Frank R. Parker - Black Votes Count

Black Votes Count

The research for this book was supported by the generosity of the Joint Center for Political Studies.

1990 The University of North Carolina Press
All rights reserved
Manufactured in the United States of America

The paper in this book meets the guidelines for permanence and durability of the Committee on Production Guidelines for Book Longevity of the Council on Library Resources.

94 93 92 5 4 3 2

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Parker, Frank R.
Black votes count: political empowerment in Mississippi after 1965 / Frank R. Parker ; foreword by Eddie N. Williams.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references.
ISBN 0-8078-1901-8 (alk. paper).ISBN 0-8078-4274-5
(pbk. : alk. paper)
1. Afro-AmericansMississippiPolitics and government. 2. Afro-AmericansSuffrageMississippi. 3. Mississippi Politics and government1951- . 4. VotingMississippi History20th century. 5. Political participation MississippiHistory20th century. I. Title.
E185.93.M6P37 1990 89-39074
323.11960730762dc20 CIP

Excerpt from Calvin Tomkins, Profiles (Marian Wright Edelman): A Sense of Urgency The New Yorker, March 27, 1989, reprinted by permission. 1989 Calvin Tomkins. Originally in The New Yorker Magazine.

Map 2.1, Land Areas of Mississippi, adapted from James W. Loewen and Charles Sallis, eds., Mississippi: Conflict and Change, rev. ed. (New York: Pantheon Books, 1980) and used with permission of the editors.

Design by April Leidig-Higgins

This book was begun while I was at the Joint Center for Political Studies as a MacArthur Foundation Distinguished Scholar. I am indebted to President Eddie N. Williams, Research Director Milton D. Morris, and the staff at the Joint Center for their hospitality and support and to the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation for supporting my work during my year at the Joint Center.

I am also indebted to many individuals for their criticisms, encouragement, and helpful comments. The comments and suggestions of Morgan Kousser, Allan Lichtman, and David Colby have been particularly beneficial. Neil McMillen, Alex Willingham, Linda Williams, Katherine McFate, Anthony Scott, James Loewen, Peyton McCrary, and Robert Smith also offered ideas, comments, and encouragement along the way. I was very fortunate that the Joint Center provided me with the assistance of an excellent editor, Susan Kalish, who with Katherine McFate, also of the Joint Center, contributed substantially to making sense out of what I had to say. I am also appreciative of the excellent editorial support and assistance provided by Lewis Bateman, Ron Maner, and Stephanie Wenzel of the University of North Carolina Press. Debts of gratitude also are due to Carolyn Parker, for her enormous support and encouragement of my work in Mississippi; Henry Kirksey for showing me the importance of these issues and for drawing many of the original maps on which the maps herein are based; Jan Hillegas for her diligent research assistance over long periods of time, for coming up with newspaper articles I otherwise would have missed, and for collecting, keeping, and making available the files of the Mississippi Freedom Information Service; Sarah Smith for sending me boxes of files from Jackson; and Emily Epstein and Lucia Gill for additional research and graphics assistance.

My colleagues at the Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights Under Law also provided helpful support, including former executive director William Robinson, who gave me the time off to start writing; Samuel Issacharoff, who made suggestions on how the story should be told; and Robert McDuff and Brenda Wright. Special thanks go to Cuppy Wilson for her always reliable and efficient secretarial support. Finally, this work would not have been completed but for the steadfast encouragement and support of my friend Anne Burlock Lawver.

Few events in American political life have had as profound or as far-reaching consequences as has passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965. That law ended a century of denial to blacks of the most basic right of American citizenshipthe right to vote. Within a short time of its enactment, blacks in large numbers throughout the South were registering to vote, and voting levels quickly shot up to match and, in some cases, surpass black voting outside the South. Currently, voting levels of black Southerners are less than five percentage points below those of whites; more than half of the over 7,000 black elected officials in the nation are elected in the South; and black voters are a formidable force in the electoral processes throughout the region.