Black Political Power

Report Outline
Renewed Electoral Thrust
Blacks' Democratic Ties
Access to the Ballot
The Challenge of 1984
Special Focus

Renewed Electoral Thrust

Reviving King's ‘Dream’; Recent Victories

Tens of thousands of black Americans are expected to gather in the nation's capital on Aug. 27 for “The Twentieth Anniversary Mobilization for Jobs, Peace and Freedom,” also known as “March on Washington II.” The event will mark the 20th anniversary of a historic moment in the black civil rights movement. On Aug. 28, 1963, the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., standing on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial before 250,000 blacks and white civil rights supporters, attacked longstanding practices of social, economic and political discrimination against blacks in his famous “I have a dream” speech. Part of King's dream was that blacks would achieve political equality throughout the nation.

Although the anniversary march had been discussed for several years, its timing coincides with a growing push for black political equality. Thanks to such actions as congressional passage of the Voting Rights Act in 1965, obstacles to black voter participation and candidacy have eased, and blacks have made steady gains. But just within the past year, blacks have made some of their most notable advances. They gained three seats in the U.S. House of Representatives in 1982, giving them 21 in all, a record number. They picked up seats in many state legislatures, cast decisive votes for several white governors, representatives and other elected officials, and stirred talk of fielding a black presidential candidate.

The most publicized political achievement by a black was Harold Washington's victory in the Chicago mayoral election. Washington, concentrating his campaign on the black community that makes up 40 percent of the city's population, won the Democratic primary Feb. 22 with a plurality (36 percent) as his opponents, incumbent Jane M. Byrne and challenger Richard M. Daley, split the white vote. Then, on April 12, after a bitter, racially divisive campaign, Washington held on to win election as the first black mayor of the nation's second largest city, despite the defections of thousands of white Democrats to a previously little-known white Republican nominee.