
          Democracy in the South
          By Suitts, SteveSteve Suitts
          Vol. 12, No. 2, 1990, pp. 1-3
          
          Like an old Chinese proverb coming south for the winter, one side
of democracy in the American South today shows troubling, even
treacherous signs of crisis, and on the other side are rare moments
for important opportunities. This contrast is, of course a part of the
ironic history of political participation in the South which has
delivered the region from the land of segregation of thirty years ago
to being home for most of the nation's registered black_voters
today. It is that essential characteristic of a region that can
encompass in one year more violations of the voting_rights of its
minority citizens than any other while electing more minority
officials than all others.
          The dangers to democracy which haunt the South today are both
immediate and far-reaching. The region's population growth over the
last ten years presents real obstacles to maintaining the voting
strength of minority citizens beyond the local level. Most of the
growth, for example, has been in suburban Congressional and
legislative districts where minorities are a small part of the
population and where incumbent voting records often show indifference
or even hostility to the interest of black and Hispanic
citizens. Racial bloc voting continues throughout the region, fencing
out minority voters from any substantial influence in presidential
elections. And Southern state officials--often elected with the
support of minority voters--appear today as adamant in their
opposition to the enforcement 

of the Voting_Rights_Act as they were
decades ago. (Witness the never-ending oppositions of state officials
to a fair redistricting of the Arkansas legislature and the judicial
districts in seven Southern_states.)
          Other signs of crisis are no less troubling. In three Southern
states during the last year, whites claimed "reverse discrimination"
in federal_courts as they invoked the Voting_Rights_Act to promote
their own political rights, apparently oblivious of the need to show
that they had been the victims of a history of racial discrimination
in voting and in society. In 1989, a state court judge in Georgia
dismissed local criminal indictments because of jury
discrimination--not enough whites were on the jury, he claimed. And in
South_Carolina a public restaurant openly defied the provisions of the
federal public accommodations law, apparently on the belief that those
laws were not going to be enforced any longer.
          These peculiar events took place within the backdrop of the
U.S. Supreme_Court's recent decisions on "race-based remedies." In its
opinion holding that efforts to assist minority contractors by the
City of Richmond were unconstitutional, the U.S. Supreme_Court stated:
"Classifications based on race carry a danger of stigmatic
harm. Unless they are strictly reserved . . . they may in fact promote
notions of racial inferiority and lead to a politics of racial
hostility."
          The Court's reference to a "politics of racial hostility" reflects
the language used by opponents of renewal of the Voting_Rights_Act in
the Congressional debates in 1982: "All too often the task of
racial classifications in and of itself has resulted in social
turmoil...[and]...the proposed changes in Section 2 [of the Voting
Rights Act] will inevitably 'compel the worst tendencies towards
racebased allegiances and divisions.'"
          These similarities are more than linguistic: the fundamental
rationale undergirding the Supreme_Court's ruling against minority
contracting--and affirmative_action in employment in its other recent
cases--applies to all remedies for racial discrimination, including
the creation of majority black_districts in voting
cases. Increasingly, race-based remedies are suspect in the federal
courts no matter what they're aimed to correct.
          These signs of the times are serious indicators of dangers amid
both our folkways and stateways. When the city council of Richmond,
Va.--the old seat of the Confederacy--is frustrated by the
U.S. Supreme_Court--the authors of legal equality in the twentieth
century--in an attempt to remove the vestiges of race discrimination,
we should realize that no longer will traditional institutions defend
and expand opportunity for all in the future. We must take seriously
the jeopardy that can befall both the letter and the spirit of
democracy in the South from both old friends and old foes.
          Nonetheless, the South is poised to deliver another set 

of historic
advances. With an expected gain of ten Congressional seats in Southern
states after the 1990 Census, minority voters have a chance to
increase their strength through the creation of additional
Congressional districts with a majority of black and Hispanic
voters. The legal movement for enforcing the federal Voting_Rights_Act
is continuing to remove old and new barriers to full political
participation, and the numbers of black, Hispanic, and white officials
elected by the votes of minority citizens continue to enlarge. It was
not, for instance, a change of heart, but a change in the voters of
Richmond that moved the city council to embrace local legislation
promoting minority contracting.
          Of course, only one of these contrasting signs will become the
signal feature of the South's future--depending upon what Southerners
of goodwill do now and in the future. As in the past, these times call
for perseverance with those enterprises that have worked and
experimentation with others that promise new results in promoting
political participation. It is a time for redoubling and improving
upon current, effective work, for reinforcing the public understanding
of the necessity for such work, and for boldly searching for new ways
to further democracy for all.
          In this spirit the Southern_Regional_Council has a timehonored
place as an institution which believes in, and whose work enlarges,
the promise of democracy in the American South. More than any other
private institution in the region during the twentieth century, the
Council has been able to bring both vigilance and innovation to the
challenge of expanding democracy. These qualities, hopefully, will
also be evident in the strategies and activities which both the
Council and other Southerners engage over the next few years for
enlarging democracy in this region we stubbornly call home.
          
            Steve Suitts, a native of Alabama, is the executive
director of the Southern_Regional_Council and the publisher of this
journal.
          
        
