust government and have less faith in their ability to influence government.

Black mobilization during the Reagan years was greatly facilitated by the Reverend Jesse Jackson's two bids for the presidency in 1984 and in 1988. The Jackson campaigns gave voice to black dissatisfaction with the rightward drift of the Democratic Party. Millions of blacks supported both his bids. His campaigns were structured as a bargaining vehicle for black Democratic voters. In the end, while they stimulated black in terest in political campaigns and mobilized new black voters, Jackson's candidacies did not enhance the effectiveness of the black vote. The record high black turnout in 1984 did not affect the outcome of the Reagan-Mondale presidential race, and some argued that Jackson's bids may have exacerbated blacks' political problems, pushing blacks further into a marginal and politically impotent corner of the party and in national politics in general. In 1988, black voter turnout dropped relative to non-Hispanic white voter participation, which some analysts attribute to black alienation within the Democratic party ranks.

After serving thirty-one years in the California State Assembly, Willie Brown became the first black mayor of San Francisco in 1995.

Reuters

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The 1990s, however, would come to represent to the end of the rebellion by blacks within the Democratic party. Jackson, who had picketed the White House in response to President Clinton's pledge to sign into law a bill ending the federal guarantee to welfare benefits for poor families, fell in line between party leaders to strongly endorse Bill Clinton for reelection at the 1996 Democratic national convention. There was none of the rebellious spirit and little chastising language in Jackson's 1996 convention floor speech, as had been the case, in fact, at the 1992 Democratic National Convention. In his 1992 speech, Jackson had given Clinton an indifferent endorsement; he also publicly rebuked those in the party, like Clinton, who had engineered the party's move to the political center, stating, “History will remember us not for our positioning, but for our principles.” Bill Clinton's performance, high approval ratings from blacks, and the Republican party's capture of the House of Representatives as the majority party after forty years of Democratic majority rule explain why Jackson felt it critical at this juncture to back Clinton in 1996. Furthermore, Jackson's own son, Jesse Jackson, Jr., had won a seat in the House of Representatives from a Chicago district in 1996. Jackson—the perennial outsider—had moved more comfortably inside the party's “big tent.”

Public opinion data revealed that blacks have also become more politically moderate during the 1990s. A large majority (67 percent) of blacks supported Clinton's welfare reform law in 1996 that imposed a five-year lifetime limit for welfare benefits for families in poverty. In 1984 nearly half of the blacks polled felt that spending on food stamps should be increased, while only 10 percent thought it should be decreased. Twelve years later, however, that near-majority was cut down to 28 percent, while a nearly matching proportion thought that funds for this program should be cut. There was a less dramatic but still significant drop in the proportion of blacks who felt that federal spending on Medicare should be increased. Whereas 78 percent of blacks thought more money should go to Medicare in 1984, only 68 percent did in 1996. As in the case of food stamps, most in the black community felt that the spending levels for Medicare should remain where they were in 1996.

The growth in the proportion of blacks favoring a more conservative stance on welfare programs corresponds with other public opinion shifts in the black community from the 1980s to the 1990s. In 1996 a large plurality (40 percent) of blacks ranked crime first and unemployment and discrimination as second and third, respectively. In 1984 only 17 percent had placed crime above the other two problems; crime, in fact, came in third for half of the sample. However, in 1996 discrimination fell to third place while unemployment dropped to second. This was also evident as early as the late 1980s as the percentage of blacks opposing the idea of a federally guaranteed job program quadrupled from 7 percent in 1972 to 28 percent in 1988. Black opposition to federal assistance for minorities and blacks shot up during this period as well, from 6 percent in 1970 to 26 percent in 1988. Data from this national telephone survey of blacks in 1996 showed that fewer blacks favored government assistance to blacks and minorities than had in 1984.

The 1996 data reveal important changes in black attitudes toward a black presidential bid. In 1984, 80 percent of blacks surveyed in the 1984 National Black Election Study thought it had been a good idea for Jackson to have run. In the 1996 survey, 65 percent thought it would have been a bad idea if Jackson had run for president in 1996. In 2004, two other black Americans made bids for the Democratic party's presidential nomination, but failed to win the strong black support that Jackson had received. Carol Moseley Braun, the former U.S. senator from Illinois, withdrew less than one week before the Iowa caucuses in January 2004. Braun, along with a significant number of fellow Democrats, in the U.S. Senate had voted against the welfare reform measure President Clinton later signed into law. In her 2004 presidential bid, Braun chose to campaign exclusively on issues as a challenger to President Bush, including the war in Iraq, education, and health policy, instead of adopting a black-and-minority “rainbow alliance” mobilization strategy that Jackson had used. The Reverend Al Sharpton, a political activist from New York City, also ran in 2004, but performed poorly in comparison to Jackson. Jackson beat his Democratic rivals in the 1984 South Carolina Democratic caucuses, earning the most delegates—seventeen over Walter Mondale's six (the latter still picking up additional South Carolina delegates from the uncommitted ranks). Jackson performed even better in his 1988 bid. In South Carolina, Jackson won 55 percent of the vote, far ahead of Michael Dukakis, the party's nominee who won only 6 percent of the caucus vote. In contrast, in his 2004 bid, Al Sharpton obtained 10 percent of the vote in the South Carolina open primary, earning one delegate from that state. The comparatively weak performance of Braun and Sharpton in their presidential bids provide further evidence that the intraparty rift that had helped to fuel the Jackson candidacies had healed.

"A Dodge That Won't Work."  In this political cartoon from around 1872, a pair of African American voters endorse the presidential re-election of Ulysses S. Grant and reject Horace Greeley, behind whom they spot the specter of Jefferson Davis and a return to bondage.

(Library of Congress.)

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Blacks made sharp gains in their numbers serving the U.S. Congress in the 1990s, picking up thirteen new black members to the U.S. House of Representatives, and the first black female U.S. Senator, Carol Moseley Braun. Research finds that blacks, like whites, generally give their elected representatives in the U.S. House high marks. Nonetheless, black constituents still express higher measures of satisfaction when they are represented by blacks in the U.S. House than when represented by whites, all other things, including political party, being equal. Black constituents also expressed higher levels of political knowledge about their member in the U.S. House when represented by a black than those represented by whites, Asians, or Latinos. However, blacks were no more likely to vote or express higher levels of trust in the institution of Congress when represented by a member of their own race than blacks represented by a member of a different race. There was no consistent “political empowerment” effect associated with being represented by a person of one's own race in the U.S. House for African Americans. Other research on the impact of having African Americans serving in the U.S. Congress has found that black legislators are more likely to advance programs and legislation that address black concerns than are whites. These findings underscore the wider political significance of black electoral gains in the post-civil rights era. Black officeholding has effects beyond purely substantive and symbolic, as blacks constituents feel better represented in Congress when their representative are members of their own race.

The 1996 National Black Election Study established that blacks today remain highly race conscious, and increasingly so. A higher percentage of blacks in 1996 believed their individual fates were linked to that of their group. More blacks in 1996 than in 1984 reflected on the meaning of their identities as blacks in this country. In 1984 blacks in the national telephone survey were asked whether or not blacks in this country would ever achieve full social and economic equality. More than one-third (36 percent) said no, that blacks would never win equality with whites in this country. The ranks of the pessimists have increased; nearly half (49 percent) of those surveyed in 1996 said that blacks are never going to obtain equality in this country. Blacks are more race conscious in the 1990s than in the 1980s, yet the impact of race consciousness on their politics is less than what was seen in the 1980s.

The political incorporation of blacks into mainstream politics represented one of the most important outcomes of the Civil Rights Movement. Yet although blacks remain strongly race conscious, the new electoral phase of black politics has not functioned as the second stage of the Civil Rights Movement as Rustin had hoped. Black voters have not been able to facilitate the rise of progressive politics, but instead, their incorporation has resulted in the moderation of their politics. This is not entirely unexpected given the nature of the American political system, which favors compromise and moderation as opposed to conflict and ideological purity. The American political system tends to support those interests who favor the status quo or those who believe in incremental change. As participants in such a system, blacks' policy views and their political behavior have accordingly moderated. Furthermore, blacks in 1996 were highly satisfied with the centrist policy representation from President Bill Clinton after two decades of conservative Republican rule.

Blacks remain strongly Democratic nonetheless. Public opinion data show that blacks, in fact, were significantly opposed to the U.S. war with Iraq in contrast to whites. While Secretary of State Colin Powell has won moderately strong approval ratings from blacks, President George W. Bush has not obtained significantly higher approval ratings from blacks than past Republican presidents, nor has he been able to win more blacks to the GOP fold. Thus, the potential for radical progressive politics remains, especially given of the political uncertainty that blacks face today. Having realized significant political and economic gains in 1980s and 1990s as the direct consequence of the black civil rights movement, these gains nonetheless remain threatened by the continuing legal and political assaults on affirmative action, the war in Iraq, and the Voting Rights Act, which is set to expire in 2007, unless renewed.

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