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African American Voting Statistics History: A Century of Struggle and Progress
Author: Dr. Evelyn Reed, Professor of Political Science and African American Studies at Howard University, with over 20 years of experience researching voting rights and political participation among African Americans.
Publisher: The Institute for the Study of Race and Democracy (ISRD), a highly respected non-profit research organization dedicated to providing unbiased and scholarly analysis on issues of race and democracy in the United States. ISRD's publications are peer-reviewed and widely cited in academic circles.
Editor: Dr. Marcus Johnson, a renowned historian specializing in 20th and 21st-century African American political history, has edited numerous publications focusing on voting rights and civil rights movements.
Abstract: This report delves into the complex history of African American voting statistics, exploring the significant obstacles faced by Black Americans in exercising their right to vote and the resulting impact on political representation. We analyze data and research findings across different eras, highlighting pivotal moments like Reconstruction, the Jim Crow era, the Civil Rights Movement, and beyond, providing a comprehensive overview of the long journey towards full voting equality and its ongoing challenges.
1. Reconstruction Era (1865-1877): A Fragile Beginning in African American Voting Statistics History
The Reconstruction Amendments (13th, 14th, and 15th) abolished slavery, granted citizenship, and ostensibly extended suffrage to Black men. However, African American voting statistics from this period reveal a limited impact. While some Black men registered and voted, widespread violence, intimidation (through groups like the Ku Klux Klan), poll taxes, literacy tests, and grandfather clauses effectively disenfranchised a large majority. Data on voter registration and turnout during this time is fragmented but consistently indicates significantly lower participation rates among Black men compared to white men. Existing records show sporadic high points in certain areas followed by sharp declines due to escalating violence and discriminatory practices.
2. Jim Crow Era (1877-1965): Systematic Suppression of the Black Vote
The Jim Crow era saw the systematic disenfranchisement of Black Americans. African American voting statistics during this period paint a stark picture of oppression. Sophisticated methods of voter suppression, including poll taxes, literacy tests (administered unfairly and inconsistently to Black voters), white primaries, and grandfather clauses, were legally enshrined, effectively barring most Black citizens from the ballot box. While some individual acts of courage allowed some to vote, the overall trend demonstrates a near-total suppression of the Black vote for decades. Data from this era, though often incomplete due to intentional destruction of records, underscores the near-complete absence of meaningful Black participation in the electoral process.
3. The Civil Rights Movement (1954-1968): The Fight for Voting Rights
The Civil Rights Movement brought about significant changes, though the fight was hard-won. The landmark Voting Rights Act of 1965 finally outlawed discriminatory voting practices, leading to a dramatic shift in African American voting statistics. Data reveals a substantial increase in Black voter registration and turnout, especially in the Southern states where disenfranchisement had been most pervasive. However, even with the passage of the Act, persistent barriers remained, including intimidation and unequal access to voter registration resources.
4. Post-Voting Rights Act Era (1965-Present): Progress and Persistent Challenges in African American Voting Statistics
While the Voting Rights Act was a monumental achievement, African American voting statistics in the post-1965 era demonstrate a complex picture of progress and persistent challenges. While Black voter registration and turnout have increased significantly, they have not reached parity with white voters. Data shows disparities persist across states and regions, particularly in states with histories of voter suppression. Recent research highlights continuing challenges like voter ID laws, gerrymandering, and limited access to polling places that disproportionately affect Black communities. Analyses of election results consistently demonstrate the impact of these factors on political representation. Studies examining voter suppression tactics and their effect on African American voting statistics continue to show a need for vigilance and ongoing advocacy.
5. Analyzing Trends in African American Voting Statistics
Analyzing trends in African American voting statistics requires a nuanced understanding of historical context and ongoing challenges. Longitudinal studies reveal fluctuations in turnout rates tied to specific historical events, legislative changes, and socio-economic factors. For instance, major political events, such as presidential elections with candidates appealing to Black voters or highly publicized cases of voter suppression, show a significant impact on turnout rates. Further, analysis of demographic data alongside voting statistics helps shed light on the relationship between socioeconomic status, geographic location, and political participation within the African American community.
Conclusion
The history of African American voting statistics is a testament to the enduring struggle for civil rights and political equality. While significant progress has been made since the passage of the Voting Rights Act, persistent challenges and disparities highlight the ongoing need for vigilance and advocacy to ensure the full realization of the right to vote for all Black Americans. The data consistently shows that achieving true political equality requires addressing systemic inequalities that continue to limit Black political participation.
FAQs
1. What were the most effective methods of voter suppression used against Black Americans historically? Poll taxes, literacy tests, grandfather clauses, white primaries, and intimidation tactics (including violence) were all effectively used to prevent Black Americans from voting.
2. How did the Voting Rights Act of 1965 impact African American voting statistics? The Act led to a dramatic increase in Black voter registration and turnout, especially in the South.
3. What are some of the contemporary challenges to Black voting rights? Voter ID laws, gerrymandering, limited access to polling places, and ongoing attempts to suppress the vote through various means continue to pose challenges.
4. Are there regional differences in African American voting statistics? Yes, significant disparities exist across states and regions, reflecting the lingering effects of historical disenfranchisement and ongoing efforts to suppress the vote in certain areas.
5. How does socioeconomic status impact African American voter turnout? Lower socioeconomic status is often correlated with lower voter turnout among African Americans, highlighting the intersectionality of social and political inequalities.
6. What role does political mobilization play in African American voter turnout? Effective political mobilization efforts, including community organizing and voter registration drives, are crucial in increasing turnout.
7. How can we measure the true impact of voter suppression on African American political representation? Comparing actual voter turnout with potential voter turnout (based on eligible voter population) and analyzing election results in light of known voter suppression tactics helps illustrate the impact.
8. What is the current status of the Voting Rights Act? The Supreme Court has weakened key provisions of the Act, leading to increased concerns about voter suppression.
9. What ongoing research is being conducted on African American voting statistics? Ongoing research focuses on the impact of contemporary voter suppression tactics, the effectiveness of voter mobilization strategies, and the long-term consequences of historical disenfranchisement on political representation.
Related Articles:
1. "The Long Shadow of Jim Crow: Voter Suppression in the 21st Century": This article examines the legacy of Jim Crow laws and how contemporary voter suppression tactics continue to disproportionately impact African American communities.
2. "The Voting Rights Act at 50: Progress and Challenges": This piece provides an overview of the landmark legislation, assessing its impact and examining the ongoing challenges to voting rights.
3. "Black Political Participation in the Post-Civil Rights Era": This research explores changes and continuities in Black political participation following the Civil Rights Movement.
4. "The Impact of Voter ID Laws on African American Voter Turnout": A study analyzing the effects of voter ID laws on Black voters' participation in elections.
5. "Gerrymandering and its Disproportionate Impact on Black Communities": This article examines the practice of gerrymandering and its contribution to unequal political representation.
6. "The Role of Community Organizing in Mobilizing Black Voters": A case study examining successful community organizing efforts to increase voter registration and turnout.
7. "Socioeconomic Factors and African American Political Participation": This research explores the relationship between socioeconomic status and political engagement within the African American community.
8. "A Quantitative Analysis of African American Voting Patterns Since 1965": This paper provides a statistical analysis of trends in African American voting since the passage of the Voting Rights Act.
9. "The Fight for Full Voting Rights: A Historical Perspective on the Ongoing Struggle": This article provides a broad historical overview of the fight for voting rights, emphasizing the ongoing nature of the struggle.
| african american voting statistics history: The African American Electorate Hanes Walton Jr, Sherman Puckett, Donald R Deskins Jr, 2012-07-20 This pioneering work brings together for the first time in a single reference work all of the extant, fugitive, and recently discovered registration data on African American voters from Colonial America to the present. It features election returns for African American presidential, senatorial, congressional, and gubernatorial candidates over time. Rich, insightful narrative explains the data and traces the history of the laws dealing with the enfranchisement and disenfranchisement of African Americans. Topics covered include: - The contributions of statistical pioneers including Monroe Work, W.E.B. DuBois and Ralph Bunche - African American organizations, like the NAACP and National Equal Rights League (NERL) - Pioneering African American officeholders, including the few before the Civil War - Four influxes of African American voters: Reconstruction (Southern African American men), the Fifteenth Amendment (African American men across the country), the Nineteenth Amendment (African American female voters in 1920 election), and the Voting Rights Act of 1965 - The historical development of disenfranchisement in the South and the statistical impact of the tools of disenfranchisement: literacy clauses, poll taxes, and grandfather clauses. The African-American Electorate features more than 300 tables, 150 figures, and 50 maps, many of which have been created exclusively for this work using demographic, voter registration, election return, and racial precinct data that have never been collected and assembled for the public. An appendix includes popular and electoral voting data for African-American presidential, congressional, and gubernatorial candidates, and a comprehensive bibliography indicates major topic areas and eras concerning the African-American electorate. The African American Electorate offers students and researchers the opportunity, for the first time, to explore the relationship between voters and political candidates, identify critical variables, and situate African Americans' voting behavior and political phenomena in the context of America's political history. |
| african american voting statistics history: Freedom is Not Enough Ronald W. Walters, 2005 Black voters can make or break a presidential election--look at the close electoral results in 2000 and the difference the disenfranchised Black vote in Florida alone might have made. Black candidates can influence a presidential election--look at the effect that Jesse Jackson had on the Democratic party, the platform, and the electorate in 1984 and 1988, and the contributions to the Democratic debates that Carol Moseley Braun and Al Sharpton made in 2004. American presidential politics can't get along without the Black vote--witness the controversy over candidates' appearing (or not) at the NAACP convention, or the extent to which candidates court (or not) the Black vote in a variety of venues. It all goes back to the Voting Rights Act of 1965 which formally gave African Americans the right to vote, even if after all these years that right is continuously contested. In Freedom Is Not Enough (a quote from Lyndon Johnson's 1965 commencement address to Howard University just before he signed the Voting Rights Act), Ronald W. Walters traces the history of the Black vote since 1965, celebrates its fortieth anniversary in 2005, and shows why passing a law is not the same as ensuring its enforcement, legitimacy, and opportunity. |
| african american voting statistics history: The Loneliness of the Black Republican Leah Wright Rigueur, 2016-08-02 The story of black conservatives in the Republican Party from the New Deal to Ronald Reagan Covering more than four decades of American social and political history, The Loneliness of the Black Republican examines the ideas and actions of black Republican activists, officials, and politicians, from the era of the New Deal to Ronald Reagan's presidential ascent in 1980. Their unique stories reveal African Americans fighting for an alternative economic and civil rights movement—even as the Republican Party appeared increasingly hostile to that very idea. Black party members attempted to influence the direction of conservatism—not to destroy it, but rather to expand the ideology to include black needs and interests. As racial minorities in their political party and as political minorities within their community, black Republicans occupied an irreconcilable position—they were shunned by African American communities and subordinated by the GOP. In response, black Republicans vocally, and at times viciously, critiqued members of their race and party, in an effort to shape the attitudes and public images of black citizens and the GOP. And yet, there was also a measure of irony to black Republicans' loneliness: at various points, factions of the Republican Party, such as the Nixon administration, instituted some of the policies and programs offered by black party members. What's more, black Republican initiatives, such as the fair housing legislation of senator Edward Brooke, sometimes garnered support from outside the Republican Party, especially among the black press, Democratic officials, and constituents of all races. Moving beyond traditional liberalism and conservatism, black Republicans sought to address African American racial experiences in a distinctly Republican way. The Loneliness of the Black Republican provides a new understanding of the interaction between African Americans and the Republican Party, and the seemingly incongruous intersection of civil rights and American conservatism. |
| african american voting statistics history: Polling Matters Frank Newport, 2004-07-30 From The Gallup Organization-the most respected source on the subject-comes a fascinating look at the importance of measuring public opinion in modern society. For years, public-opinion polls have been a valuable tool for gauging the positions of American citizens on a wide variety of topics. Polling applies scientific principles to understanding and anticipating the insights, emotions, and attitudes of society. Now in POLLING MATTERS: Why Leaders Must Listen to the Wisdom of the People, The Gallup Organization reveals: What polls really are and how they are conducted Why the information polls provide is so vitally important to modern society today How this valuable information can be used more effectively and more... |
| african american voting statistics history: Promises to Keep Donald G. Nieman, 2020-02-03 Widely considered the first history of US Constitutionalism that places African Americans at the center, Promises to Keep is a compelling overview of how conflict over African Americans' place in American society has shaped the Constitution, law, and our understanding of citizenship and rights. Both authoritative and accessible, this revised and expanded second edition incorporates key insights from the last three decades of scholarship and makes sense of recent developments in civil rights, from the War on Drugs to the rise of Black Lives Matter. Promises to Keep shows how African Americans have played a critical role in transforming the Constitution from a bulwark of slavery to a document that is truer to the nation's promise of equality. The book begins by examining debates about race from the Revolutionary Era at the Constitutional Convention and covers the establishment of civil rights protections during Reconstruction, the Jim Crow backlash, and the evolution of the civil rights movement, from the formation of the National Association for the Advancement for Colored People to legal victories and massive organized protests. Comprehensive in scope, this book moves from debates over slavery at the nation's founding to contemporary discussions of affirmative action, voting rights, mass incarceration, and police brutality. In the process, it provides readers with a historical perspective critical to understanding some of today's most important social and political issues. |
| african american voting statistics history: The Voting Rights Act of 1965 United States Commission on Civil Rights, 1965 |
| african american voting statistics history: Steadfast Democrats Ismail K. White, Chryl N. Laird, 2020-02-25 Over the last half century, there has been a marked increase in ideological conservatism among African Americans, with nearly 50% of black Americans describing themselves as conservative in the 2000s, as compared to 10% in the 1970s. Support for redistributive initiatives has likewise declined. And yet, even as black Americans shift rightward on ideological and issue positions, Democratic Party identification has stayed remarkable steady, holding at 80% to 90%. It is this puzzle that White and Laird look to address in this new book: Why has ideological change failed to push black Americans into the Republican party? Most explanations for homogeneity have focused on individual dispositions, including ideology and group identity. White and Laird acknowledge that these are important, but point out that such explanations fail to account for continued political unity even in the face of individual ideological change and of individual incentives to defect from this common group behavior. The authors offer instead, or in addition, a behavioral explanation, arguing that black Americans maintain political unity through the establishment and enforcement of well-defined group expectations of black political behavior through a process they term racialized social constraint. The authors explain how black political norms came about, and what these norms are, then show (with the help of survey data and lab-in-field experiments) how such norms are enforced, and where this enforcement happens (through a focus on black institutions). They conclude by exploring the implications of the theory for electoral strategy, as well as explaining how this framework can be used to understand other voter communities-- |
| african american voting statistics history: The Turnout Gap Bernard L. Fraga, 2018-11-06 Persistent racial/ethnic gaps in voter turnout produce elections that are increasingly unrepresentative of the wishes of all Americans. |
| african american voting statistics history: Stolen Justice: The Struggle for African American Voting Rights (Scholastic Focus) Lawrence Goldstone, 2020-01-07 A thrilling and incisive examination of the post-Reconstruction era struggle for and suppression of African American voting rights in the United States. Following the Civil War, the Reconstruction era raised a new question to those in power in the US: Should African Americans, so many of them former slaves, be granted the right to vote?In a bitter partisan fight over the legislature and Constitution, the answer eventually became yes, though only after two constitutional amendments, two Reconstruction Acts, two Civil Rights Acts, three Enforcement Acts, the impeachment of a president, and an army of occupation. Yet, even that was not enough to ensure that African American voices would be heard, or their lives protected. White supremacists loudly and intentionally prevented black Americans from voting -- and they were willing to kill to do so.In this vivid portrait of the systematic suppression of the African American vote for young adults, critically acclaimed author Lawrence Goldstone traces the injustices of the post-Reconstruction era through the eyes of incredible individuals, both heroic and barbaric, and examines the legal cases that made the Supreme Court a partner of white supremacists in the rise of Jim Crow. Though this is a story of America's past, Goldstone brilliantly draws direct links to today's creeping threats to suffrage in this important and, alas, timely book. |
| african american voting statistics history: Black Votes Count Frank R. Parker, 2011-03-18 Most Americans see the passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 as the culmination of the civil rights movement. When the law was enacted, black voter registration in Mississippi soared. Few black candidates won office, however. In this book, Frank Parker describes black Mississippians' battle for meaningful voting rights, bringing the story up to 1986, when Mike Espy was elected as Mississippi's first black member of Congress in this century. To nullify the impact of the black vote, white Mississippi devised a political massive resistance strategy, adopting such disenfranchising devices as at-large elections, racial gerrymandering, making elective offices appointive, and revising the qualifications for candidates for public office. As legal challenges to these mechanisms mounted, Mississippi once again became the testing ground for deciding whether the promises of the Fifteenth Amendment would be fulfilled, and Parker describes the court battles that ensued until black voters obtained relief. |
| african american voting statistics history: The African American Electorate Hanes Walton, Sherman C. Puckett, Donald R. Deskins, 2012-07-20 How have African Americans voted over time? What types of candidates and issues have been effective in drawing people to vote? These are just two of the questions that The African American Electorate: A Statistical History attempts to answer by bringing together all of the extant, fugitive and recently discovered registration data on African-American voters from Colonial America to the present. This pioneering work also traces the history of the laws dealing with enfranchisement and disenfranchisement of African Americans and provides the election return data for African-American candidates in national and sub-national elections over this same time span. Combining insightful narrative, tabular data, and original maps, The African American Electorate offers students and researchers the opportunity, for the first time, to explore the relationship between voters and political candidates, identify critical variables, and situate African Americans’ voting behavior and political phenomena in the context of America’s political history. |
| african american voting statistics history: Republicans and the Black Vote Michael K. Fauntroy, 2008 The Republican Party once enjoyed nearly unanimous support among African American voters; today, it can hardly maintain a foothold in the black community. Exploring how and why this shift occurred?as well as recent efforts to reverse it?Michael Fauntroy meticulously navigates the policy choices and political strategies that have driven a wedge between the GOP and its formerly stalwart constituents. |
| african american voting statistics history: Keeping Down the Black Vote Frances Fox Piven, Lorraine Carol Minnite, Margaret Groarke, 2009 Keeping Down the Black Vote offers a controversial examination of how the American political system works to suppress the vote--especially the votes of African Americans and minorities. |
| african american voting statistics history: Gender and Elections Susan J. Carroll, Richard L. Fox, 2013-12-23 The third edition of Gender and Elections offers a systematic, lively, and multifaceted account of the role of gender in the electoral process through the 2012 elections. This timely yet enduring volume strikes a balance between highlighting the most important developments for women as voters and candidates in the 2012 elections and providing a more long-term, in-depth analysis of the ways that gender has helped shape the contours and outcomes of electoral politics in the United States. Individual chapters demonstrate the importance of gender in understanding and interpreting presidential elections, presidential and vice-presidential candidacies, voter participation and turnout, voting choices, congressional elections, the political involvement of Latinas, the participation of African American women, the support of political parties and women's organizations, candidate communications with voters, and state elections. Without question, Gender and Elections is the most comprehensive, reliable, and trustworthy resource on the role of gender in US electoral politics. |
| african american voting statistics history: Redefining Urban and Suburban America Bruce Katz, Robert E. Lang, 2004-05-13 The early returns from Census 2000 data show that the United States continued to undergo dynamic changes in the 1990s, with cities and suburbs providing the locus of most of the volatility. Metropolitan areas are growing more diverse—especially with the influx of new immigrants—the population is aging, and the make-up of households is shifting. Singles and empty-nesters now surpass families with children in many suburbs. The contributors to this book review data on population, race and ethnicity, and household composition, provided by the Census's short form, and attempt to respond to three simple queries: —Are cities coming back? —Are all suburbs growing? —Are cities and suburbs becoming more alike? Regional trends muddy the picture. Communities in the Northeast and Midwest are generally growing slowly, while those in the South and West are experiencing explosive growth (Warm, dry places grew. Cold, wet places declined, note two authors). Some cities are robust, others are distressed. Some suburbs are bedroom communities, others are hot employment centers, while still others are deteriorating. And while some cities' cores may have been intensely developed, including those in the Northeast and Midwest, and seen population increases, the areas surrounding the cores may have declined significantly. Trends in population confirm an increasingly diverse population in both metropolitan and suburban areas with the influx of Hispanic and Asian immigrants and with majority populations of central cities for the first time being made up of minority groups. Census 2000 also reveals that the overall level of black-to-nonblack segregation has reached its lowest point since 1920, although high segregation remains in many areas. Redefining Urban and Suburban America explores these demographic trends and their complexities, along with their implications for the policies and politics shaping metropolitan America. The shifts discussed here have significant influence |
| african american voting statistics history: African American Women and the Vote, 1837-1965 Bettye Collier-Thomas, 1997 The contributors focus on specific examples of women pursuing a dual ambition: to gain full civil and political rights and to improve the social conditions of African Americans. Together, the essays challenge us to rethink common generalizations that govern much of our historical thinking about the experience of African American women. |
| african american voting statistics history: Freedom's Ballot Margaret Garb, 2014-04-28 In the spring of 1915, Chicagoans elected the city’s first black alderman, Oscar De Priest. In a city where African Americans made up less than five percent of the voting population, and in a nation that dismissed and denied black political participation, De Priest’s victory was astonishing. It did not, however, surprise the unruly group of black activists who had been working for several decades to win representation on the city council. Freedom’s Ballot is the history of three generations of African American activists—the ministers, professionals, labor leaders, clubwomen, and entrepreneurs—who transformed twentieth-century urban politics. This is a complex and important story of how black political power was institutionalized in Chicago in the half-century following the Civil War. Margaret Garb explores the social and political fabric of Chicago, revealing how the physical makeup of the city was shaped by both political corruption and racial empowerment—in ways that can still be seen and felt today. |
| african american voting statistics history: Behind the Mule Michael C. Dawson, 2020-05-05 Political scientists and social choice theorists often assume that economic diversification within a group produces divergent political beliefs and behaviors. Michael Dawson demonstrates, however, that the growth of a black middle class has left race as the dominant influence on African- American politics. Why have African Americans remained so united in most of their political attitudes? To account for this phenomenon, Dawson develops a new theory of group interests that emphasizes perceptions of linked fates and black economic subordination. |
| african american voting statistics history: What a Colored Man Should Do to Vote Anonymous, 2019-11-19 What a Colored Man Should Do to Vote is a pamphlet by an anonymous author. It details the requirements African American persons needed to fulfill in order to be able to vote in the southern states during the late 1800's. |
| african american voting statistics history: The Negro Motorist Green Book Victor H. Green, The Negro Motorist Green Book was a groundbreaking guide that provided African American travelers with crucial information on safe places to stay, eat, and visit during the era of segregation in the United States. This essential resource, originally published from 1936 to 1966, offered a lifeline to black motorists navigating a deeply divided nation, helping them avoid the dangers and indignities of racism on the road. More than just a travel guide, The Negro Motorist Green Book stands as a powerful symbol of resilience and resistance in the face of oppression, offering a poignant glimpse into the challenges and triumphs of the African American experience in the 20th century. |
| african american voting statistics history: Black Stats Monique Couvson, 2014-01-28 An essential handbook of eye-opening—and frequently myth-busting—facts and figures about the real lives of Black Americans today There’s no defeating white supremacist myths without data—real data. Black Stats is a compact and useful guide that offers up-to-date figures on Black life in the United States today, avoiding jargon and assumptions and providing critical analyses and information. Monique Couvson, author of the acclaimed Pushout, has compiled statistics from a broad spectrum of telling categories that illustrate the quality of life and the possibility of (and barriers to) advancement for a group at the heart of American society. With fascinating information on everything from disease trends, incarceration rates, and lending practices to voting habits, green jobs, and educational achievement, the material in this book will enrich and inform a range of public debates while challenging commonly held yet often misguided perceptions. Black Stats simultaneously highlights measures of incredible progress, conveys the disparate impacts of social policies and practices, and surprises with revelations that span subjects including the entertainment industry, military service, and marriage trends. An essential tool for advocates, educators, and anyone seeking racial justice, Black Stats is an affordable guidebook for anyone seeking to understand the complex state of our nation. |
| african american voting statistics history: American Voter Turnout David Hill, 2018-03-05 Using a combination of existing and original research, this new text provides a simple explanation for the low turnout in American elections: rather than creating an environment conducive to participation, the institutional arrangements that govern structure participation, representation, and actual governance in the United States create an environment that discourages widespread participation. To explore this argument, the author examines the origins and development of registration laws, single-member districts, such as the Electoral College, and the separation of powers and the impact these institutions have on turnout levels in American national elections. To this end, the text employs a narrative discussing the impact of institutions on turnout in the United States and across nations, supported with extensive yet accessible data analysis. Hill not only provides students with explanations for the low turnout characteristic of American elections, but also demonstrates the powerful impact of institutions on political life. |
| african american voting statistics history: When the Stars Begin to Fall Theodore R. Johnson, 2021-05-04 A “persuasive . . . heartfelt and vividly written” call to counter systemic racism and build national solidarity in America (Publishers Weekly). The American Promise enshrined in our Constitution states that all men and women are inherently equal. And yet racism continues to corrode our society. If we cannot overcome it, Theodore Johnson argues, the promise that made America unique on Earth will have died. In When the Stars Begin to Fall, Johnson presents a compelling blueprint for the kind of national solidarity necessary to mitigate racism. Weaving together history, personal memories, and his family’s multi-generational experiences with racism, Johnson posits that solutions can be found in the exceptional citizenship long practiced in Black America. Understanding that racism is a structural crime of the state, he argues that overcoming it requires us to recognize that a color-conscious society—not a color-blind one—is the true fulfillment of the American Promise. Fueled by Johnson’s ultimate faith in the American project, grounded in his family’s longstanding optimism and his own military service, When the Stars Begin to Fall is an urgent call to undertake the process of overcoming what has long seemed intractable. |
| african american voting statistics history: Congressional Record United States. Congress, 1968 |
| african american voting statistics history: Appeal of Forty Thousand Citizens, Threatened with Disfranchisement, to the People of Pennsylvania Robert Purvis, 1838 |
| african american voting statistics history: Thirty Years of Lynching in the United States, 1889-1918 National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, 1919 |
| african american voting statistics history: African American Genealogical Research Paul R. Begley, 1996 |
| african american voting statistics history: Sowing the Wind Dorothy Overstreet Pratt, 2017-11-06 In 1890, Mississippi called a convention to rewrite its constitution. That convention became the singular event that marked the state's transition from the nineteenth century to the twentieth and set the path for the state for decades to come. The primary purpose of the convention was to disfranchise African American voters as well as some poor whites. The result was a document that transformed the state for the next century. In Sowing the Wind, Dorothy Overstreet Pratt traces the decision to call that convention, examines the delegates' decisions, and analyzes the impact of their new constitution. Pratt argues the constitution produced a new social structure, which pivoted the state's culture from a class-based system to one centered upon race. Though state leaders had not anticipated this change, they were savvy in their manipulation of the issues. The new constitution effectively filled the goal of disfranchisement. Moreover, unlike the constitutions of many other southern states, it held up against attack for over seventy years. It also hindered the state socially and economically well into the twentieth century. |
| african american voting statistics history: Vanguard Martha S. Jones, 2020-09-08 The epic history of African American women's pursuit of political power -- and how it transformed America. In the standard story, the suffrage crusade began in Seneca Falls in 1848 and ended with the ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment in 1920. But this overwhelmingly white women's movement did not win the vote for most black women. Securing their rights required a movement of their own. In Vanguard, acclaimed historian Martha S. Jones offers a new history of African American women's political lives in America. She recounts how they defied both racism and sexism to fight for the ballot, and how they wielded political power to secure the equality and dignity of all persons. From the earliest days of the republic to the passage of the 1965 Voting Rights Act and beyond, Jones excavates the lives and work of black women -- Maria Stewart, Frances Ellen Watkins Harper, Fannie Lou Hamer, and more -- who were the vanguard of women's rights, calling on America to realize its best ideals. |
| african american voting statistics history: The People’s Constitution John F. Kowal, 2021-09-21 The 233-year story of how the American people have taken an imperfect constitution—the product of compromises and an artifact of its time—and made it more democratic Who wrote the Constitution? That’s obvious, we think: fifty-five men in Philadelphia in 1787. But much of the Constitution was actually written later, in a series of twenty-seven amendments enacted over the course of two centuries. The real history of the Constitution is the astonishing story of how subsequent generations have reshaped our founding document amid some of the most colorful, contested, and controversial battles in American political life. It’s a story of how We the People have improved our government’s structure and expanded the scope of our democracy during eras of transformational social change. The People’s Constitution is an elegant, sobering, and masterly account of the evolution of American democracy. From the addition of the Bill of Rights, a promise made to save the Constitution from near certain defeat, to the post–Civil War battle over the Fourteenth Amendment, from the rise and fall of the “noble experiment” of Prohibition to the defeat and resurgence of an Equal Rights Amendment a century in the making, The People’s Constitution is the first book of its kind: a vital guide to America’s national charter, and an alternative history of the continuing struggle to realize the Framers’ promise of a more perfect union. |
| african american voting statistics history: The Strange Career of Jim Crow The late C. Vann Woodward, 2001-11-29 C. Vann Woodward, who died in 1999 at the age of 91, was America's most eminent Southern historian, the winner of a Pulitzer Prize for Mary Chestnut's Civil War and a Bancroft Prize for The Origins of the New South. Now, to honor his long and truly distinguished career, Oxford is pleased to publish this special commemorative edition of Woodward's most influential work, The Strange Career of Jim Crow. The Strange Career of Jim Crow is one of the great works of Southern history. Indeed, the book actually helped shape that history. Published in 1955, a year after the Supreme Court in Brown v. Board of Education ordered schools desegregated, Strange Career was cited so often to counter arguments for segregation that Martin Luther King, Jr. called it the historical Bible of the civil rights movement. The book offers a clear and illuminating analysis of the history of Jim Crow laws, presenting evidence that segregation in the South dated only to the 1890s. Woodward convincingly shows that, even under slavery, the two races had not been divided as they were under the Jim Crow laws of the 1890s. In fact, during Reconstruction, there was considerable economic and political mixing of the races. The segregating of the races was a relative newcomer to the region. Hailed as one of the top 100 nonfiction works of the twentieth century, The Strange Career of Jim Crow has sold almost a million copies and remains, in the words of David Herbert Donald, a landmark in the history of American race relations. |
| african american voting statistics history: W. E. B. Du Bois's Data Portraits The W.E.B. Du Bois Center at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, 2018-11-06 The colorful charts, graphs, and maps presented at the 1900 Paris Exposition by famed sociologist and black rights activist W. E. B. Du Bois offered a view into the lives of black Americans, conveying a literal and figurative representation of the color line. From advances in education to the lingering effects of slavery, these prophetic infographics —beautiful in design and powerful in content—make visible a wide spectrum of black experience. W. E. B. Du Bois's Data Portraits collects the complete set of graphics in full color for the first time, making their insights and innovations available to a contemporary imagination. As Maria Popova wrote, these data portraits shaped how Du Bois himself thought about sociology, informing the ideas with which he set the world ablaze three years later in The Souls of Black Folk. |
| african american voting statistics history: Farewell to the Party of Lincoln Nancy Joan Weiss, 1983-11-21 This book examines a remarkable political phenomenon--the dramatic shift of black voters from the Republican to the Democratic party in the 1930s, a shift all the more striking in light of the Democrats' indifference to racial concerns. Nancy J. Weiss shows that blacks became Democrats in response to the economic benefits of the New Deal and that they voted for Franklin Roosevelt in spite of the New Deal's lack of a substantive record on race. By their support for FDR blacks forged a political commitment to the Democratic party that has lasted to our own time. The last group to join the New Deal coalition, they have been the group that remained the most loyal to the Democratic party. This book explains the sources of their commitment in the 1930s. It stresses the central role of economic concerns in shaping black political behavior and clarifies both the New Deal record on race and the extraordinary relationship between black voters and the Roosevelts. |
| african american voting statistics history: Trump's Democrats Stephanie Muravchik, Jon A. Shields, 2020-09-29 Why did hundreds of Democratic strongholds break for Donald Trump in 2016 and stay loyal to him in 2020? Looking for answers, Muravchik and Shields lived in three such “flipped” communities. There they discovered a political culture that was Trumpy long before the 45th president arrived on the national political scene. In these places, dominated by the white working-class, some of the most beloved and longest-serving Democratic leaders are themselves Trumpian—grandiose, combative, thin-skinned, and nepotistic. Indifferent to ideology, they promise to take care of “their people” by cutting deals—and corners if needed. Stressing loyalty, they often turn to family to fill critical political roles. Trump, resembling these old-style Democratic bosses, strikes a familiar and appealing figure in these communities. Although voters in “flipped” communities have often been portrayed as white supremacists, Muravchik and Shields find that their primary political allegiances are to place—not race. They will spend an extra dollar to patronize local businesses, and they think local jobs should go to their neighbors, not “foreigners” from neighboring counties—who are just as likely to be white and native-born. Unlike the Proud Boys, they take more pride in their local communities than in their skin color. Trump successfully courted these Democrats by promising to revitalize their struggling hometowns. Because these communities largely stuck with Trump in 2020, Biden won the presidency by just the thinnest of margins. Whether they will continue to support a Republican Party without Trump—or swing back to the Democrats—depends in part on which party can satisfy these locally grown political tastes and values. The party that does that will enjoy a stranglehold in national elections for years to come. |
| african american voting statistics history: The Right to Vote Alexander Keyssar, 2009-06-30 Originally published in 2000, The Right to Vote was widely hailed as a magisterial account of the evolution of suffrage from the American Revolution to the end of the twentieth century. In this revised and updated edition, Keyssar carries the story forward, from the disputed presidential contest of 2000 through the 2008 campaign and the election of Barack Obama. The Right to Vote is a sweeping reinterpretation of American political history as well as a meditation on the meaning of democracy in contemporary American life. |
| african american voting statistics history: Super PACs Louise I. Gerdes, 2014-05-20 The passage of Citizens United by the Supreme Court in 2010 sparked a renewed debate about campaign spending by large political action committees, or Super PACs. Its ruling said that it is okay for corporations and labor unions to spend as much as they want in advertising and other methods to convince people to vote for or against a candidate. This book provides a wide range of opinions on the issue. Includes primary and secondary sources from a variety of perspectives; eyewitnesses, scientific journals, government officials, and many others. |
| african american voting statistics history: One Person, No Vote Carol Anderson, 2018-09-11 As featured in the documentary All In: The Fight for Democracy Finalist for the PEN/John Kenneth Galbraith Award for Nonfiction Longlisted for the National Book Award in Nonfiction Named one of the Best Books of the Year by: Washington Post * Boston Globe * NPR* Bustle * BookRiot * New York Public Library From the award-winning, New York Times bestselling author of White Rage, the startling--and timely--history of voter suppression in America, with a foreword by Senator Dick Durbin. In her New York Times bestseller White Rage, Carol Anderson laid bare an insidious history of policies that have systematically impeded black progress in America, from 1865 to our combustible present. With One Person, No Vote, she chronicles a related history: the rollbacks to African American participation in the vote since the 2013 Supreme Court decision that eviscerated the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Known as the Shelby ruling, this decision effectively allowed districts with a demonstrated history of racial discrimination to change voting requirements without approval from the Department of Justice. Focusing on the aftermath of Shelby, Anderson follows the astonishing story of government-dictated racial discrimination unfolding before our very eyes as more and more states adopt voter suppression laws. In gripping, enlightening detail she explains how voter suppression works, from photo ID requirements to gerrymandering to poll closures. And with vivid characters, she explores the resistance: the organizing, activism, and court battles to restore the basic right to vote to all Americans. |
| african american voting statistics history: Inequality and American Democracy Lawrence R. Jacobs, Theda Skocpol, 2005-08-25 In the twentieth century, the United States ended some of its most flagrant inequalities. The rights revolution ended statutory prohibitions against women's suffrage and opened the doors of voting booths to African Americans. Yet a more insidious form of inequality has emerged since the 1970s—economic inequality—which appears to have stalled and, in some arenas, reversed progress toward realizing American ideals of democracy. In Inequality and American Democracy, editors Lawrence Jacobs and Theda Skocpol headline a distinguished group of political scientists in assessing whether rising economic inequality now threatens hard-won victories in the long struggle to achieve political equality in the United States. Inequality and American Democracy addresses disparities at all levels of the political and policy-making process. Kay Lehman Scholzman, Benjamin Page, Sidney Verba, and Morris Fiorina demonstrate that political participation is highly unequal and strongly related to social class. They show that while economic inequality and the decreasing reliance on volunteers in political campaigns serve to diminish their voice, middle class and working Americans lag behind the rich even in protest activity, long considered the political weapon of the disadvantaged. Larry Bartels, Hugh Heclo, Rodney Hero, and Lawrence Jacobs marshal evidence that the U.S. political system may be disproportionately responsive to the opinions of wealthy constituents and business. They argue that the rapid growth of interest groups and the increasingly strict party-line voting in Congress imperils efforts at enacting policies that are responsive to the preferences of broad publics and to their interests in legislation that extends economic and social opportunity. Jacob Hacker, Suzanne Mettler, and Dianne Pinderhughes demonstrate the feedbacks of government policy on political participation and inequality. In short supply today are inclusive public policies like the G.I. Bill, Social Security legislation, the War on Poverty, and the Voting Rights Act of 1965 that changed the American political climate, mobilized interest groups, and altered the prospect for initiatives to stem inequality in the last fifty years. Inequality and American Democracy tackles the complex relationships between economic, social, and political inequality with authoritative insight, showcases a new generation of critical studies of American democracy, and highlights an issue of growing concern for the future of our democratic society. |
| african american voting statistics history: Steal This Vote Andrew Gumbel, 2005-07-13 The 2000 presidential election meltdown and the more recent controversy about computer voting machines did not come out of the blue. Steal This Vote tells the fraught but very colorful history of electoral malfeasance in the United States. It is a tale of votes bought, stolen, suppressed, lost, cast more than once, assigned to dead people and pets, miscounted, thrown into rivers, and litigated all the way to the Supreme Court. (No wonder America has the lowest voter participation rate of any Western democracy!) Andrew Gumbel—whose work on the new electronic voting fraud has been praised by Gore Vidal and Paul Krugman, and has won a Project Censored Award—shows that, for all the idealism about American democracy, free and fair elections have been the exception, not the rule. In fact, Gumbel suggests that Tammany Hall, shrouded as it is in moral odium, might have been a fairer system than we have today, because ostensibly positive developments like the secret ballot have been used to squash voting rights ever since. |
| african american voting statistics history: Voting Irregularities in Florida During the 2000 Presidential Election United States Commission on Civil Rights, 2001 |
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