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This chapter discusses how for African Americans, the events of the mid-1970s only served to reinforce an already contentious relationship with the Grand Old Party (GOP)—frustrations that were born out of the party's years of equivocation over issues of black concern. The GOP's extreme electoral woes with African Americans were rooted in Goldwater's enduring legacy. More than a decade later, black voters still held an image of a national party driven by states' rights advocates, white southern conservatives, anti-civil rights politicians, and wealthy elites who disdained the “common man.” The Washington Post observed that the Republican Party appeared to be a political machine engaged in constant antagonisms and reactionary battles and had done very little to dispel its negative identity with black communities.

This chapter discusses the emergence of a new black American political influence in the political scene of Atlanta. This chapter begins with a chronicle of the political career of William Berry Hartsfield who saw the relevance of the abolishment of the Democratic white primacy and the potential impact and influence of the black voters. Following his instinct regarding the growing political influence of the blacks, Hartsfield became a champion for blacks and granted the long-desired access to law enforcement for blacks. This hiring of black policemen and officers led to an increase in the number of registered black voters who as a result had a decisive influence in elections. With their significant increase in the number of voters and their rapidly growing influence and decisive role in elections, some blacks used this to get involved with politics through which they gained significant governmental seats. While their political achievements were a source of pride, these achievements did little to improve the lives of the blacks. As the bleak situation of the blacks proliferated after their growing political influence, the blacks pushed for the abolishment of racial discrimination and the creation of equality. With the pending decision of the Supreme Court on the abolishment of segregation schemes, the blacks, particularly black leaders such as Martin Luther King Jr., gained strength to forward the cause and the welfare of the black community.

This chapter probes the electoral attributes of a special political dynamic that contributed significantly to Barack Obama's victory in both the 2008 Democratic primary contests and in the national presidential election. That special political dynamic involved the unique contribution of African American voters (hereafter referred to as the Black Voter Bloc or BVB) in facilitating Obama's election as the first African American President of the United States. It argues that the BVB played a critical electoral role in the Obama campaign's delegate count victory in the Democratic primaries by early July 2008 and in the Obama–Biden Democratic ticket's victory over the McCain–Palin Republican ticket in the November 4, 2008, presidential election.

This chapter focuses on the events of 1970 to 1981 which marked the triumph of black power. In 1970, the election of the first black vice mayor marked a significant change in the political power of the blacks. Following the election of a black vice mayor and the subsequent fall of the Massell administration, the black voters saw hope in the then young black vice mayor, Maynard H. Jackson Jr. He was prepped for the next local election wherein he was to be elected mayor by the black voters of Atlanta. After a century of change in black participation in the political affairs of Atlanta, starting from almost nil to the margin victory for three white mayors, black electoral power triumphed in the mayoral election of 1973. In the 1977 elections, Mayor Maynard H. Jackson Jr. was returned to office by Atlanta voters in a victory of near-landslide proportions, trouncing all opponents, including his former administrative services commissioner. In his elections and administrations, Jackson was fortunate that all of these coincided with the growth of black influence in Atlanta. In the earlier part of his tenure, a consistent majority of blacks and several whites on the council gave him virtual carte blanche for his policies. Although the black councilman Q.V. Williamson was the most senior black elected official in city government, he became a Jackson floor leader. Hence, the mayor in large part dominated the executive and legislative branches during his term. Without this black solidarity in his term, Jackson would have been easily frustrated in most of his major and controversial policies, including police reform and joint venturing. It was in fiscal matters that the African American councilmen first showed their independence of the mayor, and it was in these matters that they continued to have their major differences with Jackson. But these were often compromised to the satisfaction of all parties concerned on both socioeconomic and political matters. Jackson could rise if deemed necessary, the cry of white racism at his opponents, a cry that resounded well with many African American councilmen.

This chapter examines the practice and the consequences of race-neutral campaign strategies in America. More specifically, it looks at the origins of race-neutral campaign strategies among black politicians in the early 1980s and how race-neutral black candidates, particularly Barack Obama, tackled racism or racial inequality during their election campaigns. It also considers the informal wink-and-nod agreement forged between race-neutral black candidates and black voters who supported them, along with its implications for black politics. Finally, the chapter discusses “deracialization” as a campaign strategy adopted by race-neutral black candidates.

This chapter discusses the political history of African Americans in Atlanta after they emerged as free men and women from the reigns of bondage. African Americans who emerged from the chains of bondage shared the same faith with the freed persons of the south. Most of these newly freed people were economically challenged and illiterate wherein most of them depended on the basic needs, shelter, and rudimentary education provided by the Freedmen's Bureau and the northern missionary societies. However, by 1867, a school was established which became the first black institution for higher education and which initiated the creation of five other schools dedicated to the higher education needs of the black. The first established school, the Atlanta University Center (AUC), became the catalyst for change and development among the black middle and upper classes. Businesses emerged and the number of educated blacks increased. With the newly acquired higher education, literate blacks began to play an important role in the advent of their acquired freedom to vote and right to suffrage. In the elections that proceeded, blacks actively participated in casting their votes and in attempting to acquire governmental seats wherein they gained leverage after years of being neglected and restrained from involvement on the national scene and the public sphere. While blacks gained the freedom to vote, they were often cast aside, marginalized as an insignificant voting power and eliminated as a powerful black political influence. But the black voters and African Americans revived their black politics and continued to create a complex interplay and influence on American politics.

This chapter traces the evolution of Blacks from voters to candidates following the passage of the 1965 Voting Rights Act. It argues that there were two waves of Black electoral success. Focusing on Black mayors, it contrasts the “insurgent strategy” with the later “deracialized strategy.” The “insurgent” strategy often resembles a social movement more than a political campaign and is directed at mobilizing the candidate's racial support base. The “deracialized” strategy attempts to downplay any racial issue as the candidate reaches out to form a broad coalition of supporters. The chapter also gives credit to Harold Washington and Jesse Jackson for their strategy of expanding the base of the Democratic Party rather than moving to the right to capture “Reagan Democrats.”

The seeds of African American alignment found a fertile ground during the presidencies of Warren Harding, Calvin Coolidge, and Herbert Hoover, but it accelerated and sprouted during the Great Depression and the New Deal. By the 1920s, the African American alienation was a budding flower in the Lincoln administration but found no viable outward expression. This chapter discusses the growing alienation of the black voters as the Republican Party that was once ruled by the motives of ensuring the welfare of the blacks started to turn its back on the blacks. It discusses the Grand Old Party's policies which led to the alienation of the blacks. In the chapter, the presidency of Hoover, the “southern strategy,” the emergence of “black and tan” and “lily-white” factions in the GOP, and the Republicans' taking for granted of the political importance of the blacks are discussed. While the New Deal and the Great Depression may be pointed as contributing factors to the increasing disaffection of the blacks with the GOP, the change of allegiance of the black voters was primarily caused by the interplay of factors that were deliberately designed to alienate them.

This chapter focuses on the years between the 1920s and the early 1960s, a time of relative stasis in the election process. One important exception to this trend of stagnation was the removal of the poll tax in some states. This movement toward inclusion was principally motivated by an understanding on the part of white politicians that poll taxes were having a bigger effect on poor whites than blacks. But as the country entered the Depression, there were new efforts to disenfranchise paupers or people on unemployment relief, although none met with great success. During the years of World War II, another major change in the voting system was the elimination of the whites-only primary, prevalent throughout the South. In 1944 the U.S. Supreme Court ruled these primaries, exclusively adopted by the Democratic Party, unconstitutional. Because Democratic primaries had been practically a sure ticket to election throughout the South, state laws that stipulated that white citizens alone could participate in primary elections were an extremely effective measure for excluding African Americans from the decision-making process. With the 1944 Supreme Court ruling in Smith v. Allwright, however, that barrier was removed. Moreover, because the political allegiance of black voters had switched to the Democratic Party during the New Deal, the legal and political changes established the conditions for a significant change in party politics and electioneering in the South.

This chapter examines the strategy of replacing race with religion, an ostensibly more legitimate collective identity. It highlights specialty conservative Christian media created to reach out to African Americans. These media appeals to black voters often attempt to rewrite black Civil Rights movements as primarily spiritual and Christian-oriented, thereby suggesting an impetus for Christian fellowship with whites in the present. Displacing the political and racial elements of these movements is suspect, however, and requires significant forgetting and forgiveness on the part of African Americans, who are encouraged to overlook the racially divisive strategies employed in the recent past by the same organizations and individuals authoring these media appeals. The chapter specifically analyzes one such appeal, the program Justice Sunday III, and concludes with a study of African American Christians who watched segments of the program.

This chapter describes some of the struggles faced by the Mississippi freedom movement. As the stronghold of southern white supremacy, Mississippi became the nightmare of many civil rights activists. Recalling some of the accounts of the members of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), brutal terror hindered their attempts to register black voters. The federal government’s refusal to provide protection against racial murder and violent intimidation compounded SNCC’s problems. Only with the assistance of an economically independent and heavily armed contingent of Mississippi activists enabled the organization to persevere. However, there was a serious debate brought upon by the widespread practice of armed self-defense among local blacks. Organizers who advocated philosophical nonviolence encountered staunch opposition from black farmers. To these men and women, nonviolence as a way of life was difficult to gauge. From the perspective of black men, its connotations of passiveness clearly contradicted traditional notions of manhood.

Stung with another defeat in the 1940 elections, the GOP embarked on another period of soul searching. After the elections of 1940, the GOP was faced with the prospect of making up a unified stand on the issue of foreign policy. Faced with the looming conflict and war, Republicans strongly believed that America could avoid entanglements with the Axis power and hence forwarded for isolationism. This changed however on the eve of December 7, 1941. Isolationism, which was the Republicans' foreign policy, was discredited, causing them to frantically search for an alternative. This chapter discusses yet another struggle faced by the Republican Party to forge unity in an otherwise divided GOP party. It discusses the challenges faced by the Republicans to make the two different foreign policies dominating within the party create an image of unity and oneness within it. With the 1944 elections looming, the Republicans were forced to create, if not dismiss, foreign policies that threatened the unity of the party. They created the Mackinac agreement, which resulted in a veneer of harmony between isolationists and internationalists—a harmony that was essential in the forthcoming 1944 presidential elections. The chapter also provides an overview of the changing and evolving allegiance of the African American voters. Faced with the looming war and the hardship that came with it, including the New Deal, the Republicans, having changed their foreign policy from isolationism to internationalism, somehow managed to earn a small number of black voters, yet this was too insignificant to carry them to electoral success. The chapter also discusses the new political measures of the GOP found in the introduction of potential new Republican leaders, the most notable of whom was Thomas Dewey, who ran for presidency yet lost the race due to their failure to win the affection of black voters, who played a determining role in the results of the elections.

This chapter examines Barack Obama's race-neutral approach to governing and policymaking—as well as black voters' and black elites' refusal to pressure him to address community interests—and its political consequences for African Americans. It also discusses the marginalization of blacks' community interests in relation to the Obama administration's focus on other constituencies such as the LGBT community on the Left and the Tea Party on the Right. Finally, the chapter looks at universalism as a color-blind approach to politics and public policy as well as the symbolic aspects of representation within the context of black politics.

After the death of Franklin Roosevelt in April 1954, the Republican Party's hopes of regaining the African American vote, and more importantly the White House, increased and widened. Dewey was shaped as the Republican candidate for the incoming 1948 presidential elections with much confidence for the victory of the Republican Party. This chapter focuses on the different bills and policies proposed and passed during the administration of Harry S. Truman, which sought to abolish racial discrimination, promote equality, and bring new attention to the alienation of African Americans. It also discusses the strategies enacted by the Republican Party through Dewy in the hope of regaining the affection of the now black Democrat loyalists. With the hope of somehow curbing the allegiance of the black voters, Dewey advocated the passage of an antidiscrimination bill, although he failed to garner significant following during his election bid, largely because of the seeming insincerity of the party and its negligence to court special-interest votes. The chapter also discusses the increasing call for the GOP to pay more attention to the requirements of African Americans and the necessity to win their votes. It furthermore touches on efforts to pass civil rights and the charter for human freedom, which failed in the hands of Truman due to the strong southern resistance and the seeming complacency of the Truman administration.

This chapter describes events between 1964 and 1965. These include local civil rights activism and awareness of the southern movement in New York City; the registration of black voters in Brooklyn; Andy Cooper’s support for the candidacy of Republican John V. Lindsay as mayor; passage of the Voting Rights Act in August 1965; and Lindsay’s election victory.

This chapter provides the rationale of the book, admonishing any aspiring young black politician that, while employing elite displacement has its rewards, there are also inherent risks. From a strategic standpoint, it makes perfect sense for black political entrepreneurs to use any leverage they have to gain an electoral advantage. However, they must be prepared to face the consequences of their strategy. Some incumbent politicians and black voters will be turned off by such bare-knuckle tactics. Furthermore, if the likelihood of persuading those politicians or winning that voting bloc is small from the outset, then the black political entrepreneur may not mind losing potential allies and votes.

In the years after President Johnson’s 1964 landslide election, white voters in eastern North Carolina and the rest of the South grew disenchanted with liberalism. Helms recognized that racial backlash and the unpopular Vietnam War presented conservatives with their best opportunities in a generation. Helms’s pious incitement proved central to Republican victories in 1966 and 1968. The issues that most upset Helms allowed him to make the case against Democrats. He stoked viewer unease over black voters, the Great Society (especially the War on Poverty), the Watts riot, the black power movement, the Cold War, the Vietnam War, leftism at the University of North Carolina, and the sexual revolution. He defended literacy tests and portrayed African Americans as menacing. He transformed traditional U.S. isolationism into a rejection of cooperation and compromise with other nations. Helms, though, did not just criticize liberal efforts. He advocated the values of the small-town South as a conservative alternative. He played a role in building private schools and charities and proposed a private affirmative action plan. Helms’s solutions would leave local elites in control and keep out the federal government. Change in race relations would occur slowly if at all.