Freedom Is Not Enough Black Voters, Black Candidates, and American Presidential Politics

by Walters, Ronald W.

• ISBN13: 9780742548060
• ISBN10: 0742548066
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2007-01-10
• Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers

Summary

Black voters can make or break a presidential election--look at the close electoral results in 2000 and the difference the disenfranchised Black vote in Florida alone might have made. Black candidates can influence a presidential election--look at the effect that Jesse Jackson had on the Democratic party, the platform, and the electorate in 1984 and 1988, and the contributions to the Democratic debates that Carol Moseley Braun and Al Sharpton made in 2004. American presidential politics can't get along without the Black vote--witness the controversy over candidates' appearing (or not) at the NAACP convention, or the extent to which candidates court (or not) the Black vote in a variety of venues. It all goes back to the Voting Rights Act of 1965 which formally gave African Americans the right to vote, even if after all these years that right is continuously contested. In Freedom Is Not Enough (a quote from Lyndon Johnson's 1965 commencement address to Howard University just before signing the Voting Rights Act), Ron Walters traces the history of the Black vote since 1965, celebrates its fortieth anniversary in 2005, and shows why passing a law is not the same as ensuring its enforcement, legitimacy, and opportunity.Visit our website for sample chapters!

Table of Contents

List of Tables	p. ix
Preface	p. xi
Black Empowerment and the 1965 Voting Rights Act	p. 1
Leverage Politics and the 1984 and 1988 Jackson Campaigns	p. 27
Black Mobilization in the Presidential Elections of 1992, 1996, and 1998	p. 53
Diluting Black Voting Power: The Supreme Court in the 1990s and the 2000 Presidential Election in Florida	p. 77
Election Reform: Revisiting the Right to Vote	p. 107
Leverage Politics and the 2004 Primary Election Scenario: The Sharpton and Moseley Braun Campaigns	p. 133
Black Turnout and the 2004 Presidential Election	p. 157
The 1965 Voting Rights Act: Leveraging the Power of the Black Vote	p. 185
Notes	p. 209
Bibliography	p. 223
Index	p. 227
About the Author	p. 239
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