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APRIL 24,1997 AUGUSTA FOCUS
National Commentary
ALONG THE COLOR LINE By Dr. Manning Marable
Black male voting increases,
butmanystilldisenfranchised
n the aftermath of the 1995 Million
Man March, many African Ameri
cans felt a renewed commitment to
become active in civic and political
affairs. There is striking evidence
from last November’s presidential elec
tion that this new attitude has directly
contributed to much higher voting rates.
InNovember 1996, the number of black
men who voted was about 4.8 million.
‘This was a 1.7 million increase over the
number who had voted in 1992, an in
crease of 55 percent in four years.
This massive increase of black male
voting power was even more remarkable
when considered against the voting pat
terns of everyone else. In 1996, less than
one-half of all registered Americans ac
tually voted, the lowest percentage of the
electorate since 1924. The percentage of
both African-American women and white
males who went to the polls respectively
déclined by eight percent. For white
women, the drop in voter participation
was 14 percent from 1992 figures, or
about seven million fewer voters.
President Clinton won 84 percent of
the African-American vote, a substantial
part of his margin of victory over Repub
lican challenger Robert Dole. Even more
influential was the impact of the black
male vote in key Congressional races. In
New Jersey, for example, Democrat Rob
ert Torricelli was locked in a bitter con
test with Republican Dick Zimmer for a
U.S.Senateseat. Intheelection, Zimmer
won 54 percent of New Jersey’s white
voters. But Torricelli won 85 percent of
the African-American vote, and won the
election by an overall margin of 53 per
cent t 047 percent. Observers noted with
amazement that New Jersey’s black turn
out of registered voters had almost
doubled compared to 1993 election fig
ures. Most of this growth in the black
electorate came from black men:, ~
The greatest factor undermining the
full power of the black male vo?é is the
criminal justice system. According to a
study released by the Sentencing Project,
anonprofit organization, of a total voting
age population of 10.4 million African-
American menin this country, nearly 1.5
million have had the right to vote taken
away from them due to a felony convic
tion. In short, about 14 percent of all
black men are unable to vote, either be
cause they are in prison or because they
have been convicted of a felony.
According to the study, felons are
barred from voting while in prison in 46
states. Thirty-one states also disenfran
chise convicted felons while they are on
Cong ratulations
Ta & pl’\ilip Waring
For 50 years active
service in journa“sm.
RuSust\F O CUS
Since 1981
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The greatest factor un
dermining the full power
of the black male vote is
the criminal justice sys
tem. About 14 percent of
all black men are unable
to vote, either because
they are in prison or
because they have been
convicted of a felony.
parole or probation. And there are thir
teen states, mostly in the South and the
West, that permanently prohibit former
felons from voting.
African Americans currently comprise
51 percent of the 1.1 million Americans
incarcerated in Federal and state pris
ons. About one-third of all young black
males in their twenties are, at any given
time, either in prison or jail, on proba
tion, parole, or awaiting trial. The crimi
nal justice system is the chief means of
warehousing unemployed,
undereducated and poor black men.
Denied economic opportunity, African-
American men are disproportionately
locked up by a penal system which is
designed to ensure that their full voting
power is reduced and for many, com
pletely eliminated.
As David Bositis, a researcher at the
Joint Center for Political and Economic
Studies, explained to theNew York Times:
“You have a prison system where black
men are back in servitude, along with an
economy where blacks are in the low
ing jobs, -So to,many black #Ameri
iminish their political power and fecre
ate the plantation system with prisons.”
Civil rights organizations like the
NAACP need to consider initiating cam
paigns to change election laws, permit
ting people who have served timein prison
for felonies to be restored their full vot
ing rights. To be denied the right to vote
is to become a non-citizen in one’s native
land. And for African-American men
who still enjoy the freedom to vote, we
must continue to do so in ever-increasing
numbers. Voting by itself won’t solve all
our problems, but it is an indispensable
tool in the struggle for black freedom.
Charles W. Walker
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Opinion
CHILDWATCH By Marian Wright Edelman
Black children still most at-risk group
Ithough the United States is
the richest, most technologi
cally advanced nation in the
world, far too many American
children — Black, white and
Hispanic — are struggling to live, learn,
thrive and contribute in America. But
Black children, despite significant
progress since legal segregation began to
crumble, still fare worse than other chil
dren in America.
For example:
B Seventy-eight percent of white chil
dren live with both parents, but only 39
percent of Black childrendo.
B Sixty-three percent of white chil
dren livein homes their parents own, but
only 28 percent of Black children do.
B Twenty-three percent of white chil
dren have both a father at work and a
mother at home, but only eight percent of
Black children do. Some 30 percent of
white children have a parent who com
pleted college, but only 13 percent of
Black children do.
B Seventy-one percent of white chil
dren are covered by private health insur
ance, but only 44 percent of Black chil
dren are.
B Sixteen percent of white children
are poor, but more than 41 percent of
Black children are.
B Nineteen percent of white children
live in central cities, but more than 48
percent of Black children do.
B Seven out of every 1,000 white in
fants diein the first year of life, but 16 out
of every 1,000 Black infants do.
B Six percent of white infants are born
at low birthweight, but 13 percent of
Black infants are.
THIS WAY FOR BLACK EMPOWERMENT By Dr. Lenora Fulani
King’s words still relevant in the *9os
recently read in the New York Times
of President Clinton’s plans to issue
an apology on behalf of the federal
government for the secret syphilis
experiment run on African Ameri
cans from 1932 to 1972. On the same
page of the newspaper was another ar
ticle headlined, “As his legacy, Clinton
seeks to improve race relations.”
The writer of the second article stated,
“Under fire for months over Democratic
campaign finance practices, the White
House has been searching for issues and
events that make Mr. Clinton appear
intent on the people’s work, rising above
what his aides hope will seem by contrast
to be inside-the-Beltway nattering. A
high-profile stance on race would seem to
fit snugly with that strategy.
The tortured and incomplete struggle
for civil rights and economic inclusion for
Black Americans is, in the eyes of our
President (and the political party to which
we have given our uninterrupted loyalty
for 60 years), an opportunity to score
political points, deflect public criticism
and create a “legacy” for himself.
Perhaps Mr. Clinton, ever on the look
out for chances touse his “triangulation”
formula — zigging and zagging from left
to right in the hopes of identifying a
center he can cling to— wants to counter
balance the “legacy” of his welfare bill
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; BY DANZIGER
Even when Black children play by the
rules, stay in school, and graduate, they
cannot earn on an equal par with whites.
A Black high school graduate is nearly
one and a half times more likely to be
unemployed than a white high school
dropout, and a Black college graduate is
more likely to be unemployed than a
white high school graduate with no col
lege. And if a Black adult does find work,
he or she brings home $l6B a week less.
The Black community cannot wait for
anyone to solve its problems. We must all
get involved to improve the life chances
"for Black' childrén. ’'For exattiple, preg
“hant Wommen can hélp reduée infant mor
tality and the number of Black low
birthweight babies by getting early pre
natal care and not smoking, drinking
alcohol or taking drugs during pregnancy.
Parents can get guns out of their homes,
orat least lock them up and unload them;
read to their children; worship with their
children and see that their children are
vaccinated against preventable childhood
diseases. Voting-age adults can urge
lawmakers to ensure health care cover
age for all children. I want every reader
to write their senator and representa
tives, and urge them to co-sponsor and
vote for the bipartisan child health cover
age bill introduced by Senators Ted
Kennedy and Orrin Hatch. And all of us
can lead by example, remembering that
our children are watching how we re
solve our conflicts, take care of our bodies
and our souls, and reach out to help
others.
Yes, the federal, state and local govern
ments do have a responsibility to protect
all of their citizens in a fair manner, and
and other assaults on the poor and people
of color.
This month marks 29 years since the
assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King
Jr. I recently read the text of Dr. King's
last Sunday morning sermon entitled
“Remaining Awake Through a Great
Revolution,” delivered just five days be
fore his death. It is a stirring response —
three decades early —to Mr. Clinton and
other advocates of this brand of welfare
reform.
Now there is another myth that still
gets around: it is a kind of overreliance
on the bootstrap philosophy. There are
those who still feel that if the Negro is to
rise out of poverty, if the Negro is to rise
out of slum conditions, if he is to rise out
of discrimination and segregation, he
must do it all by himself. And so they say
the Negro must lift himself by his own
bootstraps.
They never stop to realize that no other
ethnic group has been a slave on Ameri
can soil. The people who say this never
stop to realize that the nation made the
black man’s color a stigma; but beyond
this, they never stop to realize the debt
they owe apeople who were keptin slavery
244 years.
In 1863, the Negro was told that he was
free as a result of the Emancipation Proc
all children need protection today. Just
as the Black community cannot wait for
anyone else to solve its problems, neither
can states wait for federal government to
give long overdue and much-needed as
sistance to Black children and all chil
dren.
Although the new welfare repeal law
has placed even more Black families in
jeopardy, states must find ways to ad
minister the law in a way that helps all
parents find family-supporting work. For
example, states could build education
and training back into the work pro
‘gram; dltow partial assistance to families
with low earnings as long as their earn
ings are below poverty, using state dol
lars, if necessary, when the time limit has
been reached; provide child care for all
children under 11 when parents are re
quired to work or get training; help make
transportation to work affordable and
accessible and use partial, not total, cut
offs of aid to families for noncompliance
with the law’s work and child support
provisions, to minimize harm to chil
dren.
With so many challenges confronting
our children, no one can rightfully say, “I
can’t make a difference.” We can all
make adifference, and the time tostart is
now.
Marian Wright Edelman is president
of the Children’s Defense Fund, which
coordinates the Black Community Cru
sade for Children (BCCC), whose mis
sion is to leave no child behind and to
ensure every child a healthy, head, fair,
safe and moral start in life. For more
information about the BCCC, call (202)
628-8787.
lamation being signed by Abraham Lin
coln. But he was not given any land to
make that freedom meaningful. It was
something like keeping a person in prison
a number of years and suddenly discover
ing that the person is not guilty of the
crime for which he was convicted. And
you just go up to him and say, “Now you
are free,” but you don’t give him any bus
faretoget totown. You don’t give him any
money to get some clothes to put on his
back or get on his feet again in life.
... It’s all right to tell a man to lift
himself by his own bootstraps, but it is a
cruel jest to say to a bootless man that he
ought to life himself by his own boot
straps.
We must come to see that the roots of
racism are very deep in our country, and
there must be something positive and
massive in order to get rid of all the effects
of racism and the tragedies of racial
injustice.
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
Lenora B. Fulani twice ran for President of the
U.S. as an independent, making history in 1988
when she became the first woman and African
American to get on the ballot in all fifty states. Dr.
Fulani is currently a leading activist in the Reform
Party and chairs the Committee for a Unified Inde
pendent Party. She can be reached at 800-268-
3201 or at www.Fulani.org.