Contours of African American Politics

Volume 3, Into the Future: The Demise of African American Politics?

Georgia A. Persons

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2017
• eBook ISBN: 9781351525992
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Political Ideologies
• Index: Politics & International Relations

Contours of African American Politics chronicles the systematic study of African American politics and its subsequent recognition as an established field of scholarly inquiry. African American politics emanates from the demands of the prolonged struggle for black liberation and empowerment. Hence, the study of African American politics has sought to track, codify, and analyze the struggle that has been mounted, and to understand the historic and changing political status of African Americans within American society.

The notion of a post-racial America is one that was birthed by the election of Barack Obama as the first African American president of the United States. However, another reality is equally compelling: that for some time now, many African American aspirants for elective office have run against race-specific issues, putting individual desires to win office above the conventionally defined collective interests of black folk.

Clearly, the Obama presidential election crystallized a complexity of change that had been underway in America prior to his election. Indeed, did the Obama election signal the end of black politics? Does race remain a useful construct for framing the collective interests of African Americans? Volume III of Contours of African American Politics examines all of these questions in an effort to understand the more poignant question of the future of that which we have known as black politics.

Part VII

A New Structure of Ambition in Black Politics

The Third Wave: Assessing the Post-Civil Rights Cohort of Black Elected Leadership

Andra Gillespie

Emory University

Beyond the Boundaries, Volume 12; pp. 139-162

Introduction

By all accounts, African Americans¹ are being introduced to a third generation of black elected leadership. Ironically, this new phase, like the phases that preceded it, is called “new black politics.” What distinguishes this new batch of leaders from their predecessors is their generation (i.e., they were born or came of age after the civil rights movement), their education (i.e., they were educated in Ivy League and other white institutions), and their potential (i.e., they have realistic chances to hold higher executive and legislative positions more frequently than any other generation of black leaders) (Reed and Alleyne, 2002).

This latest wave of black politicians is not immune from criticism. Not least among critics’ concerns is whether these new black politicians will advance the substantive and strategic policy goals of the African American community. Yes, some of these women and men can realistically become senators and even president, as Barack Obama has so aptly demonstrated, but at what price? Will they have to abandon a civil rights agenda to gain the electoral advantage needed to attain high office (Martin, 2003)?

Implicit in this discussion of new black politicians is their relative chance for success and the means by which these politicians emerge onto the political spectrum. Is the emergence of this cohort of leadership an organic development emanating from black communities, or are these politicians overly ambitious instrumentalists who are exploiting their racial background for political traction? What is more, does this cohort of elected leadership have a chance at developing a loyal base of black voters, or are they being propped up by white elites seeking to divide and conquer black communities?

The answers to these questions are important because the stakes are so high. The new cohort of black elected officials receive such notoriety because their probability of attaining high office is perhaps greater than it has been for any generation of blacks in the United States. If this cohort of elected leadership meets expectations, ascending in critical numbers to governor’s mansions, the U.S. Senate and even the White House, what are the implications for black communities? Clearly, these leaders will be in an unprecedented position to shape public policy. Thus, it seems that the big question is not just what pundits think about new black politicians, but what constituents think about these candidates and whether the material conditions of African Americans will improve under their leadership.

In the pages that follow, I trace the emergence of this new cohort of black leadership. I draw on the Black Leadership literature to see how scholars in the past defined and assessed black leadership. Indeed, they created multiple, yet similar typologies to evaluate leadership. I then use the basic demographic record of the current crop of young black elected leadership to introduce a new model of black leadership, which I in turn apply in describing the post-civil rights cohort.

New Black Politics throughout History

There have been three iterations of new black politics in the post-civil rights era: the widespread election of the first black elected officials in the 1970s; the successes of black candidates in major elections in majority-white jurisdictions in the 1980s; finally, the current rise of young, black moderates, many of whom challenge members of the first wave of black elected officials in majority-black cities and congressional districts. Each wave of black politicians is significant for the barriers that its members traversed. They are also important to study because the rise of each class of black elected officials is concurrent with innovations in campaign strategy. However, despite the campaign innovations, scholars studying these waves of black elected officials have been careful to question whether the pro-grammatic agenda of these black elected officials aligns with the interests of black constituents.

New Black Politics: Phase I

Charles Hamilton notes that after the passage of Voting Rights Act, the focus of black politics, in a literal and academic sense, shifted from the judicial to the legislative/electoral arena. Now that blacks largely had the franchise, the goal became to channel that electoral power into legislative policies that would benefit blacks (Hamilton, 1982). Putting black officials in office was a key first step in achieving that agenda. Indeed, from 1965 to 1988, there was a more than thirteen fold increase in the number of black elected officials (Tate, 1994: 1; see also Williams, 1987: 112).

The elected officials of the first wave of new black politics faced tremendous obstacles. As trailblazers coming on the heels of the civil rights movement, they had to run in still racially tense environments. Furthermore, they had to reconcile with the white portions of their constituency that may have been skeptical of them as leaders (Smith, 1990).

Furthermore, these new black elected officials had difficulty implementing their agenda. As Linda Williams notes, “urban blacks today have reached city hall precisely at the moment when the real power to deliver jobs, money, education and basic services is migrating to higher levels of government and the private sector” (Williams, 1987: 129). She observes that first-wave black politicians came to power during a period of national economic decline and decreased federal aid to cities. As a result, first-wave black mayors were hampered in their efforts to provide redistributive relief to their constituents. What little aid they were able to provide tended to focus on ameliorative policies such as affirmative action and set-asides, which disproportionately benefited middle-class black residents. What is more, blacks ascended to the mayoralty in cities, which severely proscribed their power, limiting some from having control over important functions such as taxation (Williams, 1987: 128-129).

William Nelson further notes that the notion of new black politics being the collective agent for improvement of the whole black community is easier said than done. Using Cleveland as an example, he notes that uniting blacks around a permanent agenda is difficult. Carl Stokes was able to unite blacks under one political banner. However, that union dissolved when Stokes stepped down as leader of Cleveland’s black political organization. Diversity of opinion and ambition, then, undermined some attempts for political unity (Nelson, 1982). Moreover, Robert Smith observes that the legislative record of these officials, with respect to their progressive, black politics agenda, has been limited. They only have been able to develop downtown space, implement municipal affirmative action programs, and respond to police brutality (Smith, 1990).

New Black Politics: Phase II

One of the distinguishing features of each wave of new black politics has been the new black candidates’ campaign style. While candidates in each wave of new black politics have had some measure of crossover appeal, observers have attributed more crossover appeal to each subsequent generation of new black political candidates. For example, Ardrey and Nelson (1990) note that black elected officials elected in new black politics’ first wave, who were largely civil rights leaders, transferred the confrontational style from the movement to the electoral and legislative arena.

Many scholars viewed 1989 as a watershed year for black politics. In November 1989, blacks ascended to the mayoralty for the first time in Seattle (Norm Rice), New Haven (John Daniels), Durham (Chester Jenkins), and New York City (David Dinkins). Most notably, Douglas Wilder was elected governor of Virginia, making him the country’s first black governor since Reconstruction. This cluster of elections is particularly important given that these men were elected in majority-white jurisdictions with at least 40 percent of the white vote (McCormick and Jones, 1993: 66, 68).

With their elections, Wilder and his peers ushered in the second wave of new black politics. The second wave is characterized by the prevalent use of a deracialized campaign strategy. McCormick and Jones define a deracialized campaign as one being “in a stylistic fashion that diffuses the polarizing effects of race by avoiding explicit reference to race-specific issues, while at the same time emphasizing those issues that are perceived as racially transcendent, thus mobilizing a broad segment of the electorate” (McCormick and Jones, 1993: 76). McCormick and Jones (1993) go further to articulate this strategy by noting that candidates employing such a strategy convey “a nonthreatening image,” (76) “avoid employing direct racial appeals in organizing the black community” (76), and “should avoid emphasis of a racially specific issue agenda (77).

Douglas Wilder clearly exemplifies the deracialized strategy. Strickland and Wheeler note that Wilder, “adopted mainstream and even fiscally conservative positions. He was also able to avoid discussing overtly racial issues” (Strickland and Wheeler, 1992: 210). For example, Wilder’s campaign theme was “the ‘New Virginia Mainstream,’” and he made law and order, drug enforcement, and his support for the death penalty a key part of his platform (Jones and Clemons, 1993: 140).

While this strategy may be electorally effective, some find it morally troubling and wonder what the implications are for the pursuit of a pro-black political agenda. Earl Sheridan (1996), in his article, “The New Accommodationists,” implicitly likens such a strategy to Booker T. Washington’s Atlanta Compromise when he writes that instead of lauding black elected officials who deemphasize race to get elected, “America needs Black leaders who will continue the legacy of the 1960s, not the 1890s—men and women who will call for meaningful change in our society” (Sheridan, 1996: 169). He fears that in an attempt to gain office by any means necessary, these officials would abandon the issues of concern to the black community to get votes and would shortchange black interests to stay in power (Sheridan, 1996: 165-166).

McCormick and Jones are a little less fearful of the implications of using a deracialized electoral strategy, but they, too, brace for less progressive politics as a result of the strategy. They write that “In the absence of such demands from a politically organized African American community, there is little reason to expect African American elected officials who capture office in predominantly white political jurisdictions to be in the vanguard of articulating racially-specific policy issues” (McCormick and Jones, 1993: 78). That being said, they proffer that even these politicians will occasionally have to make some explicitly racial overtures to their black constituents, lest these officials lose an important base of support in their communities (McCormick and Jones, 1993: 78).

However, much of the handwringing over the implications of deracialization as a strategy of second-wave black politicians was short-lived. Second-wave politicians experienced a number of setbacks that prevented that cohort from making a long-term impact on the communities they represented. Some setbacks were structural. Doug Wilder, for instance, was constitutionally barred from seeking a second consecutive term as governor of Virginia. Others, such as David Dinkins, had very short tenures in office due to poor public perceptions. (See Kim 2000 for an example of Dinkins alienating black constituents.) However, for a number of politicians in the second wave, they suffered electoral defeats that marked the end of their electoral pursuits. For instance, Harvey Gantt twice lost his bid to represent North Carolina in the U.S. Senate to Jesse Helms in what were racially vitriolic campaigns. Andrew Young lost a bid to be Georgia’s governor by wasting time campaigning for white votes in southern Georgia at the expense of campaigning in his base in and around Atlanta. Thus, according to the various authors studying the rise of second-wave politicians in the late 1980s and early 1990s, deracialized candidates overestimated racial goodwill outside of the black community and paid a high electoral price for ignoring black voters (Wilson, 1993; Davis and Willingham, 1993).

Moreover, from an academic perspective, many authors challenged the notion that pure deracialization was even going on in the first place. Mary Summers and Phillip Klinkner, for instance, argue that John Daniels did not run a deracialized campaign in his successful bid to become New Haven’s first black mayor. They point to his progressive campaign platform, his integral role in introducing community policing to New Haven and his creation of a needle exchange program, in addition to his willingness to discuss his race on the campaign trail, as evidence that Daniels was not a deracialized candidate (Summers and Klinkner, 1996). Additionally, Len-neal Henderson studied Kurt Schmoke’s ascendance to the mayoralty of Baltimore and reached similar conclusions. He contends that Schmoke’s efforts at economic redevelopment were racially transcendent, but that Schmoke was not trying to distance himself from black communities. Thus, Schmoke was a “transracial[ized]” black politician and not a deracialized black politician (Henderson, 1996: 172-173).

New Black Politics: Phase III

The current wave of new black politics very much resembles the second wave in that this wave is characterized by ambitious politicians with more moderate politics. What distinguishes this group from its predecessors is its youth and connection to civil rights history. The figures associated with the third wave of new black politics were born after 1960, immediately before or after the passage of all the major civil rights legislation (see Traub, 2002). For example, Barack Obama was born in 1961; Cory Booker was born in 1969; Harold Ford, Jr. and Kwame Kilpatrick were born in 1970. As a result, these figures benefited from the fruits of the struggle and were able to grow up in integrated neighborhoods and attend predominantly white schools from kindergarten to graduate school. However, their youth also means that some perceive this generation as being less likely to relate to the civil rights struggle (see Bositis, 2001: 3-11). While second-wave new black politicians were charged with deliberately not having been active in the civil rights movement, they at least had the benefit of having been eyewitness to the monumental changes that took place in the 1950s and 1960 (see Sheridan 1996: 166).² In addition, others view this generation a...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Table of Contetns
• Politics and Social Change: The Demise of the African-American Ethnic Moment?
• Part VII A New Structure of Ambition in Black Politics
• Epilogue Into the Future: African American Politics in the Post-Obama Era