Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, June 29, 1995 TAG: 9506290127
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A-15 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: RAY L. GARLAND
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
On the morning after, the executive director of the state GOP said, "We want to find out what's the problem. We want to ask, `Why don't you like the Republican Party?' Is it a perception problem or an issues problem?" The answer is both: The GOP is seen as the party of whites who've made it and either because of bigotry or greed are hostile to the aspirations of blacks for a larger slice of the American pie.
When the black vote was small, it was largely a Republican vote. This was the product of the Civil War and the rise of an all-white, anti-Negro Democratic Party in the South that controlled virtually all power and patronage. Blacks honored Lincoln and voted Republican as an ineffectual protest against the policies of white supremacy.
It was Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal in 1933 that began the process of moving blacks into the Democratic Party. That was made even more manifest by President Truman's executive order desegregating the armed forces after World War II. In fact, Truman's brave call for civil rights broke the Democratic Solid South.
But it fell to Lyndon Johnson to seal the loyalty of blacks to the Democratic Party. He did it by staking his presidency on passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which many Republicans unwisely opposed, including the party's presidential nominee, Sen. Barry Goldwater.
Other Johnson initiatives, such as Medicare and Medicaid, could not fail to appeal to those mainly at the bottom of the economic ladder. Thus was born the conviction that Democrats would use the power of the federal government to help blacks with much more enthusiasm than would Republicans.
While Republican votes in the Senate broke the filibuster of Southern Democrats against the civil-rights bill, the party soon decided that practical politics dictated going after the votes of disaffected conservative whites.
These events conspired to cause most Republican candidates to all but write off the black vote. And many, now insulated in lily-white districts courtesy of litigation that caused numerous seats to be "reserved" for blacks, have been able to dismiss the subject from their minds. It wasn't always so.
In 1969, blacks helped elect the first Republican governor this century. But despite the tremendous effort Linwood Holton made to attract blacks to his call for "two-party democracy" in Virginia, he received less than a third of their vote. When the crisis of court-ordered busing to achieve desegregation in public schools burst upon Virginia in 1970, Holton made the single most heroic personal gesture of solidarity with blacks ever seen in this state.
But when the governor tried to beckon black votes for Republican candidates cast in his mold, there was little response. GOP conservatives soon ditched Holton's dream of a party with biracial appeal and formed an alliance with the remnants of the old Byrd organization that had lost control of the state Democratic Party.
The first black elected to the General Assembly in modern times was the distinguished physician William Ferguson Reid. He won as a Democrat in 1967 and 1969 to represent one of eight at-large seats in the city of Richmond and Henrico County that had a sizable white majority. He even survived for one term in a single-member district that combined Henrico, where he lived, and Richmond. But Reid was defeated in 1973 when hostility to forced busing was a burning issue.
Former Gov. Douglas Wilder first was elected in a white-majority senatorial district in 1969. But since those distant days, only one other black has represented a white-majority district in Virginia. In fairness, few have tried.
The 1991 reapportionment created 17 black-majority districts in the House of Delegates and state Senate. Assuming a win in November for Donald McEachin, who defeated House Appropriations Chairman Robert Ball in the recent Democratic primary, it likely will mean that 14 of these "reserved" seats will be held by blacks when the assembly convenes in January. Three white legislators representing black-majority districts, Dels. Franklin Hall, Jay DeBoer and Paul Councill Jr., had no primary opponents and are likely to be returned.
The GOP has nominated two blacks for House of Delegates: Anthony Moore in Richmond against Hall, and Jeff Artis in Roanoke against Del. Victor Thomas. In addition to the 14 "reserved" districts, Democrats have nominated blacks in three normally Republican districts. And one white independent, former Democratic Del. Frank Slayton of South Boston, is opposing state Sen. L. Louise Lucas in a district that starts in Portsmouth and meanders over much of Southside.
The continuing segregation of our politics defies the hope that Holton and many others entertained. Believing they are ignored by Republicans and taken for granted by Democrats, some blacks have talked seriously of forming a third party. But that hardly seems practical.
The obvious answers would seem to be black candidates who appeal across racial lines, and white Republicans who can express conservative ideas in terms appealing to the rising black middle class. In Congress, two black Republicans in white-majority districts, J.C. Watts in Oklahoma and Gary Franks in Connecticut, have shown it can be done.
Even if the GOP's recent rally was an embarrassing flop, the party still must search for the key to a respectable share of the black vote. Both parties and the country will benefit.
Ray L. Garland is a Roanoke Times & World-News columnist.
Keywords:
POLITICS
by CNB