African American Studies Commons^™

Governor Deval Patrick And The Representation Of Massachusetts’ Black Interests, Ravi K. Perry

Trotter Review

This article examines the rhetorical strategies and legislative initiatives of Deval Patrick and his efforts to represent black interests in Massachusetts. Utilizing speech content analysis, census data, interview data, and archives of executive and legislative actions, the article identifies that Massachusetts’ only black governor has been able to advance policies and programs designed to represent black interests. The results indicate that when black interest policy actions are framed utilizing a targeted universalistic rhetorical strategy, Patrick advanced black interests as he detailed how his proposed initiatives benefited all citizens. At the state level, the finding exposes the limits of the deracialization …

Denver And Boston: Why One City Elects Black Mayors And The Other Has Not, Kenneth J. Cooper

Trotter Review

Denver’s population is only 10 percent black, and has never been above 12 percent in any Census, yet in July 2011 the city elected a black mayor. Michael Hancock, a former city councilman, is actually the second African-American mayor of Denver. Wellington Webb served the limit of three terms through 2003. Three of the city’s last four mayors have been of color. Federico Peña, a Mexican American, became the first in 1983.

At 24 percent, Boston’s black population is twice as large as Denver’s and has been so throughout the three decades during which Denver has sent two African Americans …

Introduction, Barbara Lewis

Trotter Review

What is the political valence of blackness at the beginning of the second decade of the twenty-first century; has it waxed or waned? Is it headed to greater potency or back into the dark days of the past when complexion determined the worth of character? Major political advances have been achieved nationally in the last ten years, most significantly in the election of the nation’s first African American president. Yet a resistant status quo remains. The push to unseat President Obama is virulent, and it is hard to imagine that all of the motivation to do so is tied only …

Considered A Foreign Policy Neophyte, Barack Obama Emerges As One Of The Nation’S Most Competent Commanders In Chief, Howard Manly

Trotter Review

During the 2008 presidential campaign, the main criticism against Barack Obama was that he was too green to lead America’s foreign policy and military.

It was a charge that Republican conservatives made against Democratic candidates with predictable frequency and had become a proven winning strategy after Ronald Reagan steamrolled perceived military bumbler Jimmy Carter in 1980. Conventional wisdom suggested that strategy would work even better against Obama.

In a move that foreshadowed his military decision-making, Obama authorized within the first four months of his administration the military rescue of Richard Phillips, the American sea captain taken hostage by pirates in …

Commentary, Kenneth J. Cooper

Trotter Review

Barack Obama has made history by dispatching to the dustbin another usage for the tiresome phrase “first black.” As president, he is also going to make the future, both during his term and long after. The country’s racial-ethnic landscape, with its dangerous crevices and sheer mountains, is about to change in monumental ways.

His presence in the White House will promote more interracial dialogue, for one, and for the good of the country. This will not be a small change. The novelist Richard Wright once explained that he chose exile in Paris in the 1940s because he could not have …

Women Creating Social Capital And Social Change, Marilyn Gittell, Isolda Ortega-Bustamante, Tracey Steffy

Trotter Review

As Community Development Organizations (CDOs) are the primary vehicle for development in low-income neighborhoods, scholars have begun to examine them in terms of the degree to which they increase citizen participation, increase civic capacity, as well as stabilize and revitalize neighborhoods through the creation of social capital. According to Putnam, civic action requires the existence of social capital; he defines social capital as "norms, trust, and networks." As Gittell and Vidal note, there has been a "virtual industry of interest and action created around the implication of Putnam's findings for the development of low-income communities."

This article is an excerpt …

The Political Issues For African Immigrants In The United States, Paul E. Udofia

Trotter Review

Since the 1970s the African-born population in the United States has grown steadily in numbers. This increase of African immigrants offers an historic opportunity for sustained reconstruction of ancestral relationships with Black America. At this point, however, Africans who are mostly English-speaking and highly educated, remain largely isolated and even ostracized. So, what must be done for these groups, Blacks and African immigrants, to begin working together effectively? This essay begins with one basic query necessary for understanding this potential development: What is the current status of African immigrants in the United States? After providing a brief overview in response …

A Historic Moment: Black Voters And The 1992 Presidential Race, Clarence Lusane

Trotter Review

November 2, 1991, may well be remembered as a watershed date in the unique and quixotic 1992 presidential race. On that day, stating that he would "not seek the nomination for the Democratic Party," Jesse Jackson backed out of the presidential campaign spotlight and started a chain reaction that has put the black vote in perhaps its least influential position since before 1984.

Extremely low black voter turnout was one of the most significant trends of the 1992 primaries. In the Democratic contests, Arkansas Governor Bill Clinton won an impressive percentage of black votes, about 70 percent. However, those votes …

A Moral Appeal To President George Bush, Jesse Jackson

Trotter Review

The following is the text of a letter written by Reverend Jesse Jackson to President George Bush dated May 1, 1991, as a plea for statehood for the District of Columbia, where 650,000 citizens are politically disenfranchised.

Vote Dilution Research: Methods Of Analysis, Sheila Ards, Marjorie Lewis

Trotter Review

Why have issues which disproportionately affect African Americans not been brought to the policy forefront and given attention properly so that effective solutions can be found? Because of their roles as controllers of the government's budget, politicians and other policy makers decide which problems will be addressed. It is important, therefore, that African Americans elect political candidates of their choice. In the past, African Americans largely were outside the arena of public policy setting. Thus, solutions to problems which disproportionately affected African Americans were not pursued.

Introduction, James Jennings

Trotter Review

This special issue of the Trotter Review is devoted to a broad range of topics related to race, power, and voting. Although voting is a critically important political tool for black America, the vote does not necessarily guarantee that a group will enjoy power in society. At the same time that we seek greater rates of voter registration and turnout at all levels of the electoral process, we must also continue to struggle towards an agenda that delivers power to the black community.

The issue opens with an explanation of why statehood for Washington, D.C., should be a key item …

Black Women And The American Political System, Dorothy A. Clark

Trotter Review

Black women and politics—it is an association rarely made by the American electorate. As a group, black women have never been prominent players in the nation's political arena. In a system of decision making and power holding designed and dominated by white men, black women are an alien group in the formal political process. Their participation in that process has been limited—indeed often blocked—by a hierarchical system of race, gender, and class oppression that relegates black women to the lowest rungs of the political power ladder.

Race And Presidential Politics '92: The Challenge To Go Another Way, May Louie

Trotter Review

At presidential election time in 1992, America is once again looking at limited political options for national leadership. The Republican party platform is its most conservative ever. The Democratic party ticket is dominated by southern Dixiecrats. And we who have marched and organized, and risked and sacrificed much for racial equality and political empowerment, must now match our sense of foreboding with our determination to meet the challenge before us. Jesse Jackson's 1984 and 1988 nation-shaking, agenda-setting presidential campaigns took us to places we had never been before and gave us a glimpse at the possibility of racial and economic …

Ron Daniels: Profile Of A Presidential Candidate, Harold Horton

Trotter Review

The mass media has said very little about it, but Ron Daniels, an African American, is a presidential candidate. In 1988, Daniels was the southern regional coordinator and deputy campaign manager for Jesse Jackson's campaign. Daniels, a veteran social and political activist as well as former director of the National Rainbow Coalition, declared his candidacy for president at a news conference October 14, 1991.

From 1974 to 1980, Daniels served as president of the National Black Political Assembly and in 1980, he was the chairperson of the founding convention of the National Black Independent Political Party. Daniels was the convener …

Voting Policy And Voter Participation: The Legacy Of The 1980s, Alex Willingham

Trotter Review

It has been widely recognized, at least since the Selma march during the civil rights movement, that the interests of black citizens and other minorities are directly connected to their capacity to participate in the political process and to public policies that protect that option. The clear message of the Selma demonstration was that, for a people constrained by a broad range of oppressive racist structures, voting is a basic resource for protecting all other rights. Further, it was clear that those who control power will restrict access to the ballot as their main line of defense.

Thoughts On Black Conservativism: A Review Essay, Martin Kilson

Trotter Review

In Reflections of an Affirmative Action Baby, Stephen L. Carter, an Afro-American law professor at Yale University, has written a wide-ranging book on affirmative action policy. Like numerous other books on the subject, Carter covers the issues of its legitimacy as policy, white opposition, impact on black mobility, and contradictions faced by universities in administering affirmative action. Carter also offers a new area of discussion — namely, the evolving division among Afro-Americans regarding affirmative action, allocating six of eleven chapters to facets of this issue. Carter uses his own experiences to frame these discussions — a mode of discourse …

The Search For Voice: Ideology And Perspective In The Black Community, Phillip L. Clay

Trotter Review

During the last seven years, there has been a significant shift to the right in the ideological perspectives of Amencan political institutions and behavior. Despite some in consistencies, the direction is clear. The term “moderate” has acquired a conservative meaning, and liberals have been split into neo-liberal and neo-conservative camps. At this moment American society is informally declaring that it is not committed to achieving the goal ofequal outcomes long espoused by a mainly liberal national political and institutional system.

The shift to the right is working changes on traditional black ideological perspectives, both among blacks and between black and …

The "New" Black Neo-Conservativism: A Critique, James Jennings

Trotter Review

In this presentation, I will examine some of the general ideas, explanations and logic regarding black life conditions offered by a group of intellectuals who have come to be described as “Neo-Conservative.” I will not concentrate my critique on particular individuals, however; my focus will be primarily on the ideas and proposals that they have offered, especially those ideas that have been associated with public policy proposals.

In my opinion, the media and the scholarly community have focused too much on individuals, rather than examining closely and analytically the public policy ideas associated with Neo-Conservatism. I will seek to critique …