African Americans mistrusted FDR because of his party affiliation, his evasiveness about race in the campaign, and his choice of a running mate, House Speaker John Nance Garner of Texas. The party offered these migrants an outlet for political participation that was unimaginable in the Jim Crow South. African Americans voted in droves for machine politicians like William Hale Big Bill Thompson, who regularly corralled at least 60 percent of the vote in the majority-black Second and Third Wards.
Black voters remained exceedingly loyal to the Republican ticket. Indeed, the most common political experience African-American Members of this era shared was their involvement in politics at the ward and precinct levels.
Kelly and Richard J. Daley, sent nearly one-third of the black Members of this era to Capitol Hill. Local and regional political machines recognized the voting power of the growing African-American urban population long before the national parties realized its potential.
At the beginning of this era, the relationship between black politicians and party bosses was strong, and many black Members of Congress placed party loyalty above all else. But by the late s, as black politicians began to assemble their own power bases, carving out a measure of independence, they often challenged the machine when party interests conflicted with issues important to the black community.
Unlike earlier black Members who relied on the established political machines to launch their careers, these Members, most of whom had grown up in the cities they represented, managed to forge political bases separate from the dominant party structure. By linking familial and community connections with widespread civic engagement, they routinely clashed with the entrenched political powers. Nationally, the staggering financial collapse hit black Americans harder than most other groups.
Thousands had already lost agricultural jobs in the mids due to the declining cotton market. By the early s, 38 percent of African Americans were unemployed compared to 17 percent of whites. Some African-American politicians in the early s switched parties to advance their own careers while simultaneously helping their black communities. Two years later, he successfully unseated De Priest, even though the incumbent retained the majority of the black vote. Mitchell became the first African American elected to Congress as a Democrat—running largely on a platform that tapped into urban black support for the economic relief provided by New Deal programs.
Dawson then lost his seat on the city council when De Priest allies blocked his re-nomination. But Dawson soon seized an opportunity extended by his one-time opponents. Something had gone wrong, in our economy and in our democracy, that Obama was unable to fix—that he might have been too reasonable to fully understand.
Read: The Obama doctrine. In the past century there have been only two realignments—one in , the other in The first brought Franklin D.
The second brought Ronald Reagan and the Republicans to power, and conservatism retains its grip on our political institutions, if not on electoral majorities, to this day. By the early s, the New Deal coalition of urban machines and interest groups was becoming a racket, symbolized by piles of uncollected garbage in the streets of a nearly bankrupt New York City. The two realignments had several things in common. Long-term demographic change—immigration and urbanization in the first case, suburbanization and the end of the solid South in the second—reshaped the identity of American voting blocs.
John the Baptists, harbingers of the realignment to come, appeared in unlikely forms. When traditional politics failed to address chronic social ills, the rising activism of popular movements—industrial workers, evangelical Christians—pushed the parties toward new ideological commitments.
The midterm elections of and were like tremors before an earthquake. Then, in a decisive presidential election, a challenger came along to wipe out an incumbent, not just by winning more votes, but by bringing a new idea of government. Realignments happen when a long-term social transformation, a crisis, and the right leader converge to change the landscape. He represented the liberal wing of the Democratic Party—he was for public hydroelectric power, federal relief to the unemployed, low tariffs, and conservation—but in he campaigned on deficit reduction and a vague promise of experimentation to put the country back to work.
Kennedy wrote in Freedom From Fear. He remained inscrutable, his exact intentions a mystery. Read: The bitter origins of the fight over big government. Throughout the fall Reagan and Carter were nearly tied in the polls, until a week before the election, when they met for their only debate. Then, like Roosevelt, he went on to entrench the realignment by governing as an ideological president and winning reelection by a huge margin.
The new urban America offered a core constituency of the coalition that would propel Democrats into power in the s. Next Section. A significant break between the black elite and the Republican Party occurred in the aftermath of the August Brownsville affair. A garrison of African-American soldiers stationed near Brownsville, Texas, were accused on the basis of scant evidence of several shootings in the town. Three companies of black troops enlisted men were discharged without honor by recommendation of the U.
Army command. President Theodore Roosevelt swiftly approved the findings. When Republican Senator Joseph B. Aside from the injustice to the dishonorably discharged troops, the most lasting legacy was the alienation of a number of young black leaders, including Mary Church Terrell and Archibald Grimke.
Washington, D. Government Printing Office, Featured Search Historical Highlights of the House. Learn about Foreign Leader Addresses. Featured Search the People of the House.
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