In Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor’s book,
From #BlackLivesMatter to Black Liberation, she dives deeper into the economic conditions, population shifts, and legislative proposals that helped to shape this new Black electoral landscape. In the years during and after the Civil Rights Movement, electoral politics became an appealing pathway for Black Americans to organize themselves, demonstrate their political agency, and assert their hard-won right to vote as U.S. citizens. In turn, the drive to fill elected positions with Black faces helped cultivate a class of Black political elite that, in some ways, ultimately prioritized their allegiance to the Democratic Party over securing meaningful protections for struggling Black communities.
“Promoting more Black political participation on a local level was a project of the Black movement, but the broader political establishment approved,” Taylor writes. “The government and politicians widely promoted greater Black control of urban space as a preventative measure against urban uprisings.” The hope was that Black politicians might be better at convincing Black communities to forgo protests and riots in moments of tension.
By 1974, the country had 108 Black mayors in office,
according to
The New York Times. Overall, Taylor explains, the number of Black elected officials had grown from 1,400 in 1970 to nearly 5,000 by 1980. But the ‘80s brought high unemployment levels in majority Black communities along with an influx of addictive drugs, and new laws that criminalized them harshly. Poverty rates remained high; prison populations started ballooning. As economic instability grew and the social safety net diminished, crime rates rose. And with that, Black mayors were under increased pressure from their white political colleagues to prove their merit.
“The utility of Black elected officials lies in their ability, as members of the community, to scold ordinary Black people in ways that white politicians could never get away with,” argues Taylor. “Black elected officials’ role as interlocutors between the broader Black population and the general American public makes them indispensable in American politics.”
There’s plenty of evidence of this. Melvin Randolph “Randy” Primas Jr., the first Black mayor of Camden, New Jersey, was elected in 1981. He supported a proposal to build a $55 million new prison, saying, “I view the prison as an economic development project. ... I need revenue to run a city. I don’t think a prison is as negative as people make it out to be.” In the early 1990s, the first Black woman mayor of D.C., Sharon Pratt, used her position to try to
move the National Guard in to occupy the city’s Black neighborhoods in an attempt to fight the city’s label as the
“murder capital” of the country. President Bill Clinton denied her request the first time, but she tried a similar tactic
in 1994 and was ultimately successful in deploying agents from the F.B.I., U.S. Capitol Police, and the Drug Enforcement Agency to D.C.’s Black neighborhoods. New York City’s first Black mayor, David N. Dinkins, who passed away earlier this month, dealt with the city’s high crime rates in the early 1990s by “expanding the police to record levels,”
according to the
Times. And of course, Philadelphia’s first Black mayor, Goode, presided over the bombing of a Black residential neighborhood.
Back then, Black elected officials couldn’t afford to
not be seen as “tough on crime” if they wanted a career in politics, and the same holds true now. When politicians are seen as too lenient on issues of criminal justice, they risk losing votes. It’s far easier — especially during a campaign year — for politicians to address the reality of the high crime rates by pushing for more police officers on the street, bloated police department budgets, and enforcing tougher punishments. Studies have shown that hallmark “tough on crime” policies, like “broken windows” policing, the 1994 crime bill, and New York City’s plainly racist “stop and frisk” policy don’t reduce crime rates, but the logic has remained an effective way for politicians to maintain support from constituents.
So, as Black elected officials were getting elected in the ‘80s and ‘90s
, they stuck with this idea of law and order — which essentially meant criminalizing economic instability first, and then hopefully figuring out how to address the unemployment rate later. It meant backing harsher sentencing laws and expanding the surveillance and reach of law enforcement in Black communities to prove that Black populations were indeed governable and able to be managed. It meant sticking with status quo social policy in order to prove their understanding of the political game, even if it came at the expense of their constituents.
Fast forward a few decades, and Black mayors and elected officials still have every reason to acquiesce to the Democratic Party on one hand and function as feel-good identity representation on the other. The pendulum for any tokenized individual attempting to function in a space that historically excluded them constantly swings between choosing to condone the status quo in order to maintain power and influence, and choosing to disrupt existing conditions by advocating for something new, something more radical, something else. The majority of established Black lawmakers and Black career politicians — though they might genuinely have the best intentions — have largely opted to advocate for the needs of their Black constituents only so far as precedent allows.
And because of their identity, they can underperform or simply do the bare minimum in political advocacy, and still be considered progressive. We’re still at a stage in this country where the first Black person to fill a certain position in government is news enough to make headlines, so just existing as Black elected official is still indicative of a certain level of achievement.
But in recent years, the demand from constituents has changed. The scale of grassroots organizing has increased dramatically and Black lawmakers are finding that for modern Black voters, true racial representation requires substantive policy work and advocacy rather than just a shared skin color. Today’s voters are publicly and vocally demanding more of their elected officials; even leaders who took office in recent years, like Bottoms, Lightfoot, and Bowser, have found themselves at odds with some of their Black constituents as the political landscape has rapidly shifted underfoot.
As a result, we’ve seen another new wave of Black candidates — this time, individuals whose roots are
in the community rather than the statehouse. Some of them are even unseating Black legacy politicians, as we saw with Congresswoman-elect Cori Bush’s
incredible campaign win in St. Louis, Missouri. The insurgence of first-time Black candidates echoes the turn towards electoral politics in the mid-20th century. Then, as now, candidates were cutting their pre-lawmaker teeth during a period of intense movement work, expansive social justice campaigns, and heightened activism and community organizing.
But this time around, the goal isn’t just to place a Black lawmaker in elected office. It’s about deliberately and proactively connecting campaigns to specific progressive political issues. It’s about linking arms with constituents and marching for a $15 minimum wage, about demanding sentencing reform, and about finding
new,
innovative ways to address the housing crisis. It’s about being proud Black lawmakers, proud members of their Black communities, and proudly saying upfront that they are accountable to those constituents and their needs.
This new framing might put these new lawmakers at odds with the Democratic Party establishment. But it’s important to remember that elected officials answer to their constituents, not their colleagues. And if this progressive trend holds steady, Black lawmakers might actually be able to rebuild and reinforce a level of genuine trust and connection with their base in a way that changes the electoral landscape of this country permanently, ensuring that Black political power actually results in more empowered Black communities.
Well does he and other centrist demarcates like him
support seriously punishing the police who commit police brutality with real jail time and other punishments that fit the crime they commit none of that slap on the wrist stuff like sensitive training because any thing that even look like it would punish the cops for the harm they do will trigger right wing police brutality loving a$$holes
that the centrist demarcates are trying to get votes from
.
Your statement is a baseless claim with no evidence to support it. You didn't even read excerpt. Obama didn't say anything that endorse or aide white supremacy.
that remind of me a saying a black face in a high place does not equal justice be will done for black people.
@ anyone caping for Obama.