NYT: The Nation
In Dixie, Signs of a Rising Biracial Politics
By JACK BASS
Published: May 11, 2008
Across the South, Barack Obama’s smashing primary victory in North Carolina last week reflects a new reality — a half-century of rising Republican red tide has crested, with signs of receding....
***
Over the last two years, there have been little-noticed Democratic gains in Congressional and state legislative elections across the South, as the solid black Democratic base has been joined by whites disenchanted with the Bush administration....
***
The trends suggest a region in transformation, with dynamic economic growth, an expanded black middle class, the arrival of millions of white migrants, the return of scores of thousands of African-American expatriates, and an emerging native white generation with little or no memory of racial segregation. The result has been greater tolerance, an expanded pool of talent, and growing openness to new ideas.
In the South Carolina presidential primary in January, one factor in Mr. Obama’s decisive victory was his ability to draw 25 percent of the white vote against two strong white opponents, Hillary Clinton and John Edwards. But the turnout may have been the strongest sign of change. Almost 100,000 more South Carolinians voted in the Democratic primary than in the Republican contest. The surge smashed the previous Democratic presidential primary record by more than 80 percent — this in a state where Republicans hold both Senate seats, the offices of governor and attorney general, and both houses of the legislature. The more astute white Democrats saw an energized black electorate as a core element for a future biracial comeback....
***
After the 1990 census, the first Bush administration reached an agreement with civil rights groups under which the Justice Department required legislatures to increase the number of voting districts in which minority groups were concentrated. As a result, Southern blacks more than tripled their numbers in Congress; many now have seniority and status as committee chairmen or other posts. But with the removal of blacks from predominantly white districts that had tended to vote Democratic, Republicans too made huge gains, and the ranks of moderate white Democrats were decimated. Similar patterns emerged in state governments, like South Carolina’s.
Now, however, there are established and seasoned African-American Congressional Democrats like James Clyburn of South Carolina, the majority whip, and the civil rights hero John Lewis of Georgia, deputy whip. So the potential exists to launch a renewed equivalent of the Voter Education Project of the late 1960s. Such an effort would include energizing often-complacent black legislators and lesser officials elected in safe districts to mobilize their voter base for statewide and Congressional Democratic candidates. The demonstrated capacity of black elected officials to gain and hold white support could lead a future Department of Justice to decide that blacks need not be quite so concentrated in districts any more. And that would open expanded electoral opportunities for Democrats across the South.
Like Americans across the country, many Southerners, black and white, are troubled by the war in Iraq, rising deficits and a plummeting economy symbolized by the soaring price of gasoline. Race itself is receding as a divisive issue. Like the late afternoon sky across the region, there’s a purple hue across one horizon.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/11/weekinreview/11bass.html?_r=1&oref=login&pagewanted=all 
Printer-friendly format
Email this thread to a friend
Bookmark this thread
(1000+ posts)
Send PM |
Profile |
Ignore
