Blacks Can Shake Off Their Taken-for-Granted Status

Times are changing, and so is our nation. All Americans, particularly black Americans, are now facing new challenges to our civil rights--our right to compete on a level playing field in America. Blacks must now take a shrewd, pragmatic view of modern-day politics, especially on the national level.

Politicians respond to the will of the constituents who voted them into office. Put another way: “To the victor goes the spoils.” In my hometown of New Orleans, for example, black neighborhoods got newly paved streets only after the first black mayor was elected. And more recently, on a national level, white Southern Democratic senators voted against the nomination of Robert Bork to the Supreme Court. This touch of conscience on their part most likely was the result of repeated reminders of the size of their black constituency.

I contend that a significant number of blacks must vote for George Bush in order for blacks to be counted as part of his winning constituency.

The debates are over; the numbers are in. Indications of the all-important Electoral College vote show the vice president in the lead. He appears certain to win virtually all of the Southern states. These are states in which a large bloc of the black vote is located. How black Americans will fare in a Bush Administration depends largely on how many blacks vote for the vice president on Nov. 8.

No, I am not kidding about this, nor am I an ultra-conservative. I was born a black Southern Democrat. And I have a deeply rooted fondness for the progressive years of the Kennedy-Johnson administrations.

But I also believe that if at least 25% of black voters supported Bush for President,he would not deny blacks a major voice in his Administration.

That belief is based on Bush’s political history. Bush has supported civil rights since early in his political career in Texas, long before it became popular to do so.In 1967 he voted for extension of the Civil Rights Commission. In 1968 Bush was one of the few Southern congressmen who voted for open housing for black Americans. And in 1969 he voted in support of the “Philadelphia Plan,” in favor of hiring blacks on federal construction jobs.

Bush continues his commitment to black equality, both political and economic. Last summer he told those attending the annual NAACP convention that civil rights would be at the top of his attorney general’s agenda. As chairman of the Presidential Task Force on Regulatory Relief, Bush has stood up in favor of affirmative-action programs to help blacks get and keep jobs. And he has promised black businesses technical assistance, loan guarantees and new capital sources.

Bush’s platform stresses education as the key to opportunity for all Americans. He has promised to support a sharp increase in the funding for Project Head Start for early childhood education. He has emphasized the importance of our battle against illiteracy. The Bush family has supported black educational institutions throughout the years--quietly and with personal conviction. The vice president’s wife, Barbara, has been a trustee of the Morehouse Schoolof Medicine in Atlanta, a historically black university. As far back as 1948, while a student at Yale University, George Bush chaired a fund-raising drive for the United Negro College Fund.

Clearly George Bush is to black America the most acceptable Republican presidential candidate since Abraham Lincoln. He has adopted a platform supportive of many of our primary interests--family, community, economic growth, anti-crime and anti-drugs.

The black vote is too precious to give to any one party on each and every occasion. There is new evidence that the black community is becoming frustrated by the Democrats’ failure to deliver and respond to its needs. In a relatively recent survey for the Joint Center for Political Studies, it was reported that more blacks are abandoning the Democratic label. Frankly, the Democratic Party does not deserve all of the black vote, and neither does Gov. Michael S. Dukakis. Since the Democratic convention in Atlanta, Dukakis has virtually ignored black concerns. The Rev. Jesse Jackson has all but disappeared from the national scene. Dukakis has not identified with the needs of the black community, and has failed to successfully solicit the support of the nation’s black mayors--a most essential core of the Democratic Party.

Blacks should let the Republican Party know that they are not an isolated group but are an integral part of mainstream America; they should show that they are not in the hip pocket of the Democratic Party. Blacks need to send a message to the Democrats that their vote must be wooed and earned for every election.