The moment when the Republican Party lost black America can be given a date: Oct. 26, 1960. Martin Luther King Jr., arrested in Georgia during a sit-in, had been transferred to a maximum-security prison and sentenced to four months on the chain gang, without bail. As The Times reported, John F. Kennedy called Coretta King, expressing his concern. Richard Nixon didn't.
"It took courage to call my daughter-in-law at a time like this," King's father said about Kennedy at a church rally. "I've got all my votes and I've got a suitcase, and I'm going to take them up there and dump them in his lap." In 1956, Dwight Eisenhower had received nearly 40 percent of the black vote. (I myself sported an "I Like Ike" button in first grade.) In 1960, Nixon received 32 percent. A few years later, as the civil-rights era heated up and the G.O.P. pursued its "Southern strategy," blacks effectively became a one-party constituency. [...]
| Continue Dr. Henry Louis Gates' New York Times guest column "Swallowing the Elephant"
posted in articles on September 19, 2004 11:23 PM | t (0)
« Previous phile: Just on the term of 'African American' and 'Black.'
» Next phile: And everyone, of all shades and shapes and textures, laughed.
Return to top of page