African Americans and the Vote

The African American vote encapsulates the dynamism that is American politics. Blood was shed and lives were lost for African Americans to secure the right to vote. Even today, guaranteed access to the ballot is more a myth.

Prior to the Civil War a handful of free blacks in northern states exercised their right to vote but they were too few in number to make a difference in anything but the smallest of local elections. Then, in the immediate aftermath of the Civil War, southern states enacted a variety of Black Codes, precursors to post-Reconstruction Jim Crow. These effectively codified all manner of discrimination against newly freed slaves. In response to this, Republicans in Congress passed two of the three Civil War Amendments, the 14th amendment of 1868 and the 15th amendment of 1870. The 14th provided citizenship guarantees (thus overturning the notorious Dred Scott decision) and the 15th provided voting rights for black men.

For a time the 15th led to real change in Southern politics. By the dozens, black men won seats in state legislatures and even a few went to Congress. In fact, the first black elected to the U.S. Senate, Hiram K. Revels, came from the closed society of Mississippi. This political renaissance had an unfortunately short life. Northerners preferred national unity over the needed occupation required to guarantee the political rights of black citizens. So, once Union troops withdrew from the South, unreconstructed Southern Democrats resumed their racial tyranny.


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Unexpected Moments

From the comments:

Myth


I think the full impact and significance of Barack's ascension to power will hit African Americans at different points and at different times. It was early on for me when I could first realize the possiblity and all that our people have gone through. I think there will be other times though, maybe as Donna Brazile says when he walks down those steps to take the oath or maybe one day on a news clip when his standing in a tuxedo for a state dinner with dignitaries. There will be many times that chills will go through our bodies at the site of something we never thought we would see and for many the emotion will overcome us and for others it'll just be muming under our breaths the words "unbelievable'. But the next four years will be good for the souls of black folk. And for those of us truly committed to going the distance with Barack in the good and bad times, we'll make our way to the 'tv to support him as we will this afternoon for the press conference. Unless he really does something to disappoint, he will have the unfaltering loyalty of African Americans throughout this whole ride. This is a once in a lifetime chance for most of us to take this journey. Now it will be nice if others come after this trail he blazed, but I do believe we will follow him as though its our one and only shot. He will be appreciative.

I've been thinking about some of 'those moments'.

My list so far:
1.Michelle holding the Bible on January 20, 2009.
2. The first time Michelle enters the White House as First Lady (no, we won't be able to see that)
3. When they meet the fully assembled White House staff (no, we won't be able to see that)
4. The first time he boards AIR FORCE ONE
5. The first State Dinner (I'll be glued to C-Span. I hope Leticia Baldridge is still alive and is the usual C-Span guest)
6. State of the Union, 2009. I'm going to be chilled twice:

MADAM SPEAKER, THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES
(to be honest, I'm still not used to ' Madam Speaker'. So, the combo of that and 'The President of the United States' - damn)

7. Black History Month at The White House, February 2009
8. President Obama and Mrs. Obama at Buckingham Palace
9. President Obama and Mrs. Obama on an official overseas trip to Africa
10. President Obama's first G8 Summit
11. The HGTV Special, Christmas at the White House

Anyone want to share what they think will be their ' unexpected moments'?

James Clyburn -Trying to be the Canary in the Mine

Hat tip: Marc Ambinder

James Clyburn, speaking to National Journal:

Later, he explains why he's neutral, sounding very non-neutral and very much of a mind to believe that if the "graybeards" -- the superdelegates -- take the nomination away from Barack Obama, there'll be consequences.

. I'm very proud of what Barack Obama's done. When I sat in those jails back in the '60s in South Carolina -- dreaming about growing up, dreaming about becoming an adult, dreaming about having children and grandchildren -- I now have a 14-year-old grandson, and he is very proud of Barack Obama. I'm not going to sit down and watch anybody marginalize my grandson's dreams and aspirations. And I'm not going to see anybody go out and just absolutely nullify the energy and time that my daughter, youngest daughter, put into Barack Obama's race. This young lady started going to his office at 5 o'clock in the afternoon, every day after work, staying there to 11, 12 o'clock at night, and apologized to me for having to follow her heart for fear that it might disrupt my neutrality.

So when I look at this daughter of mine, I look at this grandson of mine, and see the pride in their faces -- I'm just not going to have anybody just tamping that down, and so that's why I spoke up. Because I'm going home on weekends, and I go to these college campuses, as I will be this weekend -- I'm going to Voorhees [College] and do the commencement there, I'm going to Tuskegee in Alabama and do commencement there on Sunday -- these young people are looking at me, saying, are you graybeards in this party getting ready to go into some room somewhere and nullify everything we did in this campaign?

Clyburn's trying to be the canary in the mine.

Black Voters Did It

From Andrew Sullivan tonight:

Black Voters Did It

Here's what now seems obvious: African-American voters killed the Clinton candidacy. It is a fitting end to the Clintons' campaign and an almost Shakespearean coda to their career. The Clintons were exposed in their long-running exploitation and reliance on minority votes. No group was more loyal to them than African-Americans; and in the end, like everyone else, African-Americans realized that the Clintons are frauds, disloyal to the core, cynical to their finger-tips, and finally, finally, returned the favor. A reader writes:

I found it striking that Clinton did not even pretend to be courting African Americans in North Carolina. Had the tables somehow been turned and had Obama's soul been implanted in her body, he would have made a show of at least organizing one major African American outreach event there or in Indiana. Obama went bowling in Altoona, after all. I kept expecting Hillary, ever since South Carolina, and certainly since Louisiana, to give her own major speech on race to a black audience in which she expressed sincere regret for Bill Clinton's Jesse Jackson and related comments by her surrogates. She could have done that while still stressing that her and Bill's mistakes were innocent in their intent, but that she is someone who looks not only at intentions but effects and regrets the rift.

Instead, she let Ferrarro rub salt in the wound. Don't get me wrong. Obama is such a talented candidate and such a symbol of hope to African Americans that he was going to get 80% of the black vote no matter what. But 92% and even higher than that in Gary! She got numbers in the past few states worse than Nixon and worse than Reagan.

After what the Clintons did in this campaign, and what they've revealed about themselves, and their alliance with Fox News and Bill Kristol and Pat Buchanan, this couldn't be more appropriate.

This will be history's verdict: in the end, the Clintons were defeated not by Republicans, but by African-American Democrats. How wonderful. How poignant. In the end, the karma gets you. Maybe it had to be this way. But this final coup de grace against these awful, hollow, cynical people is a beautiful, beautiful thing.

WORD.

D.C. Nonprofit With Clinton ties all over it behind deceptive North Carolina Robo-Calls

From Facing South:

FACING SOUTH EXCLUSIVE: D.C. nonprofit aimed at women voters behind deceptive N.C. robo-calls
By Chris Kromm

Who's behind the mysterious "robo-calls" that have spread misleading voter information and sown confusion and frustration among North Carolina residents over the last week?

Facing South has confirmed the source of the calls, and the mastermind is Women's Voices Women Vote, a D.C.-based nonprofit which aims to boost voting among "unmarried women voters."

What's more, Facing South has learned that the firestorm Women's Voices has ignited in North Carolina isn't the group's first brush with controversy. Women's Voices' questionable tactics have spawned thousands of voter complaints in at least 11 states and brought harsh condemnation from some election officials for their secrecy, misleading nature and likely violations of election law.

First, a quick recap: As we covered yesterday, N.C. residents have reported receiving peculiar automated calls from someone claiming to be "Lamont Williams." The caller says that a "voter registration packet" is coming in the mail, and the recipient can sign it and mail it back to be registered to vote. No other information is provided.

The call is deceptive because the deadline has already passed for mail-in registrations for North Carolina's May 6 primary. Also, many who have received the calls -- like Kevin Farmer in Durham, who made a tape of the call that is available here -- are already registered. The call's suggestion that they're not registered has caused widespread confusion and drawn hundreds of complaints, including many from African-American voters who received the calls.

In case you don't get it...Hillpatine can't win Black votes, so now she's trying to SUPPRESS THEM.


More from the story:

Now Women's Voices is plunging North Carolina into the same confusion. State officials tell Facing South they are still receiving calls from frustrated and confused voters, wondering why "Lamont Williams" is offering to send them a "voter registration packet" after the deadline for mail-in registration for the primaries has passed.

In correspondence with North Carolina election officials, Women's Voices founder and President Page Gardner merely said that the disruptive timing was an "unfortunate coincidence" -- a strange alibi for a group with their level of resources and sophistication.

There are other questions about Women's Voices' outreach efforts. Although the group purports to be targeting "unmarried women," their calls and mailings don't fit the profile. Kevin Farmer in Durham, who first recorded the call, is a white male. Many of the recipients are African-American; Rev. Nelson Johnson, who is a married, male and African-American, reported that his house was called four times by the mysterious "Lamont Williams."

And as Farmer asks, "Why are they using a guy for the calls if the target audience is single women?"

Some have also questioned the ties between Women's Voices operatives and Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Hillary Clinton. Gardner, for example, contributed $2,500 to Clinton's HILLPAC on May 4, 2006, and in March 2005 she donated a total of $4,200 to Clinton, according to The Center for Responsive Politics' OpenSecrets.org. She has not contributed to the Obama campaign, according to the database.

Women's Voices Executive Director Joe Goode worked for Bill Clinton's election campaign in 1992 as a pollster; the group's website says he was intimately involved in "development and implementation of all polling and focus groups done for the presidential primary and general election campaigns" for Clinton.

Women's Voices board member John Podesta, former Chief of Staff for President Bill Clinton, donated $2,300 to Hillary Clinton on April 19, 2007, according to OpenSecrets.org. Podesta also donated $1,000 to Barack Obama in July 2004, but that was well before Obama announced his candidacy for president.

"The reports from other states are very disturbing, especially the pattern of mass confusion among targeted voters on the eve of a state's primary," Democracy North Carolina's Bob Hall tells Facing South. "These are highly skilled political operatives -- something doesn't add up. Maybe it's all well-intended and explainable. At this moment, our first priority is to stop the robo-calls and prevent the chaos and potential disenfranchisement caused by this group sending 276,000 packets of registration forms into North Carolina a few days before a heated primary election. We need their immediate cooperation."

Before you say, you tinfoil hat wearer you, I got this information from Talking Points Memo/Cafe Talk:

Benefit of the doubt? Not this time. Please take a look at the group's (Women's Voices/Women Vote) Directors/Leadership Team.

1. John Podesta -- Chief of Staff to Bill Clinton 98-01.
2. Mimi Mager -- Member Clinton-Gore Transition team.
3. Michael Lux -- Clinton Gore Alumni Association (ClintonGoreAlumni.org (CGA) is member-driven organization that seeks to maintain an ongoing network among those former political appointees of the Clinton-Gore Administration, the national '92 and '96 campaigns and Democratic Party activists around the country.
4. Joe Goode -- the Senior Analyst on company CEO Stan Greenberg's work for the Clinton for President campaign in 1992.
(http://www.wvwv.org/about/board-and-bios)

Some more info found out at Facing South in the comments of this post:

And look who their legal counsel is.

"[t}here's more to [Holly] Schadler and her law firm than a list of corporate pigs and polluters. Schadler, a former Sierra Club official, is an operator for the Clinton White House. She, along with Robert Bauer and Judith Corley--two other partners at Perkins Coie--incorporated the Back to Business Committee, set up in 1994 by Lynn Cutler and Ann Lewis (Democratic Party operators) to defend Bill and Hillary.

http://eatthestate.org/03-38/NaturePolitics.htm

So gee, I wonder who is behind these calls. Nice legal advice, Holly Schadler.

And guess who was on the board at late as 2007?

Chief Handkerchief Head and Clinton Campaign ManagerMAGGIE WILLIAMS.

Yeah, and I'M the one wearing the tinfoil hat?

Ain't enough 'coincidences' in the Western World.

Extensive discussion about this over at DailyKos.