Part 3: Political Participation of African-Americans

It would be hard to find any group of people that have experienced the oppression that African-Americans have faced that still support that same government wholeheartedly.

The American government has allowed slavery, Jim Crow, housing discrimination, lynching, the acquittal of countless law enforcers that have killed unarmed people of color and other methods of racism.

Just a short while ago in the 1950s and 1960s, there were high-profile politicians such as George Wallace who openly and proudly encouraged segregation and racism to last forever.

Herein lies the complexity of African-Americans and politics. In one notion, some black people believe that blacks should become much more involved in politics because of the sacrifices of earlier African-Americans. And in the same notion, many black people don’t feel the need to support a system that has never supported black people. Some people feel as if there is no hope that the government will ever right its wrongs or begin to genuinely show interest in people of color.

Kiyadh Burt, a senior political science major from Kosciusko, Miss., said that the distrust of the government stems from the fact that, “the government has yet to take responsibility for its historical actions at the detriment of the black community.”

Although black people’s citizenship has become more respected since the days of Jim Crow, many black people are still unhappy with government officials and their personal agendas.

Leniece Smith, assistant professor of political science at JSU, said that if black people took politics serious enough, they would do more. She also said that maybe in the future, black people would have a political action committee to donate money for candidates that care about African-Americans.

“What we end up having to do is to choose from who’s available, and frequently those people don’t address black people’s needs and issues in the United States,” said Smith.

Having to vote for whoever is available is dangerous. Because if none of the people running for office actually care about the people they are representing, and instead care about whoever is donating the most money, then the represented will hardly have voices that matter.

Such is the case in Ferguson, Mo., where the majority of the town is black, but the majority of the elected officials are white. Now of course, the problem is not that the officials are white, but rather that those officials are not supporting the people of Ferguson’s views. Otherwise, Ferguson would not have been at the center of a race war within the United States in the latter part of 2014.

Yet, this can be attributed to low voter turnout in local elections. In the 2012 presidential election, the U.S. Census Bureau reports that 66 percent of eligible black voters casted their ballots, the highest since 1968. But, in all other local elections, turnout is abysmal for all Americans. Studies show that about one-fourth of the voting age population takes part in elections not including the president.

Aretha Brown, a freshman political science major from St. Louis, Mo., said if black people were to turnout in better numbers in local elections that black voices could be heard and that changes could happen “step by step.”

Local governments affect people in a more direct way than does the national government. Many law enforcement actions, education funding, taxes, and housing discrepancies are carried out by local government offices. And local governments are run by people who only a quarter of us are voting for.

Although it is very understandable for people, especially African-Americans, to be distrusting of the government, a critical way of seeing a significant change in the country is to become politically active.