Please paraphrase the attachment documents.

Answer the Questions for Midterm and Final Examination.

Howard University

Department of Sociology & Anthropology

Sociology of African American

Iabrahim Alobidan

Dr. Ralph C. Gomes

July 14, 2016

Midterm: Q 1, 2, 3

Final Exam: Q 3, 4, 5, 6, and 7

Q1. Critically discuss the various obstacles African Americans faced to gain meaningful access to the Ballot box. (See especially Chapter 1, Sonia Jarvis article)

Blacks (African-Americans, Afro-Caribbean... etc.) have been struggling for civil as well a human rights since they arrived in North America. African Americans have continually sought equal access to economic resources and equal justice, in a society that has deemed them the under-class Since Blacks did not have access to needed resources, they had no economic power and saw the need to improve their position in society. One of the main methods that minorities have chosen for achieving equality and power was gaining access to the political system. To increase political participation, Blacks had to first gain the ability to vote. However, there have been many impediments experienced by African Americans in their quest to gain access to the ballot box.

First and foremost, most African Americans came to ‘the New World' under siege and remained in bondage upon arrival. Once established on this continent many policies were established, both legal and illegal, to insure that as Blacks positions changed in society they remained subordinate to White Americans. Some of these policies included:

· Property ownership provision

· Gender specifications

· Age limits

· Length of residency requirements (by state)

· Slaves identified as property as opposed to humans.

· State statutes/rights

· Nationality (or lack thereof)

· Obstructive registration procedures

· Other discriminatory practices

Selected History

The history of African Americans reveals that every effort Blacks made to exercise their right to fully participate in the economic, social, and political processes in America was met with - great resistance. Black development, or more clearly underdevelopment, in America, reveals that it is this unrelenting resistance in the form of political oppression, economic exploitation, and social exclusion that has kept Blacks entrenched in poverty and isolation in America. Conditions of oppression, exploitation, and exclusion are evident in each developmental era of American History including slavery, reconstruction, and the post-World War II economy

Agricultural South/Manufacturing North

Slavery and Black Poverty

Slavery was the foundation of poverty for African rapidly expanding frontier, chronic white labor shortage, and lack of tools and technology, made indentured servitude and eventually slavery inevitable as a labor system.

As labor, demands increased and intensified, it became impossible to simply complement indentured servitude with slavery. The expanding frontier and the growing rebelliousness of the slaves and indentured servants began to threaten the productive relations of capitalism. As white indentured servitude phased out, African slavery became the basic plantation labor system. The consequent identification of slavery for life with race and of race with inferiority set the conditions for the slaves to begin their development as a class and finally as people. The economies of the New England states were not conducive to slavery. The abolition of slavery in these states created a community of free Blacks. This freedom was precarious and depended upon the abolition of slavery in the South.

However, the growth of chattel slavery as a cheap labor source for the Agrarian society of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries forced most Blacks into a role of perpetual servitude and deprived them of most human rights and all civil rights. During the early, colonial period, Africans were brought to America to provide the, cheap labor needed to insure the success of the agrarian economy. They replaced the labor of white indentured servants and Native Americans, because they were cheaper to obtain, and therefore, maximizing their profit. In addition, enslaved Africans were physically stronger than white indentured servants and Native Americans and more knowledgeable of agriculture.

The Constitution

African Americans in the beginning of their history in early America had the right to own property and exercise the franchise. This is because the first Africans brought to this country, specifically to Jamestown, Virginia in 1619, were not slaves but indentured servants. Initially, Blacks were able to work off their period of servitude like white indentured servants. As a result, free Blacks during this period had the right to own property and vote like other colonials. But as the number of Blacks increased as a result of demand for labor, especially in the South, the act of excluding Africans from their rights began. The framers of the Constitution seriously hindered African Americans progress by the issues of representation and direct taxes. They compromised on the issue of apportionment in Article 1, Section two by including all free people (including servants), excluding Indians not taxed, and including three-fifths of all people (those enslaved). This three-fifths compromise was reached when the delegates agreed that slaves should be treated both as property and as people. This twisted logic satisfied the issue of apportionment, but failed miserably in settling the rights of Blacks, particularly those who were not enslaved, to vote. The issue of Black suffrage was then left to the states to resolve. By allowing the states to determine voting qualifications, the architects of the Constitution set in motion a pattern of exclusion from political process for African Americans and other minority groups. This policy of exclusion did not undergo any severe test until the Civil War and its aftermath.

While Blacks and other minorities were still required to pay for taxes and other obligations of citizenship, they were being denied the right to political participation which rendered them powerless to change their situation of life. Most especially, the political powerlessness prevented them from challenging the system of white male supremacy that ruled the social economic aspects of their lives.

The Civil War

There was a growing debate between the southern and the New England colonies. In - the South, slavers were in high demand as a source of agriculture related labor, but in the northern colonies the interest was in slaves as a commodity of commerce rather than as laborers. Both regions of the New World' were dependent on slavery to maintain economic growth. Southern colonies had a direct need for slave labor to support their growing economic system while the needs of the northern colonies were more indirect. With the colonies' ' different level of dependence on slaves came a different set of master/slave relationships between the South and North. For example, while slaves living in northern colonies were taught to read, write and work with their owners, in the South it was against the law to teach a slave to read and/or write. Even though the northern slaves were treated less inhumanely than were those in the South, slavery was still not tolerable as a way of life. Thus, the northern slaves began to retaliate by plotting methods for abolishing slavery.

In the nineteenth century, the New England colonies began the long process of ending the institution of slavery and a significant riff was developed between the North and South. The northern colonies began to further develop their manufacturing capabilities with wage labor, but southern region continued to foster the agricultural economy with slave labor.

In essence, undergirding these two economic contradictions was the issue of slavery. The South endeavored to control the North and, thereby, the entire country on the basis of its slave economy, and the North sought to harness the Southern agricultural economy as a resource for northern industry. Recognizing tire South's reserve of slave manpower, the North realized that it could not defeat the South unless slavery was abolished.

Thus, slavery was the real element that precipitated America's Civil War and the ensuing Emancipation Proclamation. Hence, the real motive to end slavery was not based solely upon some moral decision, but rather to achieve a more cohesive and functional economic system. Thus, tensions between the North and South increased and resulted in the Civil War. However, after two years of a bloody Civil War, on January 1, 1863, President Abraham Lincoln signed and issued the Emancipation Proclamation that stated “all persons held as slaves are, and henceforward shall be free.”. Two years later, on December 18, 1865 the thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution formally abolished slavery. Even though the wording of these documents (Emancipation Proclamation and Thirteenth Amendment) suggested that slavery be abolished immediately, the ending of slavery was limited. First and foremost, the Proclamation was only applied to those states that”… seceded from the Union, leaving slavery untouched in the loyal Border States.”

Legal protectionists added amendments to the American Constitution that established citizenship for Blacks gave them the right to vote and equal protection of laws, protected them against slavery and provided due process and access to public offices. It was now time for the Nation to establish its method for dealing with freedom. One method of dealing with freedom was the development of the Freedman' bureau that assisted blacks in obtaining capital, establishing schools and getting land.

Reconstruction

The Role of Government

During Reconstruction, the federal government played a prominent role in passing legislation designed to assure racial equality. The thirteenth Amendment abolished slavery, the Fourteenth Amendment granted citizenship to Blacks, and the Fifteenth Amendment guaranteed the right to vote for Black males. These government acts did little to bring economic prosperity to former slaves.

Blacks throughout the South- armed with the Reconstruction Act of 1867, the Fifteenth Amendment, and new state constitutions- make discernible gains in the political arena. Elections under the watchful eye of federal troops bring to office a significant number of Blacks-ex-slaves and antebellum free Blacks- in local, state, and federal positions. Among their ranks are two U.S. senators (both from Mississippi), twenty U.S. Congressmen, five lieutenant governors- including P.B.S Pinchback who served as Louisiana’s acting governor for more than a month, as well as several secretaries of state, state treasurers, and superintendents of education.

Systems of free, integrated public education were instituted in several southern states under the terms of the Reconstruction state governments. In addition, the Freedmen's Bureau and the churches establish a network of schools for all levels and types of education – from primary to professional. Under Reconstruction governments, the Black and white masses also gain some measure of tax, relief, credit, freedom of movement, and employment in a variety of trades.

After the Civil War, Reconstruction acts were made to disenfranchise former Confederate leaders and soldiers and by that it allowed Blacks to participate in state conventions. Reconstruction enabled the military authorities to register over 800,000 blacks to vote, which exceeded the number of southern whites then registered. Thus, a situation came, for a brief time that blacks could be politically dominant over their former masters. Southern whites resorted to violence and intimidation against blacks through such formations of secret societies as the Ku Klux Klan. Congress responded with the 15" Amendment, which explicitly provided that the right to vote to not be denied on account of race, color, or previous conditions of servitude.

Blacks first gained access to the ballot after the Civil War when ratification of the 15 Amendment forbade states from denying the right to vote on the basis of race. For about two decades during Reconstruction in the late 1800s, blacks actively participated in state and local politics, voting regularly and electing some African Americans to public office. Although blacks gained the right to vote, they were treated as pawns in the aftermath of the Civil War. The Black vote was exploited by Republicans who wanted to radicalize and punish the South, as well as take advantage of the South's cheap labor.

Southern white leaders again sought to reestablish dominance over their former slaves through disenfranchisement and they imposed “Jim Crow” segregation laws. Whites used segregation to maintain a system of control over blacks, thus preventing any significant social, economic, or political-development. In-the-mid 1880s through the T1890s, they also used voting regulations such as the “grandfather clause”, poll taxes, literacy tests, through electoral procedures (such as white primary), and all too often through acts of white terrorism acted against African American voters to systematically remove them from electoral politics. These southern white leaders (segrationists and southern white Democrats) were assisted in their control over blacks by the indifference of the North to the plight of blacks and the neglect to enforce the postwar Civil Rights acts of the US Supreme court. Even with all the legal barriers placed on the Black vote, some blacks did vote after the Reconstruction period, but only when the white dominant faction needed them in order to win.

The Aftermath of the Civil War -

Post-Civil War freedom for the former slave was illusive for several reasons: (a) the increasing demand from ex-slaves and, poor whites for land redistribution was ignored, (b) the joining forces of the Southern and Northern elites that resulted in enslaving Blacks into the harsh and unrewarding system of sharecropping and (c) the low level of technology existing in agricultural production which necessitated the use of Black labor for the plantation economy. All of these factors were responsible for enslaving Black freedmen into a system of sharecropping.

At the heart of America's economy is the question of who owns land, labor, and the tools of industry. It was abundantly clear, that freed Blacks owned none of these resources before or after the Civil War. Blacks, freed by the emancipation, found themselves landless and desperate for work. In the capitalistic system, individuals must have something to offer in order to receive anything in return. Without land, employment, and access to the ballot box, the freedmen became more deeply entrenched into economic wage slavery and political slavery.

When Blacks were emancipated, there was no scarcity of land. Plenty of abandoned and vacant land was available, but the Northern and Southern elites joined forces to keep the freedmen and poor whites landless. America essentially reneged on its promise for 40 acres and a mule. Although the Freedmen's Bureau and the Southern Homestead Act of 1866 were established to facilitate the transition of land to poor whites and Blacks, these two entities were actually created to divert the freedmen from forcibly taking land from the politically defeated Southern planters. The result of these actions contributed to Blacks’ landlessness even until today. Unlike whites, Blacks had no land to pass on to their offspring, which contributed to a perpetual Black landless class whose only hopes were in one day owning the land that consumed their toil of sharecropping.

It was not in the interest of the North to aid freed Blacks in acquiring land. Northerners needed the freedmen to help them keep the South in its place. Thus, the Northern elite joined forces with the Southern aristocracy in returning Blacks to a new form of slavery-sharecropping. Forming an alliance with the South was in the best interest of the North. Many Northern investors put a lot of money into Southern agriculture and were not willing to relinquish this capital over to emancipation. Providing land to Black farmers would upset the slave-like system and bring an end to planters as a class. Additionally, widespread ownership of goods-producing would have democratized the South, posing additional threat to the industrial oligarchy in the North

Importantly, America lacked the tools to replace Black labor. The demand for tobacco and cotton at home and abroad required a continuing supply of cheap agricultural labor therefore, became more firmly entrenched in the economic imperatives of the plantation system as sharecroppers. Through this system, Blacks sank deeper into poverty. They were forced to buy on credit during the months before harvest and suffered from the landowners' manipulation of credit records, marked up prices and exorbitant interest rates. They ended up owing the landowner more than their share of what the crop was worth. Thus, sharecropping perpetuated the landowners' stranglehold on Blacks, placing blacks in greater poverty.

The Civil Rights Act

Securing the Black voting rights in the South was one of the principal goals of the Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s and 1960s. Through mass protests, voter registration drives, congressional lobbying, and suits in federal courts, civil rights activists fought to eliminate electoral practices that were discriminatory to Black political participation and to secure federal protection of Black political rights.

The Civil Rights Acts of 1957, 1960, and 1964 began the long overdue process of providing direct federal intervention in state registration practices. And of course, the crowning achievement was the Voting Rights Act of 1965, which outlawed unfair electoral procedures and required the Justice Department to supervise southern elections.

Unlike the Reconstruction period, these Civil Rights Acts were supported by Supreme Court decisions. The Civil Rights Movement resulted in the enfranchisement of millions of blacks, particularly in the South. The Acts were extended in 1970, suspending the use of literacy tests nationwide. Registration of Southern blacks alone increased by two million during the decade of the passage of the Civil Rights Acts.

African American's struggles for the right to vote positively benefited all Americans. So many of the rights now taken for granted – the right to vote, the right to privacy, the prohibition against discrimination-would have had no foundation without the 13", 14", and 15* amendments to the Constitution. The Voting Rights Act has gone a long way toward reducing the gap between Black and white electoral participation and it has improved Black representation in the political arena.

This history shows that at every turn that blacks did gain some type of assistance. in their fight for inclusion to the political process that then another type of resistance was placed in their path. When the Constitution was finally amended to enfranchise blacks following the Civil War, they were then prevented from exercising the franchise through violence, intimidation, and discriminatory registration practices. Blacks demanded the right to vote one hundred years later and received the Voting Right Act. Unfortunately, resistance is still being enacted by the use of gerrymandering and vote-dilution tactics. .

Q2. What was and is the role of African American organizations in - mobilizing African American voters? (See especially Chapter 2, Dianne Pinderh ughes’ article)

When Blacks were disenfranchised there were many organizations that began to actively demonstrate for Black to utilize the ballot box. Black organizations, especially the church, were instrumental in encouraging African-Americans to exercise their right to vote. During the three years before the civil war, the church became one of the strongest proponents of the Abolitionist Movement. In addition to the church, there were many other organizations that helped to mobilize the Black vote such as: the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), the Leadership Council on Civil Rights (LCCR), the National Urban League (NUL), Women's Movement, student organizations, Congress of Racial Equality (CORE), Voter Education Project (VEP), and Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC). In this essay, an explanation of the involvement of the aforementioned and other related organizations and individuals in the mobilization of the Black vote is provided.

The Black Church

. The Black church, from the beginning, took from Christianity a dual and contradictory, message: submission to slavery and the equality before God of the human soul. The whites, in offering blacks their faith, emphasized the virtues of the former. The blacks, in accepting it, dwelled upon the implications of the latter.

During the decades of slavery the Black church, shunned by whites, acquired increasing autonomy, and drew further from the influence of the masters. The Negro church in American history served as the incubator and transmitter of and indigenous Black culture, and the mainstay of the concept of Black dignity. By the nineteenth century, Black Christianity possessed a clear political character, which whites hardly noticed.

But whatever its role, the church created leaders. “The preacher,” wrote W.E.B. DuBois in the Souls of Black Folk “is the most unique personality developed by the Negro on the American soil. A leader, a politician, an orator, a ‘boss,’ an intriguer, an idealist—all these he is, and ever, too, the center of a group of men, now twenty, now a thousand in number.” The church was the only training ground that blacks had. Of the salve revolts in American history, most were led by preachers, but more often preachers kept the flame of freedom alive more discreetly, within the church's walls. After the Civil War, preachers became the political chiefs of the emancipated slaves but, like Black political power generally, they went into eclipse near the end of the century. Martin Luther King, Jr., and the many Black preachers who followed along with him, represented not a new phenomenon in leading Black resistance to white oppression, but the reemergence of an old one.

The Black Church served as an organization of organizations. The Black Church served as a community center, an educational center, and as an assembly-hall for protest meetings. The Church became the center of a network of organizations for Black communities. The churches were involved in issues such as the rights of their members to own themselves, the right to defend themselves against unfair charges OT violations of - the law, the right to seek employment and to practice a trade, and the right to worship in the manner of their own choosing.

The Black Church and the Abolitionist Movement

Those supporting the abolition of slavery realized that prejudices related to slavery were a problem of national proportion. Since religious activities were accepted by the majority of Blacks and were acceptable for enslaved people, all churches were potential allies of the Abolitionist Movement. Prior to the passing of the Emancipation Proclamation and with the enactment of the Abolitionist Movement, slave owners became wary of religious activities. To reduce the probability of the abolitionists reaching the slave population via church, plantation owners attempted to outlaw Black preachers in most states. Despite the efforts of the plantation owners to minimize or eliminate the churches involvement in the abolition of slavery, the church became the core of the network of organizations developed for and in the Black community. Many groups created relationships with church organizations, because they needed meeting spaces. In addition to a meeting place, Black churches acted as centers of education, community service and assembly halls for various types of meetings including protests. The church also produced much of the leadership in the Black community that fought for equality for blacks. Since laws forbidding Black associations were developed after the slave rebellions of the 19" century, legislation was used to control religious and secular activity. So, preachers were not allowed to preach and could not hold meetings for slaves. Nonetheless, Blacks continued to Yokoi and organize their struggle for equality in secret. Ultimately, the church was the institutional center of the Civil Rights Movement. Gomes and Williams state that the church provided the organized base of the movement. This base consisted of clergymen who were skilled at managing people and resources and were economically independent. In addition to the movement’s human resource base, the church helped to develop the financial base needed for the movement to be successful

The Black church in contemporary American society is more directed toward immediate social changes and alterations in relations between blacks and whites in ways, which, in the view of ministers and parishioners alike, reflect the broad view of the community. In this sense, functions performed by the Black church of the 21" century are consistent with the kinds of community functions attributed to Warren and outlined earlier in Chapter 1

At least seven functions of the contemporary Black church may be identified at this point:

1. It provides a cohesive institutional structure within the Black community.

2. It is an instrument for the development of Black leadership.

3. It is a base for citizenship training and community social action.

4. It performs major educative and social roles.

5. It acts as a charitable institution

6. It is an agency for the development of Black business structures or Ventures.

7. It serves as an index of social class.

In addition to the church, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), the Leadership Council of Civil Rights (LCCR), and the National Urban League (NUL) had the goal of obtaining justice through litigation, eliminating discrimination and segregation, and socializing blacks respectively. The NAAP focused on litigations that were not inherently discriminatory. A major accomplishment of the NAACP was the elimination of a grandfather clause established in 1910 in Oklahoma. The clause excluded individuals and their descendants who were entitled to vote in 1866 from all literacy tests. This clause did not identify blacks as the subject, but it definitely blocked them from registering. On the other hand, the LCCR emerged out of the civil rights mobilizations that were unsuccessful. Their focus was on literacy tests and intimidation tactics that were barriers to voting. They found these issues to be far more damaging than poll taxes. The NAACP and LCCR focused on voting barriers that were external to Blacks while the NUL took a slightly different approach. They focused on the socialization of blacks in big cities because blacks had to make significant social adjustments to survive in a city. In addition to providing social Support to blacks in urban settings, the NUL encouraged blacks to vote and assisted them in the registration process.

Women's participation in the mobilization of Black votes was crucial from - many perspectives. Women were involved in most of the organizations developed in the community and they also developed women’s organizations that spent great amounts of energy mobilizing voters. In the movement with its male-oriented perspective, women provided a solid and reliable foundation. Their numbers dominated mass demonstrations, sit-ins, and voter registration drives. Furthermore, sororities and other women’s clubs were key in developing the foundation of mobilization efforts. Educated women involved in such organizations as Delta Sigma Theta, the National Council of Negro Women, and the National Association of Colored Women, to name a few, attempted to bring order to the racist American society. These women's organizations developed programs that addressed political interests, health, economics, literacy, and education. . After the Voting Rights Act of 1965 was passed, the League of Women Voters was established to help to register women to vote. There were many well-known women who focused their energies on improving the Black community's knowledge of voting and their rights. For instance, Joan Gibson Robinson and Ida Barnett-Wells spent much energy in mobilizing the African American vote. Ella Baker was involved in a significant literacy campaign. These and many other women were very instrumental in the women's movement and ultimately in mobilizing the Black vote.

In addition to women's college-based sororities, other student organizations were formed to increase the number of blacks that were registered to vote and attend the polls. The Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) was formed by four Black students who were denied service in 1960 at a Woolworth's lunch counter in Greensboro, North Carolina. The students attended North Carolina Agricultural and Technical College. After gaining notoriety for their student-organized sit-ins, SNCC specialized in providing assistance to people in areas that were deemed dangerous. Since it was founded in a Judaic-Christian tradition of non-violence, often times its members suffered abuse while providing no retaliation of any kind:-The Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) field workers trained the SNCC students in non-violent techniques.

CORE was responsible for organizing “freedom rides" along southern roads. These rides were attempts to desegregate travel facilities found along interstates. Rides began to take place in early 1960 and focused on hostile environments such as rural South Carolina and northern Louisiana. Another organization that was developed to motivate blacks to register to vote was the Voter Education Project (VEP). Its aim was to investigate the reasons for disenfranchisement as well as to increase voter registration.

The Southern Christian Leadership conference (SCLC) under the guise of Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr., was instrumental in encouraging and managing the campaign of non-violent action directed at ending segregation and increasing the number of registered voters. Reverend King believed that with the south's voting victory, blacks would obtain the tools necessary to reverse the injustices being experienced. One of the major cities that King focused on was Birmingham, Alabama. In 1965, one hundred years after the passing of the Emancipation Proclamation, the SCLC and King initiated a desegregation demonstration. Birmingham was stated to be one of the most segregated cities in the United States. It was determined by King that a successful demonstration in Birmingham might positively impact the southern United States. In addition to Birmingham, King organized marches, sit-ins, and other forms of protest in many southern cities, including the Selma, Alabama March of 1965 that stimulated the passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

Question (3) what barriers and or electoral structures still hamper African American political progress? (See especially Chapter 4, Frank Parker’s article)

The 15th Amendment to the Constitution, approved in 1870, assured to protect the rights of the blacks. It forbid the renunciation or abridgement of the voting right of American citizen based on color, race, or earlier condition of slavery," and permitted Congress to impose that proscription by statute. When the Voting Rights Act was passed in 1965, Southern state political leaders knew that they could no longer deny Blacks the right to register and vote. They switched strategies from vote denial to vote dilution and introduced a second generation of disenfranchising devices to negate the newly gained Black vote. Southern legislators enacted a series of resistance that became models for post-1965 Black disenfranchisement throughout the South.

Even though Black political and community organizations have been successful in. mobilizing African Americans to register to vote, many barriers still exist that impede the progress that African-Americans have made in the political arena. Many of these barriers are covert attempts to weaken the impact of the Black vote. Some of these barriers include redistricting and gerrymandering. Racial gerrymandering consists of diluting the Black vote by manipulating the district to divide the Black vote across multiple districts. In so doing, the minority vote is decreased in individual districts. Gerrymandering is utilized at that city and state levels. There are two main gerrymandering techniques employed in the United States: cracking and stacking. Due to the heavy concentration of African Americans, the focus of these forms of vote dilution was the southern part of the country.

Cracking is when minority votes are cancelled out by breaking up a minority - population large enough for separate representation by district lines. Blacks then are dispersed throughout multiple districts with white majorities. Furthermore, cracking also occurs when a majority Black county that was previously joined in a legislative district, is divided among two or more majority-white districts. On the other hand, stacking occurs when two counties with large population concentrations, one white and the other Black, are joined. In this case, the majority-white district will be larger than the majority-Black district. Thus, the minority district is deprived of a voting majority. The object of gerrymandering is to reduce the number of Black elected state legislatures and to reduce and/or eliminate the number of majority Black counties. Ultimately, the goal of gerrymandering is to weaken the political power that arises from a large concentration of minorities in one region.

Changing from district to at-large voting is another form of redistricting that can be deemed racially discriminatory. Minority voting is engulfed in a district that has a large concentration of majority-white votes. With at-large voting, the majority population wins all of the electoral positions, and the minority portion of the population cannot obtain representation of their own choice. This was the primary method of blocking the Black community/voters from obtaining representation of their choice in Southern legislatures.

Another barrier is the change in political structure that makes an elected office one of appointment only. When a district region “gives up” its ability to elect a public official, they are giving up political power. The people represented in the district no longer have a choice of who represents them in a specific appointment. Control and political power is passed to the appointed person(s).

Run-offs are also techniques developed to dilute and manipulate the vote of minority communities. In a run-off situation, it is required that the winner of the election receives an absolute majority of the vote in order to win. If one candidate does not receive 50% or more of the vote, the candidates who have received the top two votes must have a run-off. Therefore, if a majority candidate wins an office in a plurality and the white vote is split among several candidates, there must be a run-off between the minority candidate who won and the majority candidate with the most votes. Ultimately, the white vote will no longer be spread across multiple candidates and the minority candidate will probably lose the run-off. Some other barriers that exist are: -

· Abolishing elections for county school superintendent and making the office appointive.

· Increasing the qualifying requirements for independent candidates to prevent Black independents from getting elected

· Making it easier to abolish majority-Black counties and combine them with majority white counties

African Americans have realized that mere access to the ballot box does not insure that blacks are awarded equal opportunity to participate in the political arena. The aforementioned election strategies seek to minimize the voting strength of African.

The significant barrier to African Americans making political progress is no longer access to the ballot box but also economic deprivation. The number of Black elected officials has increased from 500 before 1965 to over 8000 in 2002. However, more-blacks have-fallen-into poverty. During the stated period, median households’ income for African Americans fell 3.4% in 2001. One would expect that the increase in the number of Black elected officials and the overall improvement of African American political participation would result in decreased poverty. However, increases among the African American community, voting because individuals with lower incomes are less likely to vote.

Further deterrents to accessing the ballot box exist. The latest Presidential election is a good example of these difficulties. In many districts across the country, people were told that they were not registered to vote and many suggest that their votes were not counted. It’s clear that the cause of incorporating American politics has succeeded in the years. In respect to voter involvement and election at all levels of the government, African Americans have made advancement that the act's supporters and champions could hardly have imagined. However, furthermore, difficulties still exist with the registration process. It can be concluded that structural barriers still exist that prohibit continued progress in Black political and economic development and power.

In as much as it is crucial for the African Americans to be made part of the political system, there is still a great need to find out how these barriers can be eliminated. It happens that no matter how hard people try to be treated equally especially in politics, there will still be this resistance which will always build a barrier to them. In the mind of any loyal citizen, it pains when you are denied access to some social aspects such as politics due to the racial orientation. Strategies should thus be refined and reframed so as to ensure exclusiveness when it comes to handling barriers such as the raising of qualifications for independent candidates and others too.

FINAL EXAMINATION

Question (4) .What was the economic basis for exclusion and inclusion of African Americans in the political process? (See especially chapter 5)

The history of the African American exclusion to inclusion of the political process by American society will show how economics is always the basis for action. In the beginning of African American history in early America, they were excluded from the political process because white Americans exploited slave labor for profit and capital and they based their economy on the gains made by Slavocracy. This exploitation and exclusion continued until the Civil War and until the destruction of Slavocracy.

Inclusion came about for African Americans during Reconstruction. The northern industrialists, represented by the Republican Party, supported the enfranchisement of the ex-slaves as part of their strategy to control the national economy and break the stranglehold of the Slavocracy, represented by the Democratic Party. By this enfranchisement, voter turnout by ex-slaves and southern white farmers and workers boosted, and a significant number of African Americans won political office during this period. Once the power of the former Slavocracy was broken and the industrialists gained the upper hand in the nation’s economy, the votes of the newly freed African Americans and the poor white farmers and workers were no longer needed. Therefore, blacks then had to struggle to keep the political gains that they had made because of the “support” they received from the Republican Party.

New political inclusion for Blacks did not really come about until the post-WWII period. This was the era of the greatest economic expansion of the world capitalist system and then became the era of “politics of inclusion” and “politics of reform.” Capitalists began to bribe sections of the labor force (mainly white men in northern unioned industry) with good-paying jobs and benefits. With these incentives, labor forces were thus loyal to the interests of the capitalist class. Their loyalty was the key to capitalist control over the lower, unbribed sections of labor—predominantly Black and southern white laborers. But with the industry expanding in the South in the 1950s and 1960s, Capitalists soon realized that new arrangements with Southern workers, including Black workers, had to be reestablished. To fully exploit African American labor, as well as southern white labor, Black workers had to be integrated into the workplace and into the larger society. African American, thus women, at long last, had their “civil rights.” They won the legal rights to equal and integrated education, the vote, and the freedom from discrimination on the basis of race and color. These civil reforms were the last major reform of labor capital relations in the United States. African Americans Were integrated into the existing class structure of American society, but they were always infused at the bottom of their respective classes.

As the Civil Rights Movement and the election of African Americans was made possible by the stage of expansion to the United States and the world capitalist economy in the post-WWII period, similarly, the recent roll-back of civil and constitutional rights and the genocidal attack on the entire U.S. working class. The current economic contraction is expressed in the politics of reaction, the politics of exclusion, and the politics of demobilization. In this period of economic contraction, African American elected officials and African American corporate and professional elite are especially constrained and limited in their abilities and “right.”

Thus, the politics of contraction is the politics of exclusion. The ruling class, including those who are Republicans, is unable to grant any economic and social reforms. Consequently, they seek to narrow the base of those participating in the political and electoral process. They do not wish to mobilize a large section of the people whom they can offer nothing. They do not want to be answerable and accountable to those in the working class, to those most oppressed in the African American community, and to those among other nationalities.

Today, the revolution in the forces of production—that is, electronically based production replacing machine-based production—is really causing a commotion in the social, economic, and political society of the United States. The capitalist organizations set up around machine production, the private ownership of the productive forces, the distribution of the necessities of life based on wages and the market system, are no longer workable or practical. The workers have lower and lower wages, and the capitalists can circulate fewer and sewer of their goods and services. And today the evidence of the capitalists are trying to exclude African Americans again is seen by the degeneration of the political process and the low participation in the electoral process.

Because of capitalists running the politics of the United States, the electoral process is deteriorating. Politicians representing the capitalist class run “issueless” campaigns. They seek only to be accountable to the interest of those who finance their campaigns and whose interest they served. Negative campaigns, mudslinging, and personal scandals have replaced the issues, which are about the real economic and social problems facing the working class, and the real solutions to these problems. “Sleaze, lies, deception, and confusion are the order of the day.”

Participation by the masses in the electoral process is at a historic low. By the late 1980's, voter turnout rates plummeted to a dangerously low level and as the decade of the 1990's began, voter turnout was only 36.4 per cent of the voting age population. “What we witnessing is the decay of the impulse to civic duty on the part of the American citizen, not because of their dereliction, but because of the conduct of their political and institutional leaders.”

The inclusion of the African Americans into the mainstream society with regards to the political arena was primarily hindered by various forces in the economy. These forces included the use of exclusionary policies both in social and economic constructs that saw these minorities excluded from the access to education, security systems and important elements in the labor markets which essentially is necessary for political empowerment and radicalization of the African Americans.

Policy frameworks developed on the other hand played a key role in ensuring that the political class was not just dominated by the Republicans, but also had the African Americans involved in every aspect of societal undertakings. These policies prescribed and outlined the courses of action that would see the achievement of inclusion in the social, economic and political framework in the society. Inclusion therefore came about as the legal ad security forces created and upheld impartial basic human rights in the society. The policies were tailored and rewritten to echo the needs, cultures and the languages of the diverse groups.

Question 5- what were the results of African American political participation? (See Chapter 3, Theresa Chamblis' article)

There is perhaps no better indicator of the importance of voter participation than the lengths to which whites throughout the nation went to keep African Americans from voting. The advantages of fill participation of African Americans in the political process are obvious. Being a part of the governmental process increases the likelihood of Blacks securing their fair share of public goods and services. Already, attacks on affirmative action and other race-specific politics policies in the last decade have presented threats to the hard-earned socioeconomic and political gains Blacks have made since the 1960s.

Access to the ballot box made possible by the Voting Rights Act of 1965, which outlawed unfair electoral procedures and required the Justice Department to supervise southern elections brought about the registration of many Blacks and the increase of the Black vote. Between 1968 and 1988, almost 5.5 million additional African Americans registered to vote.

As more Blacks voted, more Blacks were elected to public office. The number of Black elected officials grew from fewer than 500 in 1965 to 7,370 in January 1970. The South, where most Blacks remained disenfranchised until 1965, has been the region of greatest progress. In January 1990, there were 64 times more Black elected officials in the South than there were in 1965 (4,955 compared to 78). The increase in the number of Black elected officials is an important measure of Black voting strength. This voting strength has enabled Blacks to prosper in holding various offices; African American owned businesses expanded; the rate of small business failures declined, and both the numbers and proportions of African American employed in city government significantly increased. With more black officials elected, the following advantages should have been experienced: -

· More influence on policy making

· Further increase the number of black workers in city offices.

· Continue to increase the number and quality of black elected officials

· Narrow voter participation gap between blacks and whites

· Increase the economic and political well-being of Blacks (Class Lecture, 2002)

African American elected officials, though small in numbers, have made significant policy impacts. To increase their strengths they have come together as coalitions and addressed many policy issues. For example, the Congressional Black Caucus consists of African American members of Congress who have significantly impacted and initiated social policies that focus on minorities and other disadvantaged groups. Their political power has allowed them to impact legislation on Apartheid in South Africa, collaborate with other minority based caucuses, and insure the maintenance of civil rights for women and minorities and moderate budget proposals.

The black vote is increasing; more and more black elected officials are being elected and in the last 20 years, there has been a considerable narrower gap between white and black voter participation. By 1990, blacks have held elective office in almost every category except president and vice president. In 1988, the proportion of African Americans registered to vote was only 3.4 percentage points lower than the white Proportion. Similarly, the gap between black and white voter turnouts closed from 11.5 Percentage points in 1968 to 7.6 percentage points in 1988. These statistics may seem encouraging, but in reality, despite 25 years of progress, black elected officials still constitute only 1.4 percent of the total number of elected officials in the nation. While there are far more African American elected officials than at any time in the history of the United States, African American workers found themselves disproportionately disenfranchised, unemployed, poor, and in still great need of reform.

The African American participation in politics has been comprehensively by scientists due to the reasons of increased levels of involvement in the 1960s. Their participation in the political process has however yielded several positive results which in turn has made the black peoples’ voice be heard and given equal treatment as the other races. In the political grid for instance, the African Americans have had their struggle to vote and see their votes counted with fairness, they also elect candidates of their choice and can develop efficient coalitions with other factions of their choice and therefore achieve equal opportunities with the whites.

Political participation saw the African Americans empowerment and created a cohesive environment for the blacks where they organized themselves into collective bargaining and unity.

This is seen in the Republican Convention meeting held in Houston in 1867 where 27 whites turned up against the 150 African Americans who also turned up. In this convention, free schools and homesteads were endorsed where both the blacks and white would live together in harmony. It is also in this participation where after long decades the black Republicanism came into life in the States. They rose to significance and they were among the persons who gave important resolutions in gapping the violence against the minorities in the society.

Significant results have been achieved since the African Americans started participating in the political systems in the United States. Across the state, the election of the blacks to official positions significantly increased from less than 7 in 1964 to more than 470 in the early 90s. This saw an increase in the black office holding and hence the representation of minorities in the political arena especially those with the African origin. However much the great odds the African Americans have fought, their achievements have seen their wariness fruitful and created a foundation for their political future that came with the new century.

In general, it is important to recognize that participation of the Africans into the American Politics has been for a good reason. Many of them indeed were before this not able to participate in decision making. It is until this change that people have been able to realize the importance of this involvement. It has not only brought about favorable political changes, but also the efforts towards ensuring equal treatment are now realizing their success. The African Americans now feel part of the whole system which motivates them to take part in building the society just as other races in America do.

It is also true that politics shape the society. what happens in any social set up is that people will always want to be made part of the decision making processes. Politics is thus indispensably that big system that influences decision in a country. The African Americans besides being of a different race also need t be made part of the political systems of their country. The only way this can be achieved is by them being actively involved in the politics. Their participation is important in ensuring all of them participate in the running of the country. However, the question is what percentage are they in the political systems?

Perhaps, it is also worth it questioning the stretch of these changes into the future, whether their participation will continuously increase or will steadily decrease due to the rising margins of resistance from other races in America. Therefore, it is not just about them participating in politics but it is about whether they are going to sustain the trend or not.

Question 6 - Is such participation enough to improve the life chances of Americans in general and the social underclass in particular (See especially Chapter 6, Robert Smith's article).

Effective minority incorporation requires three elements: (1) the mobilization of the majority electorate, (2) the development and maintenance of multiethnic coalitions of other minorities and progressive whites, and (3) the use of these unions to win elections and become the dominant governing coalition. When applied to the national level, however, evidence suggests that politics is not enough because of the following reasons: (1) the black electorate nationally is generally much smaller than at the local level in many areas, (2) it is more difficult to develop and maintain dominant multiethnic coalitions at the national level, and (3) when such coalitions come to power, they tend to be less responsive to the black agenda than similar governing coalitions at the local level.

Incorporation of blacks into electoral offices throughout the nation remains partial and incipient, and given the slow rate of growth black elected officials also demonstrated in before, it is unlikely that full incorporation (blacks holding about 12 percent of all elective offices given their proportion of the population) will occur in the foreseeable future. Statistical equality in elective office does not necessarily result in equality in substantive outcomes.

Even for the blacks that have been elected, because of their fewness in number, blacks in Congress tend to act cohesively on most issues. Thus, if they had higher numbers, they could act as a balance of power in the party caucuses, in committees, and on the floor on many issues. Yet, under present electoral conditions, this level of representation is not likely ever to be achieved.

As for the appointment of blacks to federal executive positions, prior to the john F. Kennedy administration, blacks were not appointed to high-level positions in the executive branch of government. Actually, before 1960, only ten blacks held subcabinet posts in the federal government. President Kennedy appointed several blacks to high-level posts in the executive and judiciary branches.

President Johnson, as well, made a number of historic “first Negro who" appointments to the cabinet, subcabinet, independent regulatory commissions, the judiciary, and the diplomatic service. These appointments mainly only reflected that the black power rebellion as coming near its peak. But even with all of these appointments, at the end of the Johnson administration, blacks constituted less than 2 percent of executive branch appointees and only about 4 percent of the judicial ones.

In all administrations examined during this 25-year period, black appointees tended to be concentrated in the civil rights and social welfare bureaucracies—Housing and Urban Development (HUD), Health, Education, and Welfare (HEW), the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), Health and Human Services (HHS), and the Civil Rights Commission—rather than in the “inner” or “core” bureaucracies dealing with economic, internal, and national security affairs (State, Treasury, Defense, and Justice).

The difference these appointments make (or do not make) in executive branch policy-making is the critical issue to be assessed. Is politics of this sort enough to move the black agenda, or is it simply the matter of black faces in high places with policy consequence for the black agenda. Many blacks in executive branch policy-making positions are frequent supporters of black interests, but just as frequently, they were ignored, invisible to the president and his senior advisors. For example, Fredric Morrow, the first black White House staff aide, tells in his memoirs the sad story of his tenure in the Eisenhower administration, where he could hardly get an office and secretary, let alone advise the president on civil rights policy or other race concerns; he was the classic invisible man. Similarly, in the administration of Nixon, the top black officials were granted the opportunity to communicate with the president only after the press leaked about their displeasure and gave the bitt of mass resignation.

Overall, then, those who place hope in black appointees effectively pursuing black interests in bureaucratic decision-making are likely to be disappointed, because the results thus far show that this kind of politics is not enough. Even the blacks in House of Representatives have felt the sense of isolation, frustration, anger, and bitterness, because they are routinely ignored. Because of the inherent racism in the bloodstream of America, it becomes increasingly difficult to get beyond the color of one’s skin.

One of the fundamental social and economic priorities of blacks is to seek the support of Congress, since only about one in seven members is black. Many times the things that blacks bring up in Congress are not defeated, but ignored. Black substantive power is hardly greater now than it was 25 years ago when blacks were just beginning in their executive powers. On the fundamental needs of the black community, politics is not enough.

After two decades of the new black politics of institutionalized participation, the weight of evidence is quite persuasive that politics as routinely practiced in the United States by Black Americans is not enough to alter the terrible conditions of the American underclass. In actuality during this 25-year period of the new black politics, the conditions of the bottom third of black Americans grew worse by almost any measure of well-being.

Many of the problems of the black situation is that black leaders and would-be leaders become so thoroughly integrated into institutional structures and processes that are physically and psychological from the mass base of the black community. Rather than being leaders for the black poor, so many pursue a top-down-hierarchical model for T. "T social change. Most black leaders know that the condition of the black poor cannot be effectively addressed without changes in the structure of the national economy. But in order to maintain their status among white leadership, they act as if fundamental changes can come about as a result of playing routine power games in Washington or in city politics. It’s ng that routine institutional politics is not necessary, but simply not enough. What is needed is a balanced strategy of politics and protest.

This is not to say that the black gains aren't effective or incremental issues of importance to blacks; rather, it is to incremental changes are not enough. Nor is this to say that routine institutional politics is not necessary; rather, it is to say, once again, that it is not enough. It is thus relevant to understand early that the participation of the African Americans in politics does not guarantee their exclusive freedom and betterment of social ambience. In fact it seems that this has subjected them to even harsher conditions which are attributed to the immense resistance from other races towards the participation.

Continued efforts are necessary especially for such a sensitive social issue in America. However, it will be completely irrational to jump into conclusion that involvement in politics has lessened their wellbeing. It will not be so unless the trend of participation increases positively over the coming years.

Question 7: What other kinds of actions might be necessary to improve the social, economic, political needs of African Americans? (See Chapters 7, 8, 9 and 10)

Black Americans have clearly made political progress in the United States, especially since 1965. This much the preceding necessarily makes clear. It has pointed out the difficult two-century-long struggle for equal voting rights and the importance of its victory in security the Voting Rights Act of 1965. It has explained the influence of black political organizations in mobilizing black voters. It was discussed the successful strategy that lies behind many of the electoral victories. But, just as it has pointed to growing black political success, much has been focused on the limits of such progress.

So many questions are left to be answered. What can be done to increase the level of black voter participation or to build more successful black political organizations or to remove barriers to black representation and rapidly increase the election of black candidates of blacks’ choice to public office? What can improve the outcomes for the black poor? These questions are combined into three greatest areas of need of reform for African Americans: (1) political education, (2) voting rights, and (3) redistricting. Recommendations for actions to take to improve the social, economic, and political needs for African Americans will be discussed.

POLITICAL EDUCATION

There is a definite need for political education about the nature of the American political economy. For the masses of black America, the following activities are recommended. Black organizations, such as the NAACP, should develop educational and training programs generated toward high school students, community, universities, women's organizations, etc., in order to promote awareness of a full range of participatory organizing, letter writing campaigns, lobbying, and so forth. Political education should be provided by these organizations on a steady basis, not just around election time. Political education should include a focus not only on narrowly defined political issues but also about how the political economy is actually structured and how it works. The provision of information about issues, policies, and political candidates should be developed.

Black institutions of higher education should create programs for the study of politics including foreign affairs. These programs, centers, or institutions should provide multidisciplinary education in foreign policy and internal affairs in particular with emphasis in the social sciences, humanities, foreign languages, and with options for studying the natural sciences and mastering technical skills. It should also provide interdisciplinary seminars.

VOTING RIGHTS

Despite limited gains in voting rights, as already indicated, much remains to be done. Recommendations for reform include:

· State registration procedures should be reformed to promote the remedying of continuing barriers.

· At-large election systems should be continuously opposed, as well as run- off requirements. -

· There should be a focus on providing blacks a few single-member electoral districts in which they are a majority, with the greater goal being to challenge majority rule where it does not protect minorities.

· Focus should be on reforming both the way representatives are elected and the rules under which legislative decisions are made. There must be a greater emphasis on accountable representation.

REDISTRICTING

The most immediate areas of political action are likely to be the battle over redistricting. How the nation is redistricted will play an important role in political configurations for at least a decade.

· Supporting efforts, including lawsuits, to reduce the size of the census undercount.

· Building a national coordinated effort to protect the existing majority black congressional and state and local legislative districts. - -

· Increasing the number of majority black districts where possible and where this action will not weaken minority influence in electing those (regardless of race) sympathetic to the interests of the black poor.

· Being prepared to use the Voting Rights Act to overturn reapportionment and redistricting plans designed to dilute the impact of the minority vote

An additional aim must be to approach the redistricting process with the goal of making viable coalitions with other minority groups and progressive whites. Blacks, as a group, have made tremendous progress during the twentieth century, but then progress has been uneven. Middle-class blacks have benefited, working-class blacks have practically stayed the same, and poor blacks have consistently worsened. Whether Black Americans in general can make progress in the American system is the question of the next century. African Americans must not lose sight of the goals that they --fought so hard to gain in the African American struggle. They have made many gains and received many reforms, but they must continue to strive for the ability to participate in all aspects of American society as equal partners.

Inclusive policy framework

this approach makes the basic foundation of the above approaches in the sense that it lays down the policies and course of action purposely mean to grow them and regularly monitor the actions taken to make it happen. Once these have been determined, the institutional mechanisms at the national level take up the duty of discharge. These institutions include schools, universities and governments which assure access to services by all persons of all races with no favor. Together with educating the people, policy framework makes the people more secure and encouraged to voice themselves in every concern. It offers them with the chance to have a voice and be engaged members of the society.

Policy making process and governance should be made transparent and inclusive in their functioning at every level of political, social and economic undertaking. It should also uphold the inclusion principles where none is given less treatment. These policies must be tailored and rewritten to echo the wishes, distress, languages and ethnicity of different persons in the States. The policies developed in this approach of inclusion must be an overarching concept aiming to transform the perspectives, processes, strategies and programmes of all people.