From Protest to Politics

By Maureen Dowd

Blacks are registering, winning--and eyeing the presidency

For Jesse Jackson it was a visit laden with symbolism. Eighteen years earlier, the black leader had dodged police horses and clubs with Martin Luther King Jr. on the bloody civil rights march from Selma to Montgomery. An apoplectic Governor George Wallace had closed the capitol, which brazenly flew a Confederate flag, to prevent the marchers from delivering a petition protesting voting discrimination. Back in Montgomery last week, Jackson was welcomed graciously by Wallace, who served him pecan rolls on a silver tray and iced tea in a silver pitcher on the sun porch of the Governor's mansion. The next day Jackson was given another cordial reception when he became the first black since Reconstruction to address a joint session of the Alabama legislature. Says State Representative Alvin Holmes, one of 16 blacks in the 140-member legislature: "Political power talks."

The scene in Alabama was the latest evidence of the growing political clout of blacks across the country. The energy that once created protests has been channeled into politics, spurring impressive victories at the polls, a steady surge in black voter registration and serious debate about whether a black should run for President in 1984. Replacing the old guard of civil rights activists, black mayors are emerging as a powerful force in national politics and public policy. Black leaders marvel that for the first time in a decade, there is a vibrant sense of momentum in the black community. "Back in 1970 we used to say that politics was the new cutting edge of the civil rights movement," says Eddie Williams, president of the Joint Center for Political Studies, a black think tank. "Thirteen years later, we're beginning to really believe it."

That edge has been sharpened by a concatenation of frustrations. Blacks face persistently high levels of joblessness at a time of cutbacks in social programs and growing indifference to black problems among a recession-strapped white majority. They are antagonized by what they perceive as the Reagan Administration's callousness, and dismayed at the lackluster response of the Democratic Party, which they have faithfully supported since the New Deal. "Blacks have a choice: to come out fighting or to come out voting," Williams says. "The intelligent choice is to vote." Adds Gary, Ind., Mayor Richard Hatcher: "Blacks have finally reached the point of political maturity where they see the power in the ballot box."

Black strength at the polls was manifest in the recent wins of Harold Washington in the Chicago mayoral race and W. Wilson Goode in the Philadelphia Democratic mayoral primary. It may also prove contagious. "When you get a triggering force like the Washington victory, you generate a great deal of dynamism in other cities," says Political Scientist Marguerite Ross Barnett of Columbia University. "It will have an enormous impact on national politics." The moral of these two races, adds Mary Coleman, a political science professor at Jackson State University, is that there is a new reluctance on the part of blacks to "accept business as usual." The campaigns of Washington and Goode also reflected a subtle but important development in black political sophistication: the willingness of black businessmen and professionals to provide substantial financial backing. A Washington aide estimates that blacks contributed 50% of the mayor's $2 million war chest.

In 1966, the year after the Voting Rights Act was passed, 6 million blacks were registered to vote. Since then, 4 million more blacks have enrolled. Jackson, who is on a voter registration drive in the South, predicts that another 4 million will register before 1984, enhancing the role of blacks in choosing the next President and challenging Reagan's re-election chances. "The President and the Republican National Committee stand in fear of the black vote," concedes R.N.C. Official Ron McDuffie. The 1980 census shows 17 million blacks of voting age--10.5% of the U.S. electorate--with half in the South and concentrations of at least 1 million each in key states such as New York, California and Illinois.

For their part, the Democratic presidential contenders are busy courting black leaders, hoping to check any move toward a black presidential candidacy.

The increases in black officials are striking. In 1970 a total of 1,469 blacks held elected office at all levels, including ten members of Congress. By 1982 the number had more than tripled, to 5,160, with 21 Congressmen. The most significant gains have been made in city halls. There are some 220 black mayors, 16 in cities with populations of more than 100,000. Blacks run three of the nation's six largest cities--Chicago, Los Angeles and Detroit--and Goode is making a strong bid in a fourth.

In the beginning, mayoral gains were mainly in cities with black majorities or areas of rapid transitions to large black populations. Many whites were more willing to support a black for Congress or the state legislature than for mayor. "The mayor is the symbol for the entire city, and some whites do find it difficult to invest that kind of leadership in blacks," says Barnett. But in the past few years, black mayoral candidates have fared better in garnering votes in predominantly white areas. "For the first time large segments of ethnic Americans have to live under a black administration and pay deference to black leadership," says Harvard Political Scientist Martin Kilson. "This is something new and significant in a society where racist sentiment is deep, rigid and difficult to change."

The big-city mayors offer an intriguing contrast in styles, ranging from the consensus-building approach of Los Angeles' Tom Bradley to the confrontational politics of Gary's Hatcher. Their backgrounds are equally diverse. Washington practiced law and worked his way up in the Chicago political organization. Others, including Atlanta's Andrew Young and Washington's Marion Barry, came up through the civil rights movement of the 1960s. A pinstripe moderate as mayor, Barry was once a militant who favored colorful African dashikis and strident rhetoric about expelling the "honkies" from the city.

Black mayors face a special set of problems. They must carefully balance the needs of an often demanding black constituency with those of an often distrusting white ethnic population. Many, such as Detroit's Coleman Young and Newark's Ken Gibson, are charged with the herculean task of reviving decaying urban centers with shrinking tax bases resulting from the "white flight" of residents and the decline of traditional businesses. "Progress," says Gibson, "is maintaining the status quo." Moreover, black mayors often attract limelight that leaves them less margin for unnoticed error. Grouses Hatcher: "Blacks still don't have the right to fail as whites do without its becoming a slur on the black race."

Black mayors have made strides in giving black constituents a fairer share of the gravy train of city contracts and patronage jobs. A recent study by the Joint Center for Political Studies of eight industrial cities with black mayors showed that during the past decade, black municipal hiring increased 16%, compared with only 2% in industrial cities headed by whites. As mayor of Atlanta from 1974 to 1981, a determined Maynard Jackson invested the city's money in black-controlled banks and opened construction projects to black contractors. In New Orleans, Mayor Ernest Morial successfully pushed for at least 10% minority ownership in a new $300 million retail, hotel and office complex. "All their lives, blacks are told to work through the system to get a piece of the action," says Morial, a civil rights lawyer and judge before his 1978 election. "If that is true, then I suggest that the city get involved." Some mayors, like Barry, have been criticized for taking such efforts too far and favoring minority businessmen who were incapable of delivering services at competitive costs. Barry is unapologetic. "We have a law that requires that 35% of all city contracts go to minorities," he says. "To me, that's a floor, not a ceiling."

The most successful black mayors have created strong alliances with the white business establishments in their cities. Morial worked closely with the Chamber of Commerce to attract high-tech companies to New Orleans. Andrew Young was opposed by Atlanta's business community when he ran, but after his election he wooed its leaders over lunch, telling them, "I can't run the city without you."

Even Hatcher, who feuded with Gary's business community for three terms, has been trying to mend fences. He recently signed a tax abatement bill to spur investment in plants, land and equipment, and has unproved relations with U.S. Steel, which has announced that Gary will become the center of its steel operation. "I could be elected as many times as I want without the support of the business community, but I can't govern effectively without that support," Hatcher says.

Bradley, whose city is only 17% black, echoes that view. "You must build credibility with business and labor and city government. Black politicians will be successful when they can demonstrate that a black can serve the interests of all the people." Without such coalitions, the mayor can end up powerless. In his first week on the job, Harold Washington lost control of the Chicago city council to a group of rebellious white council members who proceeded to divvy up key committee chairmanships and leave the mayor's supporters out in the cold. Washington fought the councilmen in court but lost. He still controls the city purse strings and can veto any action dealing with capital expenditures, but for the time being he is unable to put through any programs of his own.

In the shift from protest to politics, some venerable black institutions ironically are getting left behind. The N.A.A.C.P., once the pre-eminent champion of racial justice, is rived by internal feuding. The bitter personality clash between Chairman Margaret Bush Wilson and Executive Director Benjamin Hooks took an unexpected twist last week when Wilson bowed to pressure from 2 angry board members and | backed down from her decision to suspend Hooks. Then she, instead, was asked by the board to resign.

The N.A.A.C.P.'s leadership role has been partly taken over by the "black family," a group of about 60 politicians, activists and ministers that is preparing a platform of black issues to present to the Democratic presidential candidates. "We're not going to take any token responses," cautions Joseph Lowery, president of the | Southern Christian Leadership Conference.

Jesse Jackson seconds that warning. He is scouring the South, trying to enroll at least 180% of the region's 2.6 million "" unregistered black voters in an effort to unseat "pro-Reagan Democratic Boll Weevils and Republican Reaganites," including Senators Jesse Helms of North Carolina and Strom Thurmond of South Carolina. Jackson has been openly flirting with the prospect of running for President and promotes the notion of a black candidacy as a way to maintain political drive. "We are going to the White House," Jackson says. "We are going from the guttermost to the uppermost." Running, he says, can be a strategy for attracting more voters and a bargaining chip with the Democrats. "When you run, you turn people on. You get people talking in barbershops and living rooms. The media can't ignore you. But when you don't run, your friends take you for granted and your enemies despise you." Whether he runs or not, Jackson's warning is already being heeded by Democratic "friends," and that in itself is a measure of the new black power. --By Maureen Dowd. Reported by

Thomas McCarroll/Chicago and Jack E. White/ New York

With reporting by Thomas McCarroll/Chicago, Jack E. White/New York This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so viewer discretion is required.