Black Vote
The Black Vote: African Americans as an Interest Group The African-American community is comprised of 34 million people, and makes up approximately 12.8 percent of the American population (Barker, Jones, Tate 1999: 3). As such, it is the largest minority group in the United States. Yet, politically, the black community has never been able to sufficiently capitalize on that status in order to receive the full benefits of life in America. Today, African-Americans, hold less than 2 percent of the total number of elected positions in this country (Tate, 1994: 3) and the number of members within the community that actually partake in voting continueto drop. In spite of these statistics, as of 1984, a telephone survey found that 70 percent of Black Americans polled “strongly felt that the Black vote could make a difference in who gets elected at both the local and national levels, including… president” (Tate, 1994: 6). The black population still believes that voter participation can effect change in the government, and 75 percent believe that whatever happens to the group affects them personally, and so it is necessary to have a government that is sympathetic to the state of African-Americans in the United States. In 1936, the black community began its defection to the Democratic Party en masse. Roosevelt’s New Deal had worked, and was working for them. Blacks were delegated to a part of the national population, because their problem was seen to be one primarily of economics, and their advancement was perceived to be closely linked to white America, so success was to be achieved through broad-based general economic and social reform (Weiss 1984: 37). Although it did not target them specifically because blacks were not powerful enough a constituency to warrant personal attention, blacks were benefiting from the New Deal, and they needed all the help they could get. Said one newspaper, “ifany group needs the New Deal… it is black Americans” (Weiss 1984: 45). And so, by...
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