The Racial Divide

Barack Obama’s historic election to President of the United States is unquestionably an amazing step for African-Americans in this country. Therefore, it is not surprising that the final exit polls showed that 95% of black voters supported Obama, to only 4% for John McCain.[1]

What is more intriguing is the fact that the African-American population has voted for the Democratic Party in significant numbers for the past few decades. In national elections from 1972-2002, black voters identified themselves as Democrats between 75% and 80% of the time, while voting Republican only 5% to 11% of the time.[2] In fact, in the 2000 election, Democratic nominee Al Gore claimed 90% of the black vote.[3] While conventional political theory argues that the Democrats’ role in the Civil Rights movement has aligned African-Americans with the party for the indeterminable future, I challenge that this is not true, and that the racial gap today is formed by support for welfare and false portrayal in the media.

In partisan politics, the ruling party is often given credit for successes and failures on the national level, regardless of the party’s actual impact. This is exactly why the Civil Rights movement is remembered as a focal point of a Democratic administration and Congress working in progressive unison. In reality, however, many Democrats went above and beyond to hinder the success of the movement for racial equality. As shown in the figure below, the Republican Party voted in much greater favor for civil rights legislation than the Democrats.

Table 1: Vote on Civil Rights Bills by Party

These pieces of legislation are some of the most essential and progressive acts in the Civil Rights movement. The Voting Rights Act of 1965 outlawed Jim Crow style voting laws that had hindered blacks’ ability to vote in the South. Similarly, the Civil Rights Act of 1968 pushed for the integration of neighborhoods, prohibiting discrimination in selling or renting of housing based on race.

Even more condemning than these statistics, is the way in which congressional Democrats handled the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Perhaps the most important piece of legislation for the movement, the act outlawed racial segregation in schools and also prohibited employment discrimination based on race, color and sex. Not only did Republicans favor this act with much greater fervor than Democrats (as shown in the above figure), but Democrat Party leaders also attempted to stop the bill without passage. Senator Robert Byrd (D-WV), who has held several party leadership positions including Democratic whip, along with other segregationist Dixiecrats filibustered the act for 83 days in an attempt to kill the bill. Fortunately, Republicans and other Democrats were able to come together and meet a two-thirds majority approval, defeating the filibuster.

Not only do Democrats have a worse record on race than they are given credit for, but the Republican record has been underrepresented. David Duke, a Ku Klux Klan member, attempted to run for President as a Republican in 1968 but was run out by Republican Party leaders. Twenty years later, Duke was permitted to run in the Democratic Presidential primaries.[4] In the same way, Branch Rickey was a conservative Republican and owner of the Dodgers baseball team. Having moved from St. Louis, Rickey found himself with an opportunity to accomplish his “great experiment.” Later that year, he acquired Jackie Robinson as the first black professional baseball player, fueling the civil rights movement.[5]

Economically, blacks have prospered under Republican administrations. With the Reagan tax cuts in the 1980s, the number of black families making at least $50,000 a year doubled. Similarly, black-owned firms increased by over 35% from 1982-1987 and these businesses tripled their growth rate for that period.[6] The African-American electorate favors Republicans on many political issues as well. Because blacks are the most religious racial group, they tend to have conservative viewpoints on social issues such as abortion, gay marriage and stem cell research. Republicans have also consistently appointed African-Americans to historic roles. Under Reagan, Colin Powell became the first black national security advisor. Meanwhile, under George W Bush, Condoleeza Rice became the first black female National Security Advisor and Colin Powell became the first black Secretary of State.[7]

What is it then that compels African-Americans to identify with the Democratic party in such a significant way?

First, social welfare programs are one of the few political issues on which blacks overwhelmingly agree with the Democrats’ perspective. Compared to the White electorate, there is a greater percentage of low-income citizens in the black electorate. As a result, many African-Americans are supportive of social relief programs such as affirmative action, unemployment benefits and welfare that benefit low-income citizens. This is in essence politics in its most simple form. Voters will elect those representatives that will most help the voters themselves. In a 2005 Gallup poll, 72% of black citizens supported affirmative action programs.[8] Comparatively, only 44% of white citizens were supportive. Similarly, only 26% of African-Americans feel that efforts to promote equal rights have gone too far, while nearly half of the Caucasian population feels they have.[9]

Secondly, while we have seen that the Democrats were not the cause of success in the Civil Rights movement, history has written otherwise. President John F. Kennedy is remembered as the force behind the movement, even though Black Panther and other progressive group leaders at the time felt that JFK was ambivalent towards their cause.

Students grow up being taught that Democrats pushed through Civil Rights legislation and the fact that blacks vote consistently Democratic supports the notion. But the actual statistics show otherwise. Therefore I argue that history books and the media have aligned the black electorate on the Democratic side by implying Democrats as the progressive force. Polling data has shown that blacks are, in fact, supporting Democrats over Republicans more strongly now then they had shortly after the Civil Rights movement. This represents a timeline that shows blacks originally somewhat weary of the Democratic Party for hindering their equality, but as time wore on and history was re-written in the media, young blacks are now more likely to align themselves with Democrats, unaware of the party’s actual record.