New Hope in the South

The reelection of five black members of Congress in recently redrawn majority-white districts in the South proves the power of incumbency, and also indicates racial progress.

In Georgia, Democratic Reps. Cynthia McKinney and Sanford Brown prevailed in newly drawn districts in which two out of three voters were white. In Texas, Democratic Reps. Sheila Jackson Lee of Houston and Eddie Berniece Johnson of Dallas also won in redrawn districts that were mostly white. In Florida, another Democrat, Corrine Brown, won in a new predominantly white district, which replaced a 55% black district that had included black neighborhoods in Jacksonville, Gainesville, Daytona Beach and Orlando.

Civil rights lawyers intent on overcoming the South’s sorry racial history and promoting equal representation for blacks have long advocated drawing majority-black districts to boost the chances of African American candidates. Most black Americans were not allowed to vote in the South before the enactment of the 1965 Voting Rights Act. And until 1992 when Mel Watt was elected in a disputed district that meanders over 160 miles, North Carolina, 22% black, had not sent a single African American to Congress since Reconstruction.

After the 1990 census, several states drew elongated, oddly shaped districts in an effort to lump black areas in nonadjacent cities and rural areas into single districts. In response to legal challenges, the U.S Supreme Court condemned this “racial gerrymandering” and struck down the boundaries of several majority black congressional districts in Georgia, Texas and North Carolina.

New lines were drawn in Texas and Georgia before the November elections. North Carolina is scheduled to draw new lines next year in the districts represented by Watt and Evelyn Clayton.

The black incumbents who won in the newly drawn districts credit their wins to hard work on behalf on all constituents and not a sudden willingness of all white Southerners to ignore race at the ballot box. The benefits of incumbency and name recognition cannot be ignored-- nor can the progress be disputed.

Black candidates have also fared well in integrated districts in California and other regions. A black Republican incumbent, Gary Franks of Connecticut, was the only member of the Congressional Black Caucus to lose a seat in November. The victories of the five black incumbents who had to run in new predominantly white districts in the South augur hope for future black candidates.