A Quiet Change

Alabama's May 3 primaries proved that reasonably qualified white candidates can be elected in predominantly Negro counties. In Texas, where race is not an all-consuming political issue, the election results showed, in turn, that capable Negro office seekers can win the white support necessary for victory. In Houston the voters sent to the Texas legislature its first two Negro members in 71 years: Attorney Barbara Jordan, 30, and Bank Executive Curtis M. Graves, 27.

The Negro victories were facilitated by court-ordered reapportionment, under which the city was awarded ten additional legislative seats--several of them representing districts with large nonwhite populations. However, neither Democratic candidate campaigned exclusively on race, but concentrated instead on bread-and-butter issues that concern whites as much as Negroes in their working-class districts.

"Can a White Win?" Running for the state senate, Candidate Jordan helped to assure a big Negro turnout by mailing sample ballots, with instructions on how to vote for her, to the district's 35,000 Negro homes. But she also stumped white neighborhoods, addressed white civic clubs, won the endorsement of the white-ruled Democratic organization. While her opponent, former State Representative J. C. Whitfield 44, resorted to plaintive racist appeals ("Can a white man win?") Miss Jordan drummed home the need for such reforms as state minimum-wage provisions, industrial-accident laws and lower auto-insurance rates.

The result attested to a quiet change in the minds of many white Americans. Though 52% of the eligible voters in Miss Jordan's district are Negroes, she amassed 64.8% of the total vote--winning 30% to 50% of the ballots in white precincts, and losing decisively in only one. Conducting a similarly restrained campaign for a house seat in a 47% Negro district, Banker Graves compiled 50.3% of the vote, polling 25% to 40% of the total in non-Negro precincts. Since neither faces a Republican opponent in November, their primary victories--the first that Southern Negroes have yet won outright in this year's campaign for state offices--assure both candidates of election.

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