Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, April 14, 1991 TAG: 9104140145
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: D6 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: RICHMOND LENGTH: Medium
Increasing blacks' political power has been a major issue in redistricting efforts that are taking place at the local and state level this year.
Legislators have wrangled over how many new black-majority seats to add in the 140-member General Assembly, which now has 10 black members, or 7 percent of the total. Virginia's population is 19 percent black.
The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People and other civil rights groups have objected to the Senate redistricting plan that adds one new black-majority seat for a total of three in the 40-member chamber.
Gov. Douglas Wilder says he will seek five black-majority districts. The NAACP would like to see as many as six.
"You're dealing with a commonwealth that believes in nostalgia," said Linda Byrd-Harden, executive secretary of the state NAACP. Some legislators "have behaved like they have no consciousness of the Voting Rights Act whatsoever."
The act requires Virginia and six other Southern states to have their voting laws cleared by the Justice Department because they have histories of racial discrimination. Of those states, only Texas has a lower percentage of black elected officials than Virginia, said Duane Hudson, a field coordinator with the state NAACP.
In Virginia, blacks hold 4.6 percent of the elected offices, Hudson said. In Texas, blacks hold 1.2 percent of the elected posts, he said. Blacks are 12 percent of the population in Texas.
Other Southern states under the Voting Rights Act have far more black legislators than Virginia but also have larger black populations, figures from the U.S. Census Bureau and the National Conference of State Legislatures show.
Georgia has 35 black legislators, about 15 percent of the legislature. The state's population is 27 percent black.
Alabama, which is 25 percent black, has 24 black legislators, or 17 percent. Mississippi, which is 35.6 percent black, has 20 black legislators for 11.5 percent. South Carolina has a 30 percent black population and 21, or 12 percent, of its legislators are black.
In Virginia, much of the battle over black legislative districts is centered in areas of the state that once fought desegregation under the movement known as massive resistance.
Byrd-Harden said blacks who live in those rural Southside areas remain reluctant to get involved in an electoral process that once barred them. In the first half of the 20th century, Virginia blacks were kept from voting by literacy tests and poll taxes.
Blacks "are still afraid in the state of Virginia when it comes to voting issues," she said.
One difficulty in drawing black-majority districts, she said, has been the low black voter turnout in some rural areas.
For example, a black district in the Danville area would have to have a black voting-age population of at least 55 percent to be effective, she said.
"There is some difficulty to getting the people to come out and vote," she said.
Keywords:
POLITICS
by CNB