Scramble for Black Votes

By Frank B. Merrick

They could swing the election

The candidate for President stood last week in a rubble-strewn lot in one of New York City's worst ghettos. Behind him, on the wall of a rundown tenement, was a one-word message of despair in orange paint: DECAY. On another nearby building was a scrawled reminder of what the neighborhood had received from white politicians in the past: BROKEN PROMISES. The candidate read a brief statement to reporters. Said he: "I'm impressed with the spirit of hope and determination by the people to save what they have." Hecklers in a crowd of 70 young black and Hispanic onlookers shouted: "Do something for us! Help us! Speak to the people, not the press!" But as he tried to speak to the crowd, he was drowned out by obscenities and chants. The candidate grew angry. "What I'm trying to tell you," he shouted above the din, "is I can't do a damn thing for you if I'm not elected."

The candidate in the angry confrontation happened to be Republican Ronald Reagan. But much of the bitterness directed at him, particularly by the blacks, could have as easily been aimed at Democrat Jimmy Carter or Independent John Anderson or even, in some areas, Senator Edward Kennedy.

Black voters, who make up 11% of the U.S. electorate, feel increasingly left out of the American economic system and political process. Since 1964, when a record 59% of black voters went to the polls, the turnout has steadily shrunk; in 1976, it was only 49%. "It is informed apathy," says Columbus Keepler, field services director for the Atlanta-based Voter Education Project, which was in the forefront of the Southern voter registration drives of the 1960s. "Many people voted once or twice and didn't see anything happen, so they don't vote any more." But as Carter showed in 1976, even a small black turnout can be important. He drew 90% of the 6.6 million black votes cast, which helped tip several key Southern and Northern industrial states into his column, including Ohio, Pennsylvania and Texas.

However small and skeptical, the black vote also could be a key factor in the coming election, and it was the object of ardent wooing last week by all four candidates. The courtship occurred most directly in the regal grand ballroom of the New York Hilton, site of the annual convention of the National Urban League, which for 70 years has helped blacks to get jobs, housing and education.

In three days of speeches, none of the politicians made any new promises or said much that had not been heard before by the generally reserved audience of 16,000, most of whom were middle-aged and middle class. Anderson was regarded as a curiosity; few in the crowd considered him to be a viable candidate. Kennedy stirred some enthusiasm when he recalled his two decades of involvement in civil rights fights. Of unemployment in America, both black and white, Kennedy said: "The only truly Democratic response can be summed up in three short words: jobs, jobs, jobs."

Carter was also warmly applauded several times. He reminded the audience of one of his favorite statistics: he has appointed more blacks, Hispanics and women to federal judgeships than all other U.S. Presidents combined. Carter too made a vague vow to plug for more jobs, saying that he would soon unveil an economic recovery plan that will "restore growth and reduce unemployment." The two Democrats focused their heaviest fire on Ronald Reagan. Kennedy reminded the audience that in the past, Reagan has opposed equal employment opportunity and unemployment compensation. Carter slashingly attacked Reagan's economic program, which would cut federal income tax rates by 30% over three years, as "sugarcoated poison" that would disastrously kick up inflation.

The attacks on Reagan reflected the Democrats' growing apprehensions about a change in Republican campaign strategy. For the first time in twelve years Reagan is courting black votes. He and his strategists hardly believe he is the Republican who will bring blacks back to the party of Lincoln, but they are nonetheless going to work hard to attract them. More important, Reagan's aides feel that by visibly reaching out to blacks, Reagan will soften his image with white moderate Republicans, independents and disaffected Democrats, who regard him as an uncaring conservative.

But Reagan has no intention of abandoning his hard-core supporters. Before going to New York, he defended "states' rights" at the Neshoba County Fair in Philadelphia, Miss., where three young civil rights workers were murdered in 1964. Some 10,000 people, nearly all of them white, cheered lustily in response.

Two days later, Reagan had a sharply different message for the Urban League. He asked his listeners to set aside their misconceptions of him as "anti-poor, anti-black and anti-disadvantaged . . . a caricatured conservative." But Reagan's carefully crafted speech touched on virtually no black concerns other than economics. Indeed, to the amusement of some participants, he inadvertently picked up Kennedy's refrain that the answers to black Americans' problems are "jobs, jobs, jobs." Reagan's way of creating these jobs, of course, is far different from Kennedy's. Rather than Government programs, he would expand private employment by stimulating the economy with tax cuts. His speech drew applause but not the ovations accorded Kennedy and Carter as they stepped from the podium.

Two hours after leaving the conference hall, Reagan was taken by limousine to the vacant lot in the South Bronx where Jimmy Carter in 1977 promised federal help to rehabilitate the neighborhood. Reagan intended only a brief, symbolic visit that would allow him to make the point that the Carter Administration never fulfilled its promise. Instead, the Californian wound up in the contentious debate, which he later skillfully turned to some advantage by telling reporters that if he lived in the South Bronx, he too would "build up a little impatience." Said Reagan: "There we were, driving away, and you think of them back there in all that ugliness. All that is before them is to sit and look at what we just saw."

On his way home to California, Reagan stopped in Chicago for another bit of theater, this time a visit with Civil Rights Leader Jesse Jackson, a Carter supporter. Again, the basic plan backfired. After their private chat, Jackson escorted Reagan to his car. When they got within view of TV cameras, Jackson, an old showman himself, suddenly asked Reagan to repudiate the recent endorsement of him by the Ku Klux Klan. Reagan claimed ignorance of the endorsement (though it had been widely reported) and then said he had "no tolerance whatsoever for what the Klan represents."

But Reagan had no way to recover from Jackson's second maneuver: giving reporters a detailed critique of the candidate's speech to the Urban League. Jackson rapped Reagan, who wants to transfer many federal functions to state and local governments, for not recognizing the fact that the Federal Government has been black America's chief bulwark against discrimination. Said Jackson: "For black people, 'states' rights' has historically meant 'states' wrongs.' "

As Reagan ended the first week of trying to woo black voters, most remained deeply suspicious of him. Said Maxine Nickerson, a registered nurse and a member of the Los Angeles Urban League: "Deep down, I want to believe him, but I can't. All he wants is our votes." Blacks voiced similar doubts about Rea gan in interviews with TIME correspondents across the country. Said Grace Hamilton, a Georgia state representative from Atlanta: "The very thought of Rea gan makes my blood run cold."

In this stormy political year, some black leaders, such as John Jacob, executive vice president of the Urban League, are claiming that the black vote "is up for grabs." That declaration, designed to coax the maximum amount of concessions from all the candidates, vastly over states the case. If they had the chance, many blacks would back Ted Kennedy. Without the Senator on the ticket, they would turn to Carter, but with far less enthusiasm. There is a strong feeling that Carter promised much and delivered little. Indeed, among the hardest hit by Carter's anti-inflation fight have been urban blacks, many of whom have lost their jobs in the recession.

"If Carter is the nominee, blacks will not vote in large numbers," warned Willie Brown, a black California state representative. Said Vernon Jarrett, a black columnist for the Chicago Tribune: "His biggest problem is generating the extra push in the black community that will make a difference."

The severity of Carter's problem was shown by a recent Harris poll. The President led Reagan among blacks, but his approval rating was only 50% (vs. 19% for Reagan, 24% for Anderson). The poll was an early indication that Reagan may in deed have a chance of picking up enough black votes to have a major effect if the election is close. -- By Frank B. Merrick. Reported by Larry Barrett/New York.

With reporting by Larry Barrett

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