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During the Reconstruction era, many black voters supported the Republican Party.[3]Booker T. Washington had a more conservative approach to politics in the United States while W. E. B. DuBois called for more radical change.[4] Some African Americans supported Democrat Woodrow Wilson's first presidential campaign and were betrayed by his policies once in office.[5] Under Franklin D. Roosevelt's administration, during his first two terms, civil rights legislation was not passed, however, New Deal programs led to the black vote becoming more split.[6] In 1960, the Kennedy-Johnson campaign promoted civil rights as a central issue and during their administration, they passed anti-discrimination legislation, gaining the black vote. Since then, the Democratic Party has held a majority of the black votes in America,[7] although Pew Research Center polling has found that the percentage of African-Americans who identify as Democratic has declined in recent years, from 75% during Barack Obama's presidency to 67% in 2020. A 2017 sample size of 10,245 voters concluded that just 8% of African-Americans identify as Republican.[8]
Alan Keyes became the first African-American candidate to run in the Republican presidential primaries in 1996, but he did not win any state's primary or caucus. Keyes ran for president again in 2000[15] and in 2008.
Neurosurgeon Ben Carsonran for the Republican nomination in the 2016 election. He polled well for a time in late 2015, but withdrew after the first Super Tuesday.[17] Carson received 857,039 votes during the Republican primaries; this total represented 2.75% of the votes cast. He was supported by seven delegates at the Republican National Convention.[18]
A National Election Pool poll showed that support for California Proposition 8 (2008) (a state constitutional amendment defining marriage as an opposite-sex union) was strong among African-American voters; 70% of those interviewed in the exit poll—a higher percentage than any other racial group—stated that they voted in favor of Proposition 8.[23] Polls by both the Associated Press and CNN mirrored this data, reporting support among Black voters to be at 70%[24] and 75%,[25] respectively. African-American support was considered crucial to the Proposition's passage because African Americans made up an unusually large percentage of voters in 2008; the presence of African-American presidential candidate Barack Obama on the ballot was believed to have increased African-American voter turnout.[26]
Historical basis
From Reconstruction up until the New Deal, the black population tended to vote Republican.[27] During that period, the Republican Party—particularly in the Southern United States—was seen as more racially progressive than the Democratic Party, primarily because of the role of the Southern wing of the Democratic Party as the party of racial segregation and the Republican Party's roots in the abolitionist movement (see Dixiecrats).[citation needed]
Blacks started to shift in significant numbers to the Democrats with the election of Franklin D. Roosevelt[28] and continued with the election of John F. Kennedy. Among Truman Administration officials, the publication of Henry Lee Moon's Balance of Power spurred Democratic partisan support for African-American constituencies.[29] This shift was also influenced by Herbert Hoover's practice of firing loyal African-Americans from positions within the Republican Party, in order to increase his appeal to Southern white voters.[30] This can be considered an early example of a set of Republican Party methods that were later termed the Southern Strategy.[31][bettersourceneeded]
Lisa Holder White – Justice of the Illinois Supreme Court (since 2022), Judge of the Illinois Fourth District Appellate Court (2013-2022), Trial Judge Illinois Sixth Judicial Circuit Court (2001-2013)
Anthony Watson – is an American-born skeleton racer who competed on behalf of Jamaica in the 2018 Winter Olympics, becoming the first athlete to represent the Caribbean nation in the winter sport.
Kanye West – Rapper and record producer. Endorsed Donald Trump subsequently to the 2016 presidential election. Met President Trump in the Oval Office on 11 October 2018. Independent candidate for President of the United States in 2020 and 2024.
George Washington Carver[citation needed] – Agricultural scientist and inventor who promoted alternative crops to cotton and methods to prevent soil depletion
Glenn Loury – Academic, economist, and podcast host
Eunice Carter – Attorney. First African-American assistant district attorney in New York state. She was noted for her role in the prosecution of gangster Charles "Lucky" Luciano.
Mary Church Terrell – One of the first African-American women to receive a college degree, she was a journalist and educator. She was an active Republican, campaigning for Warren G. Harding in 1920.
↑Diamond, Sara (1996). Facing the Wrath: Confronting the Right in Dangerous Times. Common Courage Press. p.96. ISBN978-1-56751-078-2. Christian Right activists allied with black conservatives to make their causes appear more mainstream across racial and class lines. In this vein, the Family Research Council (the lobbying affiliate of Focus on the Family) recently named as vice-president Kay Cole James, a black anti-abortion activist.
↑Tate, Katherine (1994). From Protests to Politics: The New Black Voters in American Elections. New York: Russell Sage Foundation. pp.1–238. ISBN9780674325401.
↑Alexander-Floyd, Nikol-G (2021). Re-Imagining Black Women: A Critique of Post-Feminist and Post-Racial Melodrama in Culture and Politics. NYU Press. pp.27–58. ISBN9781479820139.
↑For an overview of these themes, see Stan Faryna, Brad Stetson, and Joseph G. Conti, Eds., Black and Right: The Bold New Voice of Black Conservatives in America, (Westport, CT: Praeger, 1997)
↑Brian Greenberg; Linda S. Watts; Richard A. Greenwald; Gordon Reavley; Alice L. George; Scott Beekman; Cecelia Bucki; Mark Ciabattari; John C. Stoner; Troy D. Paino; Laurie Mercier; Andrew Hunt; Peter C. Holloran; Nancy Cohen (2008). Social History of the United States [10 volumes]. ABC-CLIO. p.360. ISBN978-1-59884-128-2.
↑Gilmore, Glenda Elizabeth (2016). These United States: A Nation in the Making, 1890-Present (Firsted.). New York: W.W. Norton & Co. p.24. ISBN9780393283075.
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