Government Officials

By: Lucinda M. Deason

Source:

 Black Women in America, Second Edition

Government Officials

The public sector historically served as an opportunity ladder for disadvantaged ethnic groups. For instance, as Robert B. Denhardt notes, Irish Americans in the nineteenth century turned to government work in response to discrimination within the private sector, the availability of jobs in the expanding government, and the economic security such jobs had to offer. These were the same factors that helped to account for the early entry of blacks into the federal civil service after the passage of Pendleton Act in 1883. These factors offer a partial explanation for contemporary patterns of black employment. Prior to the enactment of the Pendleton Act, as Denhardt notes, the spoils system was used to employ government employees.

Employees who obtained government positions tended to be wealthy and educated, and the newly formed civil service took on an elitist character. Over time the spoils system became corrupt. There were kickbacks from contractors, private sales of surplus public property, skimming of tax receipts, and many other abuses. Corruption became a normal way of doing government business. The Pendleton Act was a landmark piece of legislation in federal personnel administration. As Denhardt claims, the act was meant to eliminate political influence in recruiting personnel for federal administrative agencies. Furthermore, it sought to assure more competent government employees, which in turn would lead to the extension of the ideal of a merit system throughout the federal, state, and local governments.

Black women have had an intermittent but forceful effect in government at the federal, state, and local levels. They have been effective as voters, elected and appointed officeholders, policymakers, members of local and state boards and commissions, party activists, interest group participants, women's club members, members of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, and lobbyists. But at the highest levels of government, black women have, in effect, remained second-class citizens. For instance, the first black woman presidential appointee was Mary McLeod Bethune, who founded the National Council of Negro Women. President Roosevelt appointed her head of the Office of Minority Affairs in 1935. It took approximately forty years for the next black woman, Patricia Harris, to be appointed to a cabinet-level position. She served as Secretary of Housing and Urban Development and Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare under President Jimmy Carter.

The National Congress of Black Women (NCBW) has worked to ensure that qualified black women have become involved in the political process at all levels of government. The NCBW, formerly the National Political Congress of Black Women, was founded 2 August 1984 in Washington, DC, when the Honorable C. DeLores Tucker called a group of thirty-five black women leaders of diverse groups to organize for greater involvement in the political process. The nonpartisan NCBW was the first organization that had the empowerment of African American women its primary mission. The nonpartisan NCBW was the first organization that had the empowerment of African American women as its primary mission. Through its Commission for the Presidential Appointment of African American Women, the NCBW canvassed the United States to identify African American women to recommend for high policy-level positions within the Clinton administration and to create a talent bank of highly qualified African American women for top political appointments. As a result of the commission's work, more African American women were appointed to high-level positions in the Clinton administration than in any other administration. The NCBW was also at the forefront in calling for the appointment of an African American woman to the United States Supreme Court.

It should be noted that the percentage of women appointees gradually increased within the presidential administration until George W. Bush took office in 2000. That is, 4 percent of Johnson's appointments were women, 6 percent of Ford's appointments were women, 15 percent of Carter's appointments were women, 10 percent of Reagan's appointments were women, 24 percent of George H. W. Bush's appointments were women, 37 percent of Clinton's appointments were women, and 26 percent of George W. Bush's appointments were women. Under the Clinton administration 15 percent of the appointments were black, and 17 percent of the judges were black as compared with 9 percent under the first term of the George W. Bush administration. Specifically, only 1.8 percent of the Bush administration appointees were black women and 7.3 percent were black men.

Judicial Appointments

Unfortunately, it was not until 1978 that the first group of black women received presidential appointments to Article III judges. The first group of black women appointed for these positions included Mary Johnson Lowe, Amalya L. Kearse, Anne E. Thompson, Anna Diggs Taylor, Odell Horton, and Consuelo B. Marshall. President Carter appointed these justices between 1978 and 1980. During the Reagan administration, Ann Claire Williams was the only black woman to be appointed to an Article III judge position. President George H. W. Bush appointed Sandra Brown Armstrong and Carol Jackson to Article III judge positions. Judith W. Rogers, Audrey Collins, Deborah Batts, Vanessa Gilmore, Blanche Manning, Vicki Miles-LaGrange, Bernice Bouie Donald, Victoria Roberts, Margaret B. Seymour, Ann Claire Williams, and Petrese B. Tucker were appointed to Article III judge positions under the Clinton administration. Lastly, George W. Bush appointed one black woman, Julie A. Robinson, to the position of Article III judge during his first three and a half years as president.

Judge Bernice Bouie Donald became the first African American female United States District Court Judge in Tennessee. Bouie Donald was appointed to the United States District Court for the Western District of Tennessee by President Clinton on 22 December 1995. Although Bouie Donald had intended to pursue a career in social work, she was later motivated to pursue law because she saw it as a primary tool for social change and equal justice. Of this, Judge Bouie Donald stated:

"Early in my career, my family was the biggest source of inspiration for me. My family and my church. And then the times in which I grew up. There was a lot of change going on in the world and our environment. Just being a product of that environment, when people—I think everybody—was just sort of stretching, as a family as a community, and as a nation."

(Bouie Donald, 1)

In the course of pursuing a legal career, Judge Bouie Donald achieved many “firsts.” She was the first elected African American female judge in the State of Tennessee. She was also the first African American female U.S. Bankruptcy Judge appointed in the United States. With her appointment in 1995, Judge Bouie Donald also became the first African American female judge appointed to the United States District Court in Tennessee.

Senior Executive Service

The public sector is thought to make professional and managerial occupations available to members of disadvantaged minority groups at a rate substantially higher than that of the private economy. Moreover, public employment promises minority groups not only raw numbers of jobs, but also socioeconomic and political benefits less readily available through the private sector. Scholars have long agreed that the process of public administration is inherently political. Furthermore, Denhardt goes so far as to suggest that bureaucrats who participate in the exercise of authority may be regarded as part of the “ruling class.”

The Senior Executive Service (SES) is a unique federal personnel system through which black women have been able to secure executive-level positions. Established by the Civil Service Reform Act of 1978, the SES created a separate personnel system for the highest-ranking civil service officials, permitting greater flexibility in assignments, and establishing a new system of incentives for top-level managers. Managers have been able to apply for positions in the SES and, if accepted, they have held SES rank as individuals, rather than being limited to the rank of a particular position. This has meant that, within certain limitations, SES managers can be moved from agency to agency, depending on their talents and the needs of the agencies. A new system of performance evaluation and compensation closely tied to performance was also developed, along with an elaborate system of bonuses for exceptional executives. SES members have been critical to providing the strategic leadership needed to effectively execute agency missions. They have also ensured accountability to the American people in the administration and in the operation of federal programs. Having a diverse SES corps has strengthened organizations and contributed to achieving results.

As of 30 September 1999, the SES had 6,871 members. The majority, 6,205, of SES members served in the career SES as of that date; the remaining 666 were in the non-career SES. From fiscal years 1990 through 1999, the career SES varied in size from a high of 7,583 in 1992 to a low of 6,183 in 1998. Though the number of career SES employees decreased overall, the number of women and minorities steadily increased over this ten-year period. The percentage of black women increased from 4.6 percent as of 30 September 1990 to 7.8 percent as of 30 September 1999—a 3.2 percentage point increase over a ten-year period. White women experienced a higher percentage change than did black women. The proportion of white women in the career SES increased more than 9 percentage points from 8.2 percent in 1990 to 17.6 percent in 1999. More importantly, as of 30 September 1999, the difference between white women and black women was 7 percentage points. By the end of the fiscal year 1999, the difference had increased to approximately 15 percentage points.

State and Local Government Executive and Appointed Officials

The local sector, because of its greater openness to minorities, has been an important source of jobs for blacks. In fact, the emergence of a solid black middle class during the twentieth century can be attributed, at least in part, to increasing numbers of blacks securing employment in city governments, especially at the professional and managerial levels. The presence of black workers in responsible positions in the city bureaucracy may also have direct political implications for the black community. As racial or ethnic symmetry between the bureaucracy and its clientele increased, the administration of public policy became somewhat more responsive to minority demands and concerns. Minority bureaucrats could act as advocates and guardians for their own group's interests, and they probably heightened the racial sensitivity of their non-minority colleagues.

Local government employment may play a role in the creation of a black leadership by contributing to the development of a black middle class and by teaching managerial skills. Based on a 1973 study of forty cities that represent 14 percent of all U.S. cities with a population over 50,000, Peter Eisinger determined the first year that local governments were required to report to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) an estimated 100,796 municipal jobs were held by black workers. In fact, black city employment reached a peak in 1978 at an estimated 120,849 and took a plunge thereafter. Though black municipal employment had risen to 19.9 percent between 1973 and 1978, more than half of that increase was wiped out in the next two years. These losses involved regular, full-time city jobs. Despite the heavy losses during that two-year period, most cities ended the decade with more blacks on the regular city payrolls than had been there in 1973. The results also indicated that the structure of opportunities for black workers in the public sector changed over the period from 1970 through 1980, bringing about a transformation within the black municipal workforce.

While the black share of jobs had become relatively stable by 1980, the black workforce was becoming increasingly managerial and professional. Furthermore, blacks began to obtain executive and appointed government positions in predominantly white cities. For instance, Sherry Ann Shuttles and Elijah Rodgers were Assistant City Managers in the cities of Menlo Park and Berkeley, California, respectively. In both cities the populations were at least 70 percent white. Despite a black population that constituted 25 percent of the total city population, Berkeley's city council seated five blacks, its congressional representative was black, and it elected a black assemblyman. Blacks held the administrative positions of city attorney, director of personnel, director of social planning, director of parks and recreation, and assistant city manager. Blacks, therefore, successfully penetrated elective and appointive municipal positions in Berkeley. However, in Menlo Park, there were only two administrators. Black women began to make gains in securing executive, managerial, and appointed positions in government.

During the 1990s the number and overall percentage of women holding state and local government jobs increased slightly between 1990 and 1997, even as the overall number of these public jobs shrank. In the early twenty-first century, many black women continue to become the first black women to attain positions of authority in government. For instance, on 29 January 2002, Lieutenant Ella McNair was appointed the first black female firefighter in the history of the New York City Fire Department. If this trend continues, it is likely that a much larger percent of black women will obtain executive, managerial, and appointed positions at the federal, state, and local levels of government.

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