Black Political Participation in the 1980’s: Challenged by Conservatism

By Alex Willingham

Vol. 4, No. 4, 1982, pp. 5-11

Assessing the state of black politics today requires a fundamentally different approach from what would have been appropriate even ten years ago. For one thing we have the administration of Ronald Reagan which seeks to curb federal policies designed to promote racial advancement. For another, there has been a significant increase in black political power throughout the country.

We are now confronted with new problems: the recruitment and staying power of black candidates; performance in public office; rates of participation among the general black population, and white response to the exercise of political authority by blacks. Where, in years past, American liberalism has pegged the quality of its racial commitment to its own ability to deliver (i.e., through appeals to the national conscience and through federal enforcement), now the vitality of American liberalism itself is dependent on the effective participation of this newly enfranchised group.

Nowhere has the change been more dramatic than in the American South, long the laboratory for creating structures to retard equal participation and still the symbol of white supremacy in politica. During the 1970’s, Atlanta, Memphis and Houston each sent blacks to Congress. In each case the election reflected successful coalitions and broke patterns that had prevailed since Reconstruction. From beyond these Southern cities came a further message. Important changes began to appear in the towns and rural places where hard-core opposition to black participation remains and where the appeal of white racial politics has been strongest.

Reagan’s Radicalism

The potential of black politics must be understood against an uncertain background in which levels of participation stand to be lowered by threats to the rules that are supposed to protect and reward participation. The Reagan Administration’s threats represent a single-minded effort to radically redirect the energies of government. Insofar as this effort succeeds, civil rights enforcement will suffer. Clearly, the President intends to lead the federal government out of its established role in promoting equal opportunity.

Reagan’s actions reverse a trend in executive behavior going back at least to Executive Order Number 8802–a wartime measure signed by Franklin Roosevelt prohibit-

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ing discriminatory hiring by federal defense contractors. Over the next four decades the role of the federal executive remained integral to the liberalization of race relations. It was a forceful complement to Congressional legislation and court decisions and resulted in a formidable array of orders, laws and decisions. Signed by Lyndon Johnson during his presidency, Executive Order Number 1124 updated and expanded the earlier Order and created the Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs (OFCCP). The first direct action on civil rights by the Reagan Administration was to weaken the OFCCP.

Characteristically, the New Right and the Reagan candidacy recognized the systematic forcefulness of civil rights protections. During the presidential campaign and the transition period, special attention was devoted to developing a nullification strategy which did not overlook the “civil rights establishment.” Consequently, there was a successful effort to place into key executive positions people who accepted the charge to dismantle the enforcement mechanism.

Is Ronald Reagan a Racist?

The retreat from enforcement is qualitatively different from the espousal of crude white race supremacy. The Administration claims that the status of American minorities is a by-product of the economy. Once formal assumption of biological equality is made, so the argument goes, no strictly racial attention is necessary. A troubled economy becomes the reason for citizen dissatisfaction. Salvation of that economy means less government activity. “Supply side” economics describes government activity as intrusive and burdensome. Because the growth of public agencies is seen as intrinsically negative, maintenance of adequate enforcement activity is inconsistent with the desired limited government. By this line of reasoning, matters of race decline in significance; racial preoccupation is made to seem juvenile. In black studies this is the familiar argument associated with Booker T. Washington and other New- South spokesmen who used it to rationalize their accommodation to the disfranchisement of black citizens at the turn of the century.

Yet for all of their diminution of the importance of race, the Reaganites operate with a definite view about the status of black citizens. They believe that white institutional leaders–including those in the South–have. cleansed themselves of prejudice and will hire, for example, qualified persons without regard to race. Reaganites also make a harsh distinction within the black population itself. They claim that we should be less concerned about race because of the number of successful blacks who are now gaining jobs, promotions and decision-making responsibility before whites with the same qualifications. That experience shows, they say, a perverse benefit black Americans now enjoy because of past racism. They are aware of the multitudes of poor blacks who have not cracked the elite world of work and play. But, they say, this results from slovenliness, poor work habits and lack of competitive drive–the legacies of slavery and of the false promises from the welfare state. To mount effective opposition to Administration policies it is important to recognize their deceptive mixture of half-truths and distortions. Reaganite rationales do not disturb white race supremacy but are disarming because they appear to be “non-racial.”

Reagan’s Plan of Attack

An administration so intent on taking government out of the business of race relations pursues a variety of tactics. In the past two years these have included budgetary cutbacks, deregulation, dismissal of seasoned civil rights officials, and the withholding of leadership. In responding to the Reagan challenge, I want to focus attention on three areas of domestic policy: revision of federal implementing regulations; weak or selective enforcement of the Voting Rights Act, and extension of the block grant method of providing federal support to local government. The first of these–federal regulations–involves the classic role of the federal government in civil rights enforcement. The other two differ in that they have direct implications for the quality of participation at local levels. They are especially significant in our expectations about the future of black participation.

Implementing Federal Regulations. Immediately after the November 1980 election, the Reagan Administration suspended Carter-approved regulations in the Department of Labor that had been designed to strengthen the OFCCP’s affirmative hiring program. A “full review” of OFCCP regulations resulted in the not unpredictable conclusion that there was a need to reduce the compliance burden. In August 1981, Ellen M. Shong, Reagan’s appointee to head OFCCP, issued substitute regulations that were designed to weaken the agency’s power in civil rights work. During the first two years, the Administration, working through Shong, has held back on previously approved regulations and issued new ones in employment, child labor and rulemaking itself that if approved, would limit federal enforcement.

Perhaps the boldest move of the Administration was in January 1982, with its support of tax-exempt status for racially segregated education. This move reversed a twelve-year policy and demonstrated that traditional advocates of racial segregation (e.g., Trent Lott, Strom Thurmond, and Jesse Helms) would have a strong voice

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on racial policy. The move was particularly disheartening to those Reagan apologists who had proclaimed him more innocent than mean on racial matters.

Along with the revision of existing regulations comes lax enforcement even when the regulations remain intact. At the U.S. Office of Revenue Sharing, for example, very effective regulations bar discrimination by local governments that receive revenue sharing money. These are nullified, however, by soft enforcement attitudes.

The revision of regulations not only shows the seriousness of the Reaganites–they leave no stone unturned–it dovetails well with so-called “racially neutral” de-regulation and thus avoids the more difficult task of acting directly to repeal civil rights legislation.

Selective Enforcement of the Voting Rights Act. From the beginning months of the new Administration it appeared that New Right conservatives would make the Voting Rights extension a test of their effectiveness. Portions of the Act were scheduled to expire in 1982. What finally happened is illustrative of the politics of deception.

From the President on down there were early and forceful statements of support for the Act. Reagan himself was heard to support a simple ten-year extension. Parallel to these public statements of support was a well-defined move to take the teeth from the Act by opponents within the Administration and their allies. Three tactics were planned: calling for application of the Act nationwide, thereby creating an administrative nightmare; amending its Section Five to include an easy “bailout” provision to allow local governments to exempt themselves from the Act; and amending Section Two so that remedies to citizens suffering from discrimination in local government could only be provided if such victims could prove an intent in the action.

Passage of these amendments in any combination would have undermined the Act while allowing politicians to appear to support it. In time the President dropped his original position in favor of the more devious tactic.

These maneuverings failed to prevent extension of the Act. Early, persistent and generally unified lobbying action by civil rights groups, thorough hearings in the House, and key compromises by moderate Senators overcame the opposition. Reagan signed an extension into law that may make the Act more effective in removing racial barriers.

Extension of an amended Voting Rights Act kept in place the most crucial portion of civil rights legislation having to do with political participation. The problem has become one of selective enforcement. In several cases where local jurisdictions were charged with violations of the Act, the Justice Department has either abstained or actually supported the offending government. Take, for instance, the Mobile, Ala., case in which Senator Jeremiah Denton sought to censor the wording of the government’s position against the city. The Administration responded to Denton’s interference by making the changes he wanted.

In Edgefield County, South Carolina, where county commissioners changed to an at-large system of elections, the local blacks objected, saying the plan diluted black voting strength. The Justice Department agreed with these citizens and prepared to support them in federal court. Yet on the eve of the court appearance, the Department was ordered not to proceed with its case. This time in deference to Senator Thurmond.

Another situation involved Burke County, Georgia. Here, Justice was preparing to make a dramatic move. Both the federal district court and the appeals court had ruled that the at-large system in Burke was unconstitutional. The Justice Department had entered the case before the appeals court with extensive argument against the Burke system. The Burke County case reached the Supreme Court after the first Mobile decision. It attracted extraordinary attention as an occasion to get some clarification of the Court’s very divided opinion in Mobile. Between the appeals hearing (which was argued before Reagan took office), and the Supreme Court argument, Justice not only withdrew from the Burke case, but initiated efforts to present an argument in support of the county–a contradiction of its earlier position. Ultimately, Justice abstained from joining the case at the Supreme Court level.

Just where the Justice Department decides to place its support has enormous importance for the success of cases brought to challenge discrimination in the electoral process. Usually these cases pit local black civic groups against city or county officials. And even though local citizens do often get support from other groups–Legal Services, the ACLU, the Southern Poverty Law Center, or, less often, from the private bar–they never have the resources available to their adversaries who have direct access to the public dole. Because some measure of equity is brought when the Justice Department’s resources are involved, decisions not to support the victims of discrimination may result in the persistence of prejudicial systems.

Block Grants and New Federalism. If defeat of the Voting Rights Act would have resulted in less pressure upon local officials who discriminate, the block grant concept means more power to them. The central characteristic of the block grant system is the removal of oversight of how federal funds are spent by local governments. At present these proposals have not evolved into a coherent national policy. There are, however, five features in an emerging structure:

1) Block grants already approved by Congress. Although there is some confusion on the exact number of these, the programs are outlined in the Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1981 (Public Law 97-35). Examination of the Act shows that Congress has approved at least eight block grants.

2) Block grants selected for implementation by the states. States had a year in which to decide whether to choose any given block grant program.

3) The Primary Care Block Grant and the Education Block Grant scheduled to go into effect in fiscal 1983.

4) A new round of block grants proposed in the Reagan fiscal 1983 budget.

5) The whole “New Federalism” proposal initially outlined in the 1982 State of the Union speech. There has been some action on this proposal–including negotiations with local officials and hearings in the Senate–but the final outcome has not been settled.

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The civil rights implications of block grant proposals are several. Not only would block grants undercut the use of federal funds as an inducement to end discrimination in local communities, they would enhance the power of local politicians who continue to discriminate. A state by state, crazy-quilt pattern of administration will inevitably result, adding to the burden of community-based groups and weakening national advocacy groups who have been accustomed to centralized lobbying in the relatively friendly confines of Washington. These factors may well result in effective denial of benefits to eligible populations.

In general, block grants now in place are covered by the provisions of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 which forbid discrimination in the use of federal funds. However there is really no “Block Grant Civil Rights Provision,” as such. Nondiscrimination provisions are included in the separate grants already approved with the exception of Social Services and Education. Yet in Title XVII of the Act, where there is general language governing all block grants (e.g., audit requirements, public hearings, state plans, certification), there is no nondiscrimination language–a troubling and perhaps telling oversight.

In proposing the 1982 New Federalism plan, the Administration indicated a willingness to funnel federal money through the Office of Revenue Sharing. That would subject funds to model civil rights provisions and an experienced investigative staff. Such a tactic would be important in addressing the problem of detailed enforcement procedures but would leave open the question of the adequacy of enforcement resources. Limited enforcement resources plague ORS already and would surely grow with the administrative changes under New Federalism.

Insofar as block grants are concerned, we are somewhere out in the stream between the fading categorical grant forms and a New Federalism on yonder shore. New Federalism avoids the appearance of meanness; it taps the rhetoric of pure democracy and engages our emotions about the beauties of local control. Yet the enhancement of a local authority which does not measure up to national standards of openness or of fairness in the delivery of services is irresponsible.

The Ghost of Federalism Past

New Right ideologues who decry the role of public expenditures should look at the way local governments have often used federal resources in violation of the spirit of the programs. Local communities receiving community development block grants or Farmers Home or Urban Development Act Grants (UDAG) have found ways to go about spending these monies without providing equal services to their constituencies. Sometimes this has entailed dubious participation schemes involving low-income blacks who had no real understanding of the programs or the process.

In one town I worked in, personal efforts to check the level of participation of black members listed on the town’s Community Development Block Grant Advisory Committee drew puzzled looks and blank responses. Yet an application had been made for the entitled money, it had been approved and nearly a half-million dollars had been spent. William Boone and I found a similar level of non-participation among minority “members” of multi-county planning and development (A-95 Review Agencies) throughout the Southeastern states.

If the track record is so bad in programs such as these where minority and low-income participation is mandated, it is only reasonable to expect the same or worse in block grant programs with a minimum of regulation. In General Revenue Sharing that, indeed, has been the case. Local governments have used this money for a variety of schemes of little benefit to their low-income citizens. The Civil Rights Division of the U.S. Office of Revenue Sharing had a 1981 backlog of over thirteen thousand complaints concerning misuse of money nationwide. The experience of the Revenue Sharing Enforcement Project of the American Civil Liberties Union suggests that the number of complaints would be substantially higher in Southern towns if the regulations were well-known among local groups.

The fact is that local governments have been beneficiaries of unrestricted funds for nearly a decade and have shown little real commitment to, or imagination for, using this money to redress accumulated inequalities.

The Southern Struggle for Political Equality

Recent events have had their effect upon slowing nearly fifteen years of steady political advancement by blacks. In Richmond, Va., the town’s first black mayor, Henry Marsh, has been engineered out of office by a downtown clique of white business people opposed to his local politics and national standing. They were aided by the national Republicans. In Atlanta, long the symbol of enlightened Southern attitudes, Andrew Young’s election to mayor exhibited a pattern of racial bloc voting that was disquieting both to that city’s official boosters and to some longtime black observers. In Georgia’s Fifth Congressional District (the Atlanta area), a large contiguous black population was recently ignored by white legislators in drawing voting lines. So blatant was this move that Reagan’s Justice Department objected under provisions of the Voting Rights Act. In New Orleans, incumbent Mayor Ernest Morial was returned to office by a record turnout and support from the black electorate. Yet, intensive opposition to the Morial reelection rose from the Governor’s office to former New Orleans Mayor and HUD Secretary “Moon” Landrieu.

The elections in both Atlanta and New Orleans turned out record numbers of black voters. In both cities, prominent blacks accepted the rumors that serious efforts were being made to “return” the cities to white mayoral leadership. After each election the cities’ media offered much somber analysis saying that no white could ever win a top office again.

In Houston, black voters joined a dynamic coalition there to elect the city’s first female mayor, Kathy Whitmire. She secured the appointment of a black, Lee Brown, to head the city’s notorious police department. Now that city is going through a familiar scene in which an entrenched white police element is arrayed against a black appointee and his affirmative action and reform efforts.

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Away from the cities, in the Southern small towns, not only has economic and political opportunity been slow to arrive, but whim and custom sometimes provide formidable obstacles even to the extension of modern marketplace principles. “Good business practices” alone compelled urban banks, for example, to at least moderate their racism, and treat customers according to their financial utility to the bank. The opponents of equal opportunity programs are correct in their argument that market rationalism had no small part to do with the affirmative hiring and training programs of corporations. That rationalism also enabled AP, Kroger, Safeway and many mom and pop stores to treat the food stamp as cash.

Such principles have been slow to reach the towns. In one case in Georgia, the locally owned bank simply refused to cash a government check for one black community group involved in political conflict. In another instance, in Arkansas, where a town had diverted revenue sharing money away from services in the black sections, the woman who exposed this situation backed out of her formal complaint when told that her unemployment check would be stopped. In Burke County, Georgia, it is still the custom for white creditors to stand prominently near the polls on election day.

But even these indirect forms of intimidation give way to more direct attacks. In Vienna, Gal, Tom Shaw has worked to bring change throughout his county. He filed an election suit against the county commission, the school board and called for official investigation into the local use of revenue sharing money. Over the years his actions led to desegregation of the school system, biracial membership on the school board and county commission and affirmative hiring plans for the county and its municipalities.

Tom Shaw never quite became a hero among some of his neighbors, however. Today he sits in the Dooly County Jail sentenced to thirty years.

Shaw’s jailing came because of a conviction for his role in a confrontation with a local police officer. Charged with aggravated assault (firing a pistol around an officer) and robbery (taking the pistol from the officer), he got a hung jury at his first trial. He argued that his involvement resulted from an effort to defuse a dangerous situation. When the second trial came, he had not been able to settle on legal counsel. The judge refused a continuation and appointed a local public defender who admitted that he had insufficient knowledge of the case. Shaw then tried to defend himself. This time, he was easily convicted and given a near maximum sentence of fifteen years for each charge. He was ordered to serve his time consecutively and has been denied bail bond while the appeal takes place. Needless to say, it was Tom Shaw’s political activities that caused his problems.

In Tchula, Miss., Eddie Carthan, the properly elected black mayor, found himself in a similar situation. He and six others (the Tchula Seven) face three-year terms in Parchman penitentiary resulting from an incident provoked by the refusal of a white police chief to step down for a Carthan appointee. Efforts to enforce his orders led to physical confrontation and assault charges against the mayor. Carthan was also charged with forgery in applying for federal aid and has been indicted for conspiracy in the mysterious death of Roosevelt Granderson, a black town councilman and a Carthan opponent. Carthan’s election as mayor of this majority-black town spurred intense opposition from the traditional white rulers and resulted in the series of harassing actions that left him under a cloud of politically motivated indictments and too dispirited to offer for re-election. The town has been restored to white political leadership.

In Greenwood, also in Mississippi, David Jordan was fired by the school board for canvassing on election day. It seems that Jordan, a high school math teacher and president of the Leflore County Voters League, had not agreed to ask his group to endorse the favorite candidate of the school board members.

In Albany, Gal, both John White, a member of the state General Assembly, and Don Cutler, a member of the county board of commissioners, are facing school board regulations that seek to force them to discontinue their jobs as a condition for holding elected political office.

In Pickens County, Alabama, two elderly black women–Maggie Bozeman and Julia Wilder–were sentenced to state prison terms for violations during a voter registration campaign among elderly black voters. The Southern Christian Leadership Conference led protests in support of the women and drew national attention by pointing to the harsh sentences given these women and the refusal of state executives to give a pardon.

By far the most aggressive attempt to retard affirmative community work in the rural South was the year-long fight between the Federation of Southern Cooperatives ,(FSC) and numerous government agencies, including the

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General Accounting Office, the FBI, and the U.S. Attorney and federal grand jury in Birmingham. The investigation resulted from complaints made by political adversaries in Sumter County, site of the Federation’s Rural Training Center. The conflict took place over a two-year period, including more than a year of formal proceedings before the grand jury. In a classic “fishing expedition,” the authorities, claiming to be investigating misuse of federal money, demanded to look at nearly all of the FSC’s files. Numerous, sometimes antagonistic appearances before the grand jury required extensive time of FSC employees and counsel. In the end no formal charges were brought and the case was dropped.

The ease with which official institutions can harass political opponents is made possible by the continuing domination in elected office of traditional white elites resentful of bi-racial governance. Black groups in Black Belt counties continue to find it difficult to turn their majorities or near majorities into effective political clout. In only one of the nearly twenty-five majority black counties in Georgia, for instance, is there a black sheriff.

In part, this state of affairs results from a continuation of past habits. The voter registration and turnout rates by race in these places continue to show wide disparities to the detriment of black candidates. But the situation is also maintained by electoral chicanery. While physical intimidation is not usually employed, registration officials have declined to adopt measures to encourage registration among under-participating populations. Flexible registration hours, scatter site or neighborhood registration and deputy registrars have not been widely adopted.

In Edgefield County, South Carolina, there are no black elected county officials. This is due to the change to at-large elections mentioned above. In Alabama, the old tactic of a challenge and purge system has been reinstated through a process called “re-identification.” Registration of all voters in selected counties is suspended until they have “re-identified” themselves. This local legislation passed the state legislature under the sponsorship of white lawmakers. It is widely acknowledged to have a disproportionate effect on black political activity. In Brunswick, Ga., a city-county consolidation system would create a new jurisdiction just at the stage when black voting strength has improved in the city.

From the Atlantic seaboard to Delta Mississippi, expensive counsel has been retained by counties, school boards and townships to defend all-white governments that make public policy in communities of bi-racial population. Losing at one level, these attorneys continue to appeal. After the Burke County, Gal, County Commissioners lost their round in U.S. Appeals Court and announced their intention to carry the case further, one lawyer took the news in stride: “If they lose in the Supreme Court, they’ll probably request an opinion from the House of Lords.”

The Changing Prospects for Change

In spite of the obstacles we have surveyed, active advocacy survives. The Federation of Southern Cooperatives was exonerated in its battle. A multi-million dollar law suit against the Port Gibson, Miss., NAACP was reversed. Court action has saved other jobs and initiatives.

But the problem confronting black participation in the South today is whether such victories may be merely hollow when weighed against the longer campaigns of resistance which delay, deflect and retard. That, after all was the agenda of the old Southern segregationists: to buy time, to deny full equality as long as possible. If this assessment is correct, then advocates of democratic reform will be tested until the final vestige of privilege is removed.

If we lament the intransigence of the white power clique in Burke County, we should also note that in Wayneboro, the county seat, the town’s white mayor led the way to a negotiated settlement that did away with the at-large system and resulted in the election of blacks to the town council. In Greene County, Alabama, a black slate has governed since 1968 holding all of the county commission and board of education seats and pursuing personnel and administrative policies of their own.

And there have been other cases of exemplary advances. In the Fourth Congressional District in Mississippi, Wayne Dowdy pulled together a winning coalition of Democrats, labor, blacks and small-town whites. In his campaign, Dowdy took unequivocal positions on labor, extension of the Voting Rights Act and Legal Services.

Finally, another positive sign comes from the potential for changing the make-up of government officials at the local level. Non-traditional groups–women, blacks, labor, educational and environmental activists–are moving to contest directly for political office. Although the South Carolina Senate remains a conspicuous exception, there have been dramatic increases of blacks in Southern legislatures. Final reapportionment under the 1980 population figures should increase the number even more. Parallel to the increase in elected officials has been an increase in the number and status of blacks in the states’ administrative bureaucracies.

The Challenge of Conservatism

Starting with the social programs of the New Deal and continuing into the present, government’s “safety-valve” function has attempted to resolve social ills that private business and industry either would not or could not handle. The clients of the “welfare state” have included white middle-Americans, but have been disproportionately racial and ethnic minorities. Having limited resources, these latter groups turned to the government for improvements in education, jobs, housing, health and so on.

In one sense, particularly striking after the mid-1960’s urban rebellions when black people lost their legendary “invisible” status, one of the half-truths of the New Right was confirmed. The government did become, however limited, a vehicle for advancement. Yet, even during these years, some progressive social critics thought this change in black status seemed too one-dimensional–resulting in the dependency of too many middle- and low-income blacks on public works and federal services. There was skepticism as to whether such developments, positive in an immediate sense, would actually lead to the structural changes needed for full democratization.

Frankly, this “safety-valve” strategy for change reflected a belief by an ascending liberalism that the race

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problem required a concentrated public investment as a precondition for final systemic integration. In this, liberalism was reformist, not visionary, and betrayed its wont to design social change without regard to new forms of dependency, or to the extra-racial inequities intrinsic to market relations in modern capitalism.

So two decades of New Frontier and Great Society programs from model cities to community and urban development became as crucial to the advancement of minorities as the more familiar judicial and administrative measures we readily associate with racial progress. Those programs did their jobs. At the highest national level they gave us a number of individuals to command bureaucratic posts once limited to whites. In small and medium-sized places, blacks who have any professional executive experience often obtained it as head of a federal program or of the local department handling federal money.

The New Right conservatives–such as George Gilder, Martin Anderson or Thomas Sowell–who have discovered these relationships are Johnnie-come-latelies. Not only do they miss the historical intention of corporate state strategy, they also find- themselves in the classic contradiction of American conservatives who–living in a nation of historic, expansive, rapacious, change have to argue, in the name of that nation, to stop all change. Specifically, with regard to black people–whom they accept as the typical victims of American democracy–they are caught in the hyprocrisy of celebrating a new middle class created by the use of government resources while decrying the mechanism that created it; they celebrate the end-product of liberal policy while repudiating liberalism; they acknowledge the concrete benefits of these programs but say they cannot be helpful to lower income blacks, who remain victims, to native Americans or newly arriving immigrants. They fear that realization of the need to completely emancipate America’s black population will shatter the illusions that sustain an unspoken tolerance of suffering as a feature of national life. Thus they point to success as a reason to eliminate the public’s role in equal opportunity! This programmatic ambiguity reflects a moral bankruptcy in American conservatism that has never been more plain than today–at the hour when its influence on the national agenda is greater than at any time since the Great Depression.

Notes on Sources

The philosophical perspectives of the New Right and their racial implications may be found in George Gilder’s Wealth and Poverty (New York: Basic Books, 1981) and Thomas Sowell, Black Education (New York: McKay, 1972) or Knowledge and Decisions (New York: Basic Books, 1980).

Statements of the government’s role in protecting the rights of minorities and the opportunities created are in E. Richard Larson and Laughlin McDonald The Rights of Racial Minorities (New York: Avon, 1980); and Larson, Sue Your Boss (New York: Farrar, Straus, Giroux, 1981).

Conservative strategies to reverse the enforcement mechanism are discussed in Charles L. Heatherly, (ed.) Mandate for Leadership (Washington, D.C.: The Heritage Foundation, 1980). After a year in power, conservative evaluation of its efforts were mildly enthusiastic. See Richard N. Holwill (ed.) A Mandate for Leadership: The First Year (Washington, D.C.: 1982), and Chester E. Finn, Jr. “‘Affirmative Action’ Under Reagan,” Commentary (April, 1982).

The role of the federal executive in civil rights is reviewed extensively in two congressional reports taking opposite views of the matter. A positive attitude is in “Report on Affirmative Action and the Federal Enforcement of Equal Employment Opportunity Laws,” a report of the House Subcommittee on Employment Opportunities (February, 1982). The negative view is in “Committee Analysis of Executive Order 11246,” by the Senate Committee on Labor and Human Resources (April, 1982).

Efforts to document and counter the declining enforcement have been numerous. See Leadership Conference on Civil Rights, Without Justice: A Report on the Conduct of the Justice Department in Civil Rights. 1981-1982 February, 1982); Affirmative Action in the 1980s: Dismantling the Process of Discrimination (U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, November, 1981); “Statement of Principles on Affirmative Action,: adopted by the Congressional Forum on Equal Opportunity and Affirmative Action (February 1982).

Two very different modes of harassment are represented in the Bozeman-Wilder incident and with the ordeal of the Federation of Southern Cooperatives. See Thomas W. Ottenad, “Stiff Sentenees in Alabama Case,” St. Louis Post-Dispatch May 14, 1982; Kelly Dowe, “Paying the Price in Pickens County,” Southern Changes, June/July, 1982,and Thomas N. Bethell, Sumter County Blues (Washington D.C.: National Committee in Support of Community Based Organizations, 1982).

Problems of political participation are discussed in Voting Rights in the South: Ten Years of Litigation Challenging Continuing Discrimination Against Minorities (New York: American Civil Liberties Union, 1982); Frank R. Parker and Barbara Y. Phillips, The Justice Department and Voting Rights Enforcement: Political Interference and Retreat (Washington, D.C.: Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights Under the Law, 1982); The Voting Rights Act Unfulfilled Goals (U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, 1981) Voting Rights in Alabama, Georgia, Mississippi, and South Carolina (State Advisory Committees, U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, 1982); Raymond Brown, The State of Voting Rights in Georgia in 1982 (Atlanta: Southern Regional Council, 1982).

Alex Willingham has been Director of the Revenue Sharing Enforcement Project of the American Civil Liberties Union. He will begin teaching political science at Dillard University in New Orleans in the fall. He is editor of SPECTRUM, a forthcoming publication of the National Conference of Black Political Scientists.

New Federalism and Minority Rights: After Three Years

By Alex Willingham

Vol. 5, No. 6, 1983, pp. 3-5

When Ronald Reagan was elected President, he was widely regarded as a threat to the progressive social policies gradually put in place over the preceding five decades. In the main these policies–in civil rights, economic justice, environmental protection, care for the aged and handicapped, rights of the accused–had been based on an expanding federal role in domestic affairs. Reagan attacked these policies directly. He criticized them as costly. He questioned the very propriety of federal involvement. The arguments were not new but Reagan’s attack was particularly troubling because persons sharing his views made major gains in decision-making positions during the election of 1980.

Furthermore there was a self-conscious effort to avoid compromise or moderation in developing alternative policies. The new President believed that a major part of the problem had been a reluctance even on the part of conservative administrators, including Jimmy Carter’s, to put forth bold plans to brake the expanding role of the federal government. His strategy was to redefine federal-state relations. Thus the “New Federalism” of Reaganomics was a direct challenge to the array of protections that social liberalism had valued since the 1930s.

Reagan did make a bold step to change things, particularly in the heady first year when his influence was highest. But in the three years of his administration, dramatic change in federal-state relations has been minimal–a curious circumstance given the self-conscious attention brought to the question of federalism. We might ask why the results have been so small? The answer lies, I believe, in a certain contradiction within the Administration’s philosophy of government.

We may review the record. Attempts by the Reagan Administration to change federal-state relations started with proposals for a “block grant” system that would continue federal funding to local govenments but eliminate federal administration. The block grant tactic was a sort of half-way house between the old categorical federal aid system and a system of unregulated revenue sharing. Under the categorical system the federal government sets specific purposes and guidelines for administration. Under revenue sharing there are no strings attached to federal money sent to local governments.

Even though the latter system would fit better the “states’ rights” philosophy of Reaganism, it was unacceptable primarily because it contradicted another of this Administration’s cherished principles: that social wellbeing is only promoted through private sector market relations. Therefore, coupled with the return of federal power to the states was a proposed cut in the level of funding amounting to between twenty and twenty-five percent in the funding levels of block grant programs in the 1981 proposals.

Reagan’s federalism reform attempted to serve two contrary purposes. The call for local control evoked values of democracy. It painted the traditional liberal policy with its over-reliance on Washington as antipopulist. When pursuing this line, the Administration tried to take advantage of a growing conviction, among diverse local officials and community based groups, that it is desirable to expand local initiatives. This conviction reflected a residual American distruct of central government and a growing confidence among some community groups that local alliance

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could be struck to protect and expand hard won opportunities.

That conviction was evident in several forms. During the first year of the Reagan administration one of the more loyal spokesmen for the reform plan was Georgia Governor George Busbee, then chairman of the National Governor’s Association. And, while national staffs of associations of local officials remained skeptical about the proposal, local chapters tended to support it. Civil rights groups were dubious, especially concerning the impact in the rural South, but even in race relations there was no denying the growing legitimacy and influence of black voters and public officials at the local levels. Empowerment of minorities was likely to coninue if, as finally did happen, federal voting rights protections were reenacted.

In this atmosphere the Reagan Administration did make some bold moves. A specific proposal for block grants was included in the Economic Recovery Plan put forth within months of taking office. A more detailed plan was subsequently proposed to Congress when the revised FY 1982 federal budget (Reagan’s first) was submitted. That budget emerged as the Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act, still the crowning legislative achievement of the Reagan presidency and a symbol of his power at its highest. The Act contained nine block grants, substantially fewer than the President wanted but still a change of large dimensions. The $7.7 billion would eventually change hands based on funding limits set in the Reconciliation Act.

In 1982 the administration proposed a “revolutionary” New Federalism plan that would replace the block grant system already in place. This was the widely publicized proposal containing the “swap/turnback” scheme and the federal trust fund. Under the swap, the federal government would take full responsibility for all medical assistance programs while the states would take responsibility for AFDC, food stamps, and a number of other categorical programs. The “trust fund” would be funded by federal excise taxes. The fund would be distributed to the states over a four-year period. They could either continue present services or divert the trust fund money to some other area. Reagan proposed to phase out this trust fund after four years–a firm target date when the federal role in local affairs would end.

The 1982 New Federalism proposal was sketched out in the January State of the Union Address. Specific legislative proposals were to be sent later. Meanwhile, the President continued his initiative by proposing to expand block grants. These proposals were placed in the Executive Budget submitted to Congress. The budgetary proposals would follow the example of a year earlier, creating new block grants that would in effect relinquish federal responsibility in certain program areas. The reform of federal state relations was moving on two tracks.

All observers, including the President’s detractors, concluded that during the early months of 1982, he had succeeded in focusing public attention on federalism reform. It was labeled the centerpiece of his domestic policy. These federalism proposals were promoted with the same optimism as the proposals in the budget battles six months before. The sheer magnitude of the proposed changes, and a certain regard for the president’s momentum, commanded attention as many groups debated the merits. Congress reviewed the expanded block grant system in the federal budget while it awaited the Administration’s legislative package embodying proposals for the broader reform. Intense public debate occurred in the context of expectations of inevitable change in federal-state relations.

But the federalism reform movements of 1982 never got on track in a practical sense. By midyear the Administration had not sent a specific legislative package to Congress as promised. Public discussion, although intense, was limited to the proposals sketched in the January speech. These were subject to diverse interpretations. The President did not communicate an overriding goal for federalism reform and, increasingly, his motives became the issue. Was he aiming to increase local autonomy? Was he primarily concerned about reducing the role of government?

Local officials who would welcome the former feared the latter, especially in an era of declining economic conditions in the states. Many became convinced that the call for local control, while couched in sometimes appearing philosophical terms, in fact masked a concrete drive to cut back federal resources in the local communities and, generally, to cripple the public effort in social development. In this way the 1982 federalism reform proposals lost credibility with local officials and stirred the ire of traditional liberals.

The Administration may have been able to build a consensus had it not met its own internal contradictions. It was unable to unify its forces. The budget cutters supported the programs as a way to reduce the federal budget. Conservative ideologues feared the proposal because the expansionary implications of the swap for medical services seemed to carry the beginnings of a bureaucracy which could ultimately lead to “socialized” medicine. In spite of an auspicious start, no part of the 1982 federalism reform proposals have become law. The Reagan Administration never submitted a specific legislative package and Congress refused to accept any of the proposed block grants in the budget.

The turn-around was dramatic in other ways, too. The year before, Busbee, as chairman of the governor’s group, had pleaded for support of the federalism reform even as a member of the opposite political party. In 1982, his replacement (Richard Snelling of Vermont), though generally a loyal Republican, became increasingly critical of the federalism proposals, declaring them dead in December.

But Reagan’s federalism reform was to have one more chance. In January of 1983, the President once again called for major overhaul in federal-state relations. In February, he submitted a comparatively modest plan to Congress based on the block grant system. But the debate of 1982 had taken its toll. The 1983 proposals were given a flashy introduction and supportive testimony to Congress was made by Budget Director David Stockman. But, after that, the proposals received no serious attention.

Nor are the prospects very bright for any federalism reform in 1984. An election year makes any major change difficult. Ironically, the improved business climate argues against justifying any such change to pecuniary enterprise. Finally the President himself seems to have decided that foreign affairs need his attention and has entered major engagements of American troops abroad.

Has the Reagan federalism reform effort been a failure? The answer here would have to be yes and no. There clearly

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has not been the whole scale reform that Reagan wanted. In that sense he has failed. On the other hand a fledgling block grant system is in place and the effect has been increased latitude for local officials. It is a significant system that will be of interest to community groups and others concerned about empowerment at the local level.

Does the apparent end of the Administration’s states’ rights push mean an end to its challenge to federal institutions that protect the disadvantaged? The answer is no! It only means that one tact has so far proved ineffective. The Reagan Administration still has full control of other federal compliance mechanisms (with the possible exception of the U. S. Civil Rights Commission, a non-enforcement agency), and has established a track record of lax enforcement faithful to its anti-liberal views. The failure, so far, of the Administration’s federalism reform is merely brief respite in an otherwise continuing attack on the rights of minorities.

Alex Willingham is a political scientist currently living in Shreveport, Louisiana. This article is drawn from his research as a research fellow in public policy of the Southern Education Foundation.

The Present Danger

By Alex Willingham

Vol. 6, No. 5, 1984, pp. 1-3

In the current presidential campaign, the forces of reaction have sought to win by controlling the tone of public discussion. By portraying Reagan’s superficiality as innocent pleasantry, any real concern with issues can be put down as nuisance. If the Republicans succeed it will merely postpone candid discussion of the national condition and obscure the present danger.

For years Reagan has engineered a reputation as essentially harmless, good natured and tolerant. Now, the forces he has asembled, and who have assembled him, pose a real danger to the ideals of open and egalitarian society and to the gains we have made in recent years. Unless the Reagan Administration is defeated in November, popularly elected leaders will constitute the main threat to established freedoms.

The present danger arises out of this president’s rhetorical stance for “less government” and the reality of an increasingly invasive new statism of the right wing. As federal domestic policy, “Reaganomics” is deceptively dressed as a comprehensive alternative to the social welfare state. In practice it has come to represent a marginal attack directed not against manifest shortcomings of welfarism, but against a few redistributive reforms developed since the presidency of Lyndon Johnson.

These programs applied innovative strategies to improve the lives of blacks and the poor. They were “re-distributive” because they promoted the “transfer” of money to the disadvantaged and mandated “maximum” participation by recipients. These programs covered the concerns of much of the progressive thought of the times: 1) an alarm that large sections of the nation continued to live in material poverty and 2) the belief that the ability of people to conquer misfortune would be enhanced by their participation in the policy making process.

These concerns dovetailed with the activism of the Civil Rights Movement and became interwoven with the fight to ban racism and all other forms of discrimination from our society.

In its heroic moments the Great Society tried to be affirmative. It sought to move away from safety net policies and to move toward strategies for empowerment. It realized that

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government’s innovations of the past–for example Social Security or the G I bill–offered models which suggested how to adress current problems. It realized that piecemeal legislation would not overcome stiff resistance to an open political process. Bold action was needed: We got the War on Poverty (1963) and the Voting Rights Act (1964).

Innovative federal policies were enacted even in succeeding Republican administrations. In certain cases–Head Start, the Voting Righs Act, Legal Services–there have been powerful, positive results. The success of the effort–both in getting the attention of government and in realizing some of the intended goals–promoted an optimism about some federal programs.

But the Great Society was hardly an unqualified success. By the Carter years, with an array of social programs in place, and a Democratic administration in power, mounting doubt grew about the actual function of welfare policy. Improvement–although present–was incremental at best. A full-scale debate was about to start. It would have focused on the large residual population still untouched by the programs. Any number of possible reforms would have been debated including administrative streamlining, changes in funding levels, or decentralization. There would have been concern about the “professionalization” of the delivery system. The question would have been raised: after all, can the goals we seek be accomplished within the American two-party system?

An unheralded achievement of the Reagan Administration has been to coopt that debate. Reaganite hostility to Great Society goals and programs took the ground out from under the looming critique and transformed would-be critics of the troubled sub-system into defenders of the status que ante.

The Reagan forces tapped a preexisting skepticism. “Neo”-conservatives, some of whom were former advocated of reform, were the idealogical point-men for the Administration. Black neoconservatives–typified by Thomas Sowell–gave racial legitimacy to the view. The argument took the form of a general attack on government activity. In common, “neo”–liberals and “supply-siders” used the documentation of continuing misery to argue that positive government was bad and, in any case, could not deliver on the crucial matter of anti-poverty reform. At one point Sowell, who has never been accused of understatement, claimed that Brown v. the Board of Education, the 1954 Supreme Court decision against school segregation, was undue government interference. No sacred cows here: positive government was necessarily evil and especially so in trying to implement lofty intentions. Reaganites went to Washington determined to cripple its governing institutions.

What is revealing, however, is the limited nature of the cutback. The basic welfare structure remains in place even after a full Reagan term. There have been program cutbacks, to be sure, and they have had disastrous effects on the recipient population. Yet the troubled structure is still in place. No doubt much of this comes from congressional resistance.

It is possible to interpret these developments as a defeat for Ronald Reagan. In fact however, they seem to represent changing priorities of conservative forces operating at the helm of a powerful state apparatus. Now, in domestic affairs, the threat of the Reagan regime comes less from a frontal attack on government than in the way it would prune its operations to make this a more paternal, as opposed to participatory, bureaucracy. The positive state would become a tool for on-going administration of a permanent underclass rather than a means of its transformation.

The new statism of the Reaganites is the basis for alarm. It comes at a time when the Republicans have nearly completely capitulated to right wing extremist groups. The spiritual fervor of these groups is sustained by anticipation or expanding their influence through the exercise of official authority.

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Boring within the Republican party represents something of a turnabout for these groups. The fundamentalist network had been part of the base used by Jimmy Carter to gain national prominence. Yet Carter, whose personal religious expression fit the mode, disappointed many of the born-again–especialy in his formal allegiance to separation of state and church. This congregation has gone over to Ronald Reagan who is much less religious but who has been willing to support government-enforced prayer, segregated religious schools, and the like–and who is willing to individualize responsibility for whatever plight grows out of oppressive social conditions.

Reagan’s posture encourages resistance among those who use race, sex or religious beliefs to protect their advantages.

When Reagan went to Washington, it first appeared that our greatest domestic threat would come through efforts to abolish social welfare programs that help the poor or, in attempts to frustrate the enforcement of hard-won civil rights gains. And, indeed, his Administration has cut federal support of basic human needs and has subverted the enforcement of justice. Yet, today the danger is not that the Reaganites will cut back on government power, but that they will use it to actively promote conformity. Insofar as Reagan, his New Right or business allies are perceived as merely racist or excessively frugal, we obscure the real threat his reelection will mean to the poor, to women, to minorities–and to our hope for democratic society.

Alex Willingham lives in Shreveport, Louisiana. He is editor of the Voting Rights Review.

The Importance of Black Legislators

By Alex Willingham

Vol. 7, No. 5, 1985, pp. 3-5

The Southern state legislature, once the incarnation of backwardness in Southern politics, now stands to become a center for innovation in regional affairs. The formerly all-male, all-white, one-party bastions of prejudice and reactionary social policy have been changing in recent years. More change lies ahead. Political moderates, Republicans, women, and labor representatives have won seats, lending a bit of diversity to the legislatures. Blacks, whose lack of power has characterized the South’s “peculiarity,” have been elected in unprecedented numbers.

Before 1963, when Leroy Johnson served in the Georgia senate, no black had won election to a Southern legislature since early in this century. Whites in the post-Reconstruction

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era eliminated blacks from public office–indeed, from registration and voting. Disfranchisement of blacks (and by the early 1900s, of poor whites as well) was the linchpin of the modern South’s undemocratic order. The effects of disfranchisement have been shared not only by Southern state legislatures but by county and city governments.

Today 176 blacks–almost half of all black legislators in the country–serve in the legislative chambers of the eleven Southern states. Change, once begun, has been swift and dramatic. In Louisiana, where blacks account for nearly a third of the population, there was only one black in the legislature as late as 1970. Today, there are eighteen, one of whom has been selected to the second ranking position in the state’s lower house.

As important as these Southern changes have been, they co-exist with old continuities. For example, the racial composition of Southern state legislatures does not yet reflect the black population. Black legislators make up only ten percent of all Southern legislators, yet blacks exceed twenty percent of the South’s population. The forty-six member South Carolina senate received its first black member in 1983 (see Southern Changes, May/June 1983). The number increased to four in 1984, but an additional ten blacks would have to be elected before the senate would be representative of the state’s black population.

The situation is the same in the other Southern states. It would be necessary to more than double their current numbers for black legislators to achieve parity. In addition, reflective of continuing racial polarization, the overwhelming majority of those so far elected come from single-member districts composed primarily of black voters–districts created in recognition of the special difficulties facing black candidates.

And, resistance continues. The creation of single-member electoral districts has come under attack in North Carolina (see Laughlin McDonald’s article in this issue of Southern Changes) where state and Reagan Administration officials have defended, before the US Supreme Court, a state legislative election plan that would make tokens of single-member districts and black voting strength.

Recent resistance has also taken the form of Justice Department collusion with state and local white powerholders in a so-far unsuccessful two-year campaign involving the intimidation of rural black voters and the prosecution of voting rights activists in the Alabama Black Belt (see Southern Changes, May/June 1985).

Blacks who do win legislative office find the chambers that await them are fundamentally inhospitable to change. The accumulated wealth and practiced despotism of business interests make for fierce resistance or tempting accommodation. Setting out to represent the hopes of their largely poor and powerless constituencies, black legislators can find themselves stymied by the immovable, or swayed by the irresistible.

Winning Without A Majority

The problems and prospects facing Southern black legislators were discussed at a meeting in early November in Atlanta. Two questions dominated the talk of black legislators and their staffs: To what extent can the newly elected officials protect and expand their ranks? What can they do to be effective in their present situations?

“Winning Without a Majority,” a conference paper prepared by Steve Suitts addressed the question of effectiveness. “For continued strength and increased clout,” Suitts observed, “black legislators as a group cannot depend upon a growth of their numbers. They must find other means by which to make their current numbers count for more in the legislative process.” Several strategies were suggested: jawboning presiding officers, influencing the implementation of policy at the administrative agencies, proposing “local legislation”, creating study commissions, and blocking or changing legislative proposals that require an extraordinary majority (i.e., a two-thirds or three-fourths majority). Black state legislators now have the opportunity and the numbers in most Southern states to win some important issues without a majority of the votes. Suitts drew examples from several states; legislators in attendance suggested others.

Blacks in Southern Legislatures, 1985

State	Reps.	Senators
Alabama	19	5
Arkansas	4	1
Florida	10	2
Georgia	21	6
Kentucky	1	1
Louisiana	14	4
Mississippi	18	2
North Carolina	13	3
South Carolina	16	4
Tennessee	10	3
Texas	13	1
Virginia	5	2

Illustrative of one tactic are the Sanders Bills, so named for Alabama State Senator Hank Sanders of Selma. These “local bills,” passed as custom decrees by the Alabama legislature upon request of the legislators from the affected counties, allow local governments in Senator Sanders’ Black Belt district to change their method of county elections from at large to single member districts. The Sanders bills should insure proportional, bi-racial county and municipal governments in these majority black counties.

The effectiveness of black legislators will also be determined by their tenure. Seniority will not only make them more “equal” with their long-serving white colleagues but will let them look back on their own experiences, make adjustments, form alliances.

As for black increases in the present number of state legislators, certainly the numerical potential exists throughout the South. In Georgia, for example, which has the largest number (twenty-seven) of black legislators, an additional thirty-two would have to be elected before

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the racial make-up of the general assembly represented the state’s population. Black representation in the South Carolina Senate is only ten percent of what it would be if proportionate to the population; Mississippians would need to elect forty additional black legislators.

It seems clear, however, that the “easy” advances have already been made; the “tough” cases remain.

Most black representatives are elected in urban areas. Their districts have compact populations, ready availability of candidates, higher prospects for registration and voting, and a broader tolerance for bi-racial politics. These patterns are nearly reversed in rural areas where few blacks have been elected to the legislatures and where opposition has been most persistent in opposition to black political participation.

In the past, and at least through the 1990 census, most hopes for increasing the number of black legislators have lain and will lie with redistricting. Now, with a visible, if small, number of blacks among their ranks, white, Southern state legislators will claim even more reason to resist substantial additions. The presence of even a few blacks becomes a justification for no change.

Token change in the racial make-up of Southern legislatures will kill the promise of recent years. This would be tragic. In the coming decade, state policies will be crucial in dealing with plant closings, community development, job training, and in finding sources of money for health care and public education.

Business and corporate representatives are pressing their state legislative agendas with the intention of avoiding anything and everything which does not contribute to profitmaking. Moral guardian groups are intent on retaining the death penalty, assaulting welfare programs, and invading personal privacy. The election of black legislators–like any search for popular participation strategies–should speak to all Southerners who seek to counter the powers of reaction.

Alex Willingham lives in Shreveport, Louisiana. As a Rockefeller Foundation Fellow, he is writing a book about Southern reapportionment.

Voter Participation Is Now the Challenge

By Alex Willingham

Vol. 9, No. 2, 1987, pp. 21-24

Since the enactment of the Voting Rights Act, black voter participation has improved dramatically, often operating as an integral part of winning coalitions. However, under-registration and low voter turnout continue to handicap the black population in the South. This is the uncomfortable fact behind claims of an influential black vote made after the Jesse Jackson campaign in the 1984 presidential primaries and again after the 1986 elections. Such claims were fueled by certain black political leaders and also by conservative whites smarting over the defeat of incumbent Southern senators who failed to attract black votes in 1986. Both groups have a special interest in exaggerating the importance of the black vote. But the reality is that blacks in the South, even some in key jurisdictions, are neither registering nor voting in respectable numbers.

A case in point is the 1986 campaign in Georgia’s Fifth Congressional district where John Lewis won election over Julian Bond. The district is centered in Atlanta and includes black voters with an active history of participation. Both Bond and Lewis are well-known veterans of the civil rights movement and voter registration work. For the heated run-off between them less than sixty percent of the eligible blacks in Fulton county (the bulk of the district) were registered to vote, and barely more than a third actually cast ballots. Limited registration and turnout did not prevent the election of a black Congressman there, but only because court-ordered redistricting provided a large black majority; in a district with the same black registration and turnout, but with a smaller black majority, a viable white candidate might have beaten Bond or Lewis.

In the Second Congressional district in Mississippi, black citizens–though a majority–were unable in 1982 and 1984 to elect a U. S. Congressman. In 1986 when the district elected Mike Espy to become Mississippi’s only black congressman, it was considered an upset although he was elected over a white in a district with 57 percent black population. Despite the large percentage of blacks in the South, Lewis and Espy will serve with just two other black colleagues among the 138 Southerners in the 100th Congress.

In a real sense, these are protected victories, won through the reapportionment process. And reapportionment, the most important election reform strategy of recent years, has been so successful it is now nearly exhausted as a remedy. The single-member district is now widely used throughout the South. From courthouse to statehouse,

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thousands of at-large elective offices once unattainable to minority candidates have been transformed into districts which give ample expression to black voting choices and, due to segregated housing patterns, just about assure election of black candidates.

The momentum for districting remains strong. The Alabama legislature has enacted local courtesy laws enabling a cluster of Black Belt counties to convert to singlemember districts for the election of county governing bodies and school boards. Another l70 Alabama jurisdictions may convert to single-member districts under terms of a pending lawsuit. In Mississippi all county supervisors are elected from single-member districts. Even Southern legislatures, the bodies responsible for reapportionment, are elected from single-member districts in eight of the Southern states; only a few multi-member districts remain in Arkansas, Georgia, and North Carolina.

Generally, the federal courts have upheld single-member districting as one effective remedy for electoral discrimination even as legislative and administrative policies have moved in regressive directions. In Thornburg v. Gingles, a 1986 decision on North Carolina’s legislative reapportionment, the U.S. Supreme Court disallowed several at-large features of a districting plan and specifically emphasized that the election of racial minorities should be considered a critical factor in evaluating election systems. The Thornburg decision has been considered pivotal because the Reagan Administration entered the case and made a special argument, rejected by the Court, that would have restricted the reach of reapportionment law.

Mere conversion to single-member districts does not settle the issue of discrimination in elections. The problem is illustrated in cases such as that of the Mississippi county supervisors where, despite single-member districts, blacks account for only 38 of the state’s 410 supervisory positions although blacks are a substantially larger percentage of the state’s population. A similar pattern holds among the Southern state legislatures. Even with the large-scale conversion to single-member legislative districts, for example, blacks would have to more than double their present number of state legislative seats merely to match their numbers in the region’s population. As single-member districts come more into use, a remaining issue–and one likely to dominate the 1990 round of reapportionment–is how to draw districts so as to create effective minority constituencies.

Recent reforms have been based on certain key assumptions which justify the priority given to the reapportion-

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ment strategy: that Southern state voting policies would be retrogressive, that blacks would under-participate relative to whites, that cross-racial coalitions would be unlikely, and that minorities would not be elected to single executive and state wide offices. These assumptions can now be reviewed.

Southern state policies on voter participation, traditionally hostile to the black voter, have been improving. Flexible voter registration hours, satellite registration sites and deputy registrars are now more common. Election officials in several states publicly and systematically encourage voter registration.

While barriers to voting have diminished, differential rates of voter participation continue. And when this is combined with white racial bloc voting the results could be an artificial constraint on the political development that will come to the region. In the past, allowance has been made for underparticipation by using the redistricting process to draw black districts with extraordinary majorities. This practice has been effective in the short-run but has serious drawbacks as a long-run tactic. Such compensatory districting may encourage packing, a new wrinkle in racial gerrymandering which could be a threat remaining long after the classic vote dilution techniques–including at large voting–have been swept away.

One danger is that ostensibly black-controlled districts may be intentionally drawn where powerful white factions continue to control political office. For example, by putting most of the 30 percent black population of a given county in a single almost exclusively black district, blacks might elect one of five commissioners, who would consistently be on the losing end of 4-1 commission decisions. The remaining blacks in the county might be split among several majority white districts where they compete with a dominant voting bloc and have no ability to influence decisions. A perception of representation might develop, among both blacks and whites, which reduces the minority community to its “own” elected officials. This result would lead to disillusionment as surely as the failure of blacks to win offices in districts with only slight black majorities.

Recent reforms have been based on a pessimistic assumption about the prospects of cross-racial voter coalitions. The reality of white racial bloc voting, particularly when combined with the differential rates of participation, is a strong factor in assessing the racial impact of election mechanics. But voter coalitions are critical to future advances. The building of such coalitions will depend, in large measure, on racial attitudes of white voters, but a key ingredient will be maximization of the voting potential of the minority population.

Furthermore, single-member redistricting reforms do not reach certain levels. They have brought mixed results in Congressional races; they are ineffective in single executive and state-wide offices. Except for the special case of judges, only one black holds a state-wide elected office in the South.

The significance of voter registration and education are clear. Yet there is growing doubt that current efforts and organizations will be capable of meeting the challenge. The Voter Education Project (VEP), historically responsible for increasing black voter participation in the region is facing major problems. For several years now it has been in serious financial, organizational and structural disarray. Even before its current troubles, the political dynamics in the region were presenting an increasingly difficult challenge to voter registration efforts.

The crisis at VEP was not entirely caused by internal factors. It grew out of two things. First there was the overall shift in voting rights efforts from community organizing to formal litigation, a shift that came to dominate voting rights strategy in VEP’s Deep South territory. Second, there was a shift in the object of organizing from support for overall consensus candidates (often at the presidential level) to mobilization in the context of highly partisan local campaigns. Key elections sometimes feature competition among black candidates in majority-black single-member districts; at other times they consist of black incumbents unopposed for reelection.

In 1985, when the national philanthropic foundations issued the report criticizing VEP, the focus was on over allocation of money to administration as opposed to field work. But VEP, or any other organization doing effective voter participation work, will have to come to grips with the changing conditions of Southern politics and of the role of minority voters therein. Some dramatic efforts to address the issue have had little impact. In 1984 lawsuits were filed in several southern states seeking to compel state officials to affirmatively register voters. VEP itself shifted tactics and went to court over registration practices in Georgia.

But this overall effort has stalled and cannot be expected to bring results in the near future.

The Jackson Campaign and its Rainbow Coalition proposed a seductive way out of the voter participation dilemma–charismatic leadership based in black church organization. Whether that will have a long-run impact on minority voter participation is doubtful (there is some reason to believe that black church politics is an extension of the partisan pattern now emerging). In the short run the Jackson mobilization has not significantly expanded black voting and, indeed, Rainbow candidates have become one more element competing for support within the same restrictive franchise.

The Jackson method also places heavy emphasis on race in its mobilization drives. But conditions in the South today require an active voter to exercise the franchise in circumstances where such cues are not dependable guides because election choices are more matter-of-fact calculations. Powerful white factions seeking to realign Southern politics, and restrict bi-racial governance, encourage racial cueing by blacks as a strategy for delegitimation. Emphasis on the racial cue also invites counter mobilization by elevating this visible aspect of the candidate (or proposition) among Southern white voters a group not unaccustomed to making its election choices by such a standard. Depressed voter participation in the Southern black population remains despite the Rainbow Coalition suggesting the challenge for groups seeking an open and responsive political process.

Counting VEP, about fifteen organizations now conduct

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voter participation work in low-income and minority communities. Only two of these are based in the South, although half of them have operations somewhere in the region. The proliferation of voter registration groups has intensified competition over scarce dollars, local constituencies, and skilled organizers, without providing local capacity to respond to basic participation problems. In local communities, groups historically constituted for voter participation work now struggle without much assistance and are actively solicited by partisan factions.

Partisanship is a fact of life in the new Southern politics, posing difficult problems for traditional tactics. Partisanship will be exaggerated by the increase in black elected officials. Conclusions about the precise impact of partisanship are difficult given the rapid pace of change. However, certain features are clear. The new mobilization is not a strategy for empowerment. It is primarily effective in influencing the direction of the vote rather than the quality of participation or input beyond election day. It is beneficial insofar as such mobilization helps sustain some voter turnout. Partisan mobilization tends to be episodic and personality-driven. It seems to increase the role of money in elections. It is of limited impact in low-profile elections even when the issues being decided are vitally important to minorities.

Current levels of registration and turnout suggest that partisan mobilization is not a viable substitute for traditional voter registration work. It does not seem capable of addressing the legacy of discrimination or the sense of uncertainty about the efficacy of the vote that is behind minority under-participation. To leave the exercise of voting rights to partisan mobilization will mean that the historic struggle to enfranchise black Southerners will lose its potential as a democratizing force and become reduced to mere politics-as-usual.

What can be done? Nothing easily. Because philanthropy gives its funds to non-political groups, its predisposition favors litigation strategies which are safe from charges of partisan involvement. As we have seen, however, the benefits to be expected from litigation are diminishing and low voter participation among minorities may actually have begun to undercut the benefits of redistricting. Proponents of voter registration should avoid putting so many eggs in the litigation basket and return to providing support for organizational community-based work designed to register and vote the population. This is no simple matter. Persisting underparticipation and partisan domination of the electoral agenda raise difficult strategic problems for groups working to expand minority participation.

Improvements in official voting policies are still needed at both the state and federal levels. But formal changes in state policies are not a substitute for community-based organizational work. Any overall strategy will necessarily develop out of experiences in local communities–rather than top down. Targets of opportunity must be pursued by placing resources in places where there are realistic chances of making gains. A regional organization, in the tradition of VEP, could be pivotal in the process.

Above all some organization needs to plunge in to systematically collect and analyze information on what is happening in the aftermath of the recent reforms. Research associated with voting rights litigation provides some interesting illustrations about how to answer these questions. But the case-by-case nature of this work does not facilitate the systematic generalization needed now.

The Voting Rights Act, the federal courts, and an experienced bar remain in place to protect against wrongdoing by state officials, but the main line of defense against vote dilution is increasingly becoming that of informed citizens taking action in local communities. Strategies to promote full participation in Southern politics have varied over time as activists have struggled to overcome voting practices that were among the nation’s most restrictive and discriminatory. Successful adjustments have resulted in significant change yielding a more open political process today. Another shift is necessary now if the historically disfranchised are to consolidate past gains and continue the march towards a just political system.

Political scientist Alex Willingham is research director of the Southern Regional Council.

The Latest Attack on Voting Rights

By Alex Willingham

Vol. 17, No. 3-4, 1995 pp. 3-5, 13

In the past two years, decisions by the U. S. Supreme Court have voided congressional election systems in Georgia and threatened those in other states including North Carolina, California, Louisiana, and Texas. These decisions testify to the latest round of American racial conflict. They respond to opposition by whites to state district plans, drawn after the 1990 census, that promote the election of racial minorities protected under the federal Voting Rights Act. Civil rights groups and minorities had argued successfully that the Act required state officials to consider race and to maximize minority-race districts. Many did, and bitter complaints came from white voters. This resistance has now been consummated by the Court’s decisions in two closely watched opinions, Shaw v. Reno (North Carolina) and Miller v. Johnson (Georgia) , resulting in the most serious attack on voting rights in more than a decade.

The situation created by the Court’s opinions has effects on equity as well as hard political implications. Respecting equity, these opinions represent a major challenge to organizations working on franchise issues particularly where that work seeks to guarantee access to a meaningful ballot for minorities. Politically, the decisions could have a major impact on the make-up of Congress and state legislatures which have crucial roles in setting the nation’s public policies. The current attack on minority voting rights is remarkable for the dogged persistence of those opposed to fair representation in politics. The attack is remarkable, too, coming at a time when blacks and others covered by federal voting law are finding it difficult to mobilize their communities for an effective politics.

This is not the first effort to weaken the Voting Rights Act which became law in 1965. The government has revisited the Act several times for extension and amend-

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ment. On each occasion, coordinated drives were made to limit the Act’s impact. In 1982 and in 1992, reconsideration involved reenactment of crucial provisions concerning the pre-clearance process of Section 5 and the cover-age of language minorities.

The Act was also amended in 1982. This was made necessary by a restrictive Supreme Court decision in Mobile v. Bolden. In that decision, the Court had restricted the reach of the Act, based on its interpretation of what the law meant–had Congress intended to disallow those election devices that operated in a discriminatory way or merely those purposefully designed to discriminate? The amendment made clear that the law was to apply to those situations where election devices operated to discriminate against racial minorities, thus limiting the need to inquire about intent.

Restricted Debate

Through the 1960s and 1970s, much of the contention over voting rights had to do with decisions about whether systems of election (at-large or multi-member) were discriminatory. By the 1990 round of redistricting, the focus of contention had shifted to aligning districts in single-member systems. The effect was to direct attention to the design of district lines, heightening anxiety about the prospect of minority “racial gerrymandering.” This subtle shift in the mechanism of reform had the consequence of highlighting the intentions of the reformers–as opposed to the intentions of the creators of the racially tainted at-large systems in disrepute.

In prior encounters over provisions of the Act, minorities mobilized the civil rights community to make effective appeals, either to convince the Congress to clarify its meaning or to litigate persuasive arguments before the Court. Accordingly, opponents of the Act were rebuffed and, because of that, one can find some reason to be optimistic in the current period. Recalling those efforts, however, should not minimize the peculiar challenge presented this time around.

The situation since the 1993 Shaw decision, while similar, is really much more troubling. Now, the terms of discussion set by the Court’s opinions severely restrict the realm of debate. Racial motive is used as a dominant criterion of decision and its application to election reforms–and certainly its application as the sole consideration in redistricting–is deemed inappropriate even when used for demonstrably benign ends.

The Court’s rulings also restrict the arena of decision-making about reforms by shifting to an interpretive process centered in the Court itself. The effect is to

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remove the issue from the political process, insulating it in the purview of the judiciary. As such, even the partial victory I would claim minorities scored in Miller (i.e. the move away from reliance on geographic shape), feeds the restrictive process by removing what appeared, despite its many problems, as an objective standard in principle.

The current attack on voting rights then, is a shrewd response by an ideological and politicized majority on the Court. The Court has placed itself in the pivotal position by structuring debate to close off political avenues. Its calculations will block the bi-partisan alliances and spirit that have sustained support for fair representation. The Court’s sense of judicial involvement on this issue contrasts sharply with its attitude in other areas where it has deferred to the political branches (at least under the Reagan and Bush presidencies). These maneuvers will make it much more difficult to respond effectively in ways similar to the past.

One effect of the Court’s current utterances–and one that calls attention to the larger environment–is a language quite troubling for the way it characterizes officials elected by minority voters of the same race. Though representing itself as honestly grounded in color-blind beliefs, the Shaw argument is actually carried by images that stigmatize officials of color where there is no reason to doubt their worth and where no such aspersion is cast on majority race candidates elected by white voters! The minority race district is caricatured. It “bears an uncomfortable resemblance to political apartheid.” Such language reinforces mindless assumptions about racial homogeneity. Persons elected from such a district “are more likely to believe that their primary obligation is to represent only the members of that group rather than their constituency as a whole.” This is irresponsible and amounts to official stereotyping. It is not likely to have practical effects in election outcomes in communities–race voting, after all, is the condition upon which these remedies are built–but such language will serve to give sanction to backlash and authorize judgments that do not correspond with the actual public record of the elected representatives.

Chilling Comparisons

Race remains an ominous factor here, despite immersion in the idiom of a color-blind society, and the perfidy of these decisions may have less to do with actual reduction in minority representation than with how we construct the meaning of that representation. The 1990 round of redistricting actually maximized the election of minorities, but the language of Shaw and Miller, and the resulting media discourse, serves, in the face of widespread minority office holding, to keep alive the specter of race, to stigmatize aspiring public servants, and to imply a “place” for them at a lesser status than their white counterparts.

I will avoid simplistic comparisons to the overthrow of Reconstruction, but the analogy is suggestive in the direct way in which the current decisions–coming after three decades of voting work–apply to actual political power exercised by racial minorities. The removal of at-large elections and the crafting of majority-minority districts in fact account for the overwhelming number of minority persons now serving in public office at the federal and state levels. An attack on these arrangements is an attack on what power and influence minorities can enjoy. In that sense the comparison to Reconstruction is chilling.

And this comes at a time when, despite the substantial gains in levels of minority office holding, voter turnout among poor and minority populations continues to be disappointing. The low rate of voting is caused in part by well-known conditions of poverty and access. But it is also increasingly reproduced by the direct intervention of campaign organizations attuned to the imperatives of minority race mobilization. Campaign managers in a number of states resort to sophisticated racial appeals to exploit white fears. The Republican party has deployed so-called “ballot security” programs in black and brown polling precincts. In New Jersey, that tactic was supplemented by direct payments to suppress the turnout in black precincts. Harassment of minority elected officials by means which include targeted government-sponsored sting operations in Georgia, Alabama, South Carolina, and Louisiana have worked to remove effective voices.

The ability to use the vote–and to fashion a politics around it–is really the main line of defense against the rollback in government policy now being engineered by the congressional Republicans. Effective use of the franchise will be especially important in the volatile electoral alignments emerging in the late 1990s. It is clear that while New Right formations have a number of policy positions that threaten minority populations, their stance on voting policy and empowerment is just as suspect. They champion term limits and other policies that limit the exercise of official authority and interfere with the discretion of the voter, but are silent about the reduction of registration barriers. Opposition in defiance of the

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motor voter law has developed in a number of states including at least thirteen where lawsuits have been filed to force compliance.

A White Man’s Country

The larger political alignment becomes crucial in thinking about the latest attack on voting rights. At its current pace, this alignment is certain to produce consolidation of a right-of-center governing elite grounded in private wealth, hostile to broad popular governance, and opportunistic with respect to personal rights. It will exercise an astute sense of the way race can be used to ignite political movement. The result is a reemergence of circumstances and forces that simply do not support equal rights. They envision a white man’s country. These forces have a long history in opposition to reform. They were in strenuous opposition to the demonstrations at Selma to the Voting Rights Act itself, and to all the other efforts to redress racial inequalities.

What the country faces is hardly a minor correction on race matters. In these closing years of the twentieth century, we have before us a comprehensive and consistent ideology and an alternative politics. It is a threat to basic constitutional arrangements that affect personal liberties, including religious freedom and abortion, as well as programs that deal with opportunity for economic advancement. These touch the lives of the poor, women, racial minorities, youth, the accused, and the lower middle class.

Against this background it is clear that the U. S. Supreme Court is making a major error in the decisions on race and politics. It has interrupted a steady flow of success and interferes with full development of the potential of the representatives chosen from minority communities. It demands that the civil rights community go back and debate issues that should have been exhausted in previous decades.

The Court’s invoking of white racism to rebuke meaningful thinking about race is Orwellian, unpersuasive, and reckless. It serves to summon fear and hostility at a time of unusual unrest and declining faith in public institutions. It agitates a right-wing politics that feeds on self-serving thought. To abandon minorities on the theory that we are color-blind would be tragic and ironic in the centennial year of the Atlanta Compromise, the event that consummated Jim Crow disfranchisement.

Alex Willingham teaches courses on politics and race at Williams College and is currently chair of the Highlander Center Board of Directors.