NEGROES PLAY NEW ROLE IN AMERICAN BLECTORAL PROCESS
By Evelyn Sell
The 1964 election campaign focused attention on the Negro as. a voter, as a candidate for public office, as one of the major issues of the campaign, and as the initiator of a new independent force in American politics. OO
Pre-election polls indicated that President Johnson would receive about 96% of the Negro vote, He got that -- and better in many areas, In-Connecticut, for example, Johnson. received 98% of | . the Negro vote. Some heavily Negro precincts both in the north and south cast 99% of their votes for Johnson.
Intensive voter registration drives conducted by the National --Association for the Advancement of Colored People [NAACP], National Urban League, Congress of Racial Equality [CORE], Southern Christian Leadership Conference, Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee [sncc] and the Council of Federated Organizations [COFO] enrolled 700,000 new Negro voters since the beginning of the year. There. were around six million Negroes who voted in the November 3 election Ninety-five per cent and more of six million is a lot of votes, |. -
Surveys show that the Negro vote emerged as a potent force in a number of Southern and border states even. though Senator Barry Goldwater succeeded in capturing five deep south states: Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, South Carolina. In Georgia, Tennessee, Kentucky and Texas the Negro vote was decisive or very important in winning Democratic victories in congressional contests, The same was true in some Northern races, In Cincinnati, Ohio, the heavy Negro vote for John Gilligan helped unseat the incumbent Republican congressman, Carl Rich, who had never been defeated in his entire political career and was considered to be unbeatable.
A. number of new Negro office holders were elected by the November 3 vote. Negroes won seats in four state legislatures which had been lily-white; an additional Negro was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives bringing the number there up to six; Georgia, Indiana, California, Massachusetts, Michigan, New:York and New Jersey increased: the number of ‘Negroes in their state legislatures; Savannah, Georgia, gained its first Negro city councilman in recent history; for the first time Negroes gained office as judges in Colorado and New York; four Negroes scored a dramatic breakthrough in Alabama politics when they won county offices there,
The anticipated "white backlash" -failed to materialize except in the rural areas of the five deep south states carried by Goldwater. Urban centers like Birmingham, Alabama, where there are large concentrations of Negro voters, voted Democratic. It was expected that Polish and Italian voters in northern cities would support Goldwater in protest over Johnson's identification with the civil-rights-.bill.
These groups, however, voted solidly Democratic except for scattered districts in Baltimore, Maryland; the Indiana steel area; Ohio, Pennsylvania and. Illinois. In New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, Michigan and Wisconsin the trend was just the opposite -- the Democrats gained votes from Polish and East European ethnic groups.
Americans overwhelmingly showed that their concern over the issues of.war, economic security and social welfare was more decisive than their -anti-Negro prejudices =- which are still widely spread throyghout American society.
Many Negro leaders called for a moratorium on all civil-rights demonstrations during the period of the election campaign because they feared the “white backlash" would sweep Johnson and the Democrats out of office and install the right-wing elements led by Goldwater. Their fears (and Goldwater's hopes) were not borne out by the actual voting pattern on November 3, The most obvious fact to be noted is that Goldwater lost -- by the most decisive margin ever recorded in an American election. An analysis of election returns made by the NAACP showed that a sizeable number of congressmen who voted against the 1964 civil-rights bill were. defeated in this election. Many of the Republicans who survived the Democratic landslide were those whe voted for the civil-rights bill. In Texas and Tennessee, Democrats who had voted for the bill retained their posts or went on to -win higher offices. One of the few Republicans in Massachusetts to weather the anti-Goldwater storm was a Negro, Edward Brooke, who was re-elected attorney general...
Now that the excuse of a "white backlash" is no longer available, further moratoriums on civil-rights demonstrations are being called for in order to give President Johnson a chance to build his "Great Society." Such a moratorium can only serve to strengthen ‘racist opposition to the Freedom Now aspirations of the Negro people. Renewed and intensified struggles are needed to strengthen opposition to reactionary forces and to gain new and greater victories.
Nationally known civil-rights leaders like Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., Whitney Young of the National Urban League and Roy Wilkins of the NAACP are hailing Johnson's victory as a triumph for the American people. These respectable leaders have been trying to curb the growing momentum of the Freedom Now struggle. They worked hard and long to register Negroes so they could vote for Johnson, They are.now trying to convince Negroes that the Democrats have. become dominant in the national: legislature. and in most states and will deliver on their campaign promises.
Their propaganda machines are effective. Most Negroes still hoid illusions about the Democrats and about Johnson. Tests of these illusions will come often during the next four years, The overwhelming victory.of the Democrats nationally may well be their greatest disaster. The fact is: there is nothing to stop the Democratic majority from passing and enforcing meaningful civil-rights legisla-~
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tion. The sham excuses that. the Republicans and Dixiecrats: prevent. ‘all progress, that public opinion cannot be bruised, that everything would be fine if only more Democnats could gain office --:al1l these excuses have vanished with the: Democratic electoral. triumph.
The coming four years will See many illusions broken, - many hopes unfilfilled, many changes within ‘the traditional structure of Negro leadership. Waiting in the wings will be the newly created: ' Freedom Now party, the first all-Negro political grouping, which has come through this election campaign with its banner flying high, ‘
~The Freedom Now party [FNP] was able to get on only one state ballot this year and it did not win any offices but it did accomplish a number of important things. It brought together a group of dedica-~ ted, sericus Negroes who understood the need to break with the traditional parties of racism, the Democrats and Republicans, and build an independent: party fully responsive tothe needs of the Negro community. It participated in the election -andi thus helped train its members in the arts and skills of effective ‘campaign organization, There are still many weaknesses within the FNP (lack of programmatic clarity, mistraining in the ethics: and techniques -of capitalist politics, vagueness in organizational structure) and these weaknesses account in some part for the small vote recorded for the party. The major. difficulties encountered by the FNP came from the external situation, however -- the tremendous drive to defeat Goldwater at ell costs, the lies and harrassment tactics of the Democrats, the traditional Negro habit of voting Democratic, the opposition of the respected Negro leaders and last, but certainly not least, the fact that the FNP was presenting something so different from the usual pattern that Negroes needed time to digest this daring idea.
There Ls still some confusion about the actual rote received: by the FNP. On election night the radio broadcasts repeatedly stated that the party had received from 19,000 votes when only about threefourths of the returns were in, Now the United Press International claims that its unofficial count gives the FNP only 4,620 votes, Even if one accepts the lowest.figure, -the party's candidate for governor, Rev. Albert. Cleage, ‘received about 2% of the Negro vote in Michigan. Even if one accepts:the highest figure cited, the party fell far short of the 100, 000. votes they set as their goal,
The members of the FNP -are. not discouraged by the election results, however. They have the satisfaction of knowing that they . stood against the tide that swept the hypocritical Democrats into office, They are enthusiastic abaut building and strengthening © their organization and are already making plans to participate in the Detroit city elections of 1965, By that time the Negroes who voted Democratic will have already learned some bitter lessons about the candidates they helped put into office. If the Freedom Now party ‘can solve some of its internal problems:, it can prove to be a potent force during — the next election campaign’ at undertakes,
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