Congress in Black and White

Congress in Black and White PDF

Author: Christian R. Grose

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2011-01-31

Total Pages: 257

ISBN-13: 1139497367

DOWNLOAD EBOOK →

The symbolic importance of Barack Obama's election is without question. But beyond symbolism, does the election of African-American politicians matter? Grose argues that it does and presents a unified theory of representation. Electing African-American legislators yields more federal dollars and congressional attention directed toward African-American voters. However, race and affirmative action gerrymandering have no impact on public policy passed in Congress. Grose is the first to examine a natural experiment and exceptional moment in history in which black legislators – especially in the U.S. South – represented districts with a majority of white constituents. This is the first systematic examination of the effect of a legislator's race above and beyond the effect of constituency racial characteristics. Grose offers policy prescriptions, including the suggestion that voting rights advocates, the courts, and redistricters draw 'black decisive districts', electorally competitive districts that are likely to elect African Americans.

America's Black Congressmen

America's Black Congressmen PDF

Author: Maurine Christopher

Publisher:

Published: 1971

Total Pages: 326

ISBN-13:

DOWNLOAD EBOOK →

Covers Hiram R. Revels, Blanche K. Bruce, Joseph H. Rainey, Jefferson F. Long, Robert Smalls, John R. Lynch, Robert Brown Elliott, Josiah T. Walls, Richard H. Cain, Robert C. DeLarge, Alonzo J. Ransier, Charles E. Nash, P. B. S. Pinchback, Thomas E. Miller, George W. Murray, Benjamin S. Turner, James T. Rapier, Jeremiah Haralson, John Mercer Langston, John A. Hyman, James E. O'Hara, Henry P. Cheatham, George H. White, Oscar DePriest, Arthur W. Mitchell, William L. Dawson, Adam Clayton Powell, Jr., Charles C. Diggs, Jr., Robert N. C. Nix, Augustus F. Hawkins, Edward W. Brooke, John Conyers, Jr., Louis Stokes, William L. Clay, Shirley Chisholm.

Going Home

Going Home PDF

Author: Richard F. Fenno

Publisher: University of Chicago Press

Published: 2011-04-15

Total Pages: 272

ISBN-13: 0226241327

DOWNLOAD EBOOK →

Thirty years ago there were nine African Americans in the U.S. House of Representatives. Today there are four times that number. In Going Home, the dean of congressional studies, Richard F. Fenno, explores what representation has meant—and means today—to black voters and to the politicians they have elected to office. Fenno follows the careers of four black representatives—Louis Stokes, Barbara Jordan, Chaka Fattah, and Stephanie Tubbs Jones—from their home districts to the halls of the Capitol. He finds that while these politicians had different visions of how they should represent their districts (in part based on their individual preferences, and in part based on the history of black politics in America), they shared crucial organizational and symbolic connections to their constituents. These connections, which draw on a sense of "linked fates," are ones that only black representatives can provide to black constituents. His detailed portraits and incisive analyses will be important for anyone interested in the workings of Congress or in black politics.

Black Faces, Black Interests

Black Faces, Black Interests PDF

Author: Carol Miller Swain

Publisher:

Published: 1995

Total Pages: 326

ISBN-13:

DOWNLOAD EBOOK →

In this incisive book Carol Swain explores what strategies are most likely to lead to greater representation of black political interests. She studies the constituency relations and roll-call voting of black members of Congress from a variety of districts--historically black, newly black, heterogeneous, and primarily white--and of white members from districts with either a black majority or a significant black minority. She challenges the proposition that only African Americans can represent black interests effectively, and argues that blacks must form coalitions with white representatives to serve black needs. Swain has updated this edition with a new chapter entitled "Black Congressional Representation since 1992."

A Black Congressman in the Age of Jim Crow

A Black Congressman in the Age of Jim Crow PDF

Author: John F. Marszalek

Publisher:

Published: 2006

Total Pages: 211

ISBN-13: 9780813030029

DOWNLOAD EBOOK →

Born a slave in 1850s South Carolina and elected to Congress in the 1890s, George W. Murray appeared to be the antithesis of the African American male in the Jim Crow South and served as a beacon for African Americans who saw their hopes crushed in the aftermath of the Civil War. Early in the twentieth century, however, tragically defeated by corrupt Reconstruction politics and white supremacist attitudes he could not escape, Murray was driven from office and from the state. Drawing on extensive research to reconstruct Murray’s life story, Marszalek defines an age and its people through the compelling battle of one man and shows how and why the nation’s efforts to reconstruct the South into a biracial democracy failed. Murray’s career, which spanned a quarter of a century, included two terms in the U.S. House of Representatives and leadership of South Carolina’s Republican party. He was an investor as well as a landed property owner who sold tracts to poor blacks in order for them to qualify to vote. But by the beginning of the twentieth century, with his party in shambles, he found himself on trial for alleged forgery in a land deal with two of his black land purchasers. Murray was found guilty, and the South Carolina Supreme Court upheld the verdict. Sentenced to hard labor on a chain gang, he escaped to Chicago where he spent the rest of his life in obscurity.

Mobituaries

Mobituaries PDF

Author: Mo Rocca

Publisher: Simon and Schuster

Published: 2021-11-02

Total Pages: 384

ISBN-13: 1501197630

DOWNLOAD EBOOK →

From popular TV correspondent and writer Rocca comes a charmingly irreverent and rigorously researched book that celebrates the dead people who made life worth living.

Black Faces in the Mirror

Black Faces in the Mirror PDF

Author: Katherine Tate

Publisher: Princeton University Press

Published: 2004

Total Pages: 228

ISBN-13: 9780691117867

DOWNLOAD EBOOK →

Here, Katherine Tate examines the significance of race in the U.S. system of representative democracy for African Americans. Presenting important new findings, she offers the first empirical study to take up the question of representation from both sides of the constituent-representative relationship. The first half of the book examines whether black members of the U.S. House legislate and represent their constituents differently than white members do. Representation is broadly conceptualized to include not only legislators' roll call voting behavior and bill sponsorship, but also the symbolic acts in which they engage. The second half looks at the issue of representation from the perspective of ordinary African Americans based on a landmark national survey. Tate's findings are mixed. But, in the main, legislators' race does shape how they represent their constituents and how constituents evaluate them. African Americans view black representatives more positively than they do white representatives, even those who belong to their own political party. Black legislators, however, are just as likely as white representatives to sponsor and gain passage of bills in the House. Tate also concludes that black House members are more liberal as a group than are their black constituents, but that there is considerable divergence in the quality and type of representation they provide. The findings reported here will generate controversy in the fields of politics, law, and race, particularly as debate commences over renewing the Voting Rights Act, which is set to expire in 2007.

African American Members of the United States Congress

African American Members of the United States Congress PDF

Author: Congressional Service

Publisher: Createspace Independent Publishing Platform

Published: 2018-05-30

Total Pages: 58

ISBN-13: 9781720531845

DOWNLOAD EBOOK →

In total, 153 African Americans have served in Congress. This total includes 143 African Americans (137 Representatives and 6 Delegates) elected only to the House of Representatives; 9 African Americans elected or appointed only to the Senate; and 1 African American who has served in both chambers. The first African American Members, Senator Hiram Revels of Mississippi and Representative Joseph Rainey of South Carolina, both took the oath of office in 1870. These first two Members were among the 22 African American Members (2 in the Senate, 20 in the House) that began their service in the period of time after the Civil War but prior to the start of the 20th Century. After these first 22, the presence of African Americans in the Membership of Congress was not continuous and there were subsequent periods in both chambers with no African American Members. Most recently, the 115th Congress began with the highest number of African American Members ever at the start of a Congress: 51 (46 Representatives, 2 Delegates, and 3 Senators). Other information in this report includes the total number of African Americans who have served in Congress by party and type of service; the number of African Americans who have served in each Congress since 1870; the number of African Americans who have served in the House and Senate by state, district, or territory; the means of entry to Congress, including regular elections, special elections, and appointments; the Congressional Black Caucus (CBC) House Congressional Member Organization; a listing of firsts for African Americans in Congress; a listing of the African Americans who have served in leadership; the records for length of service in the House and Senate; and a listing of the African American women in the 115th Congress.

Just Permanent Interests

Just Permanent Interests PDF

Author: William L. Clay

Publisher: Harper Paperbacks

Published: 2000-02-11

Total Pages: 432

ISBN-13: 9781567430417

DOWNLOAD EBOOK →

From the Reconstruction of the 1870s to the Presidential politics of the 1980s, Representative Clay looks at African-American politicians and chronicles the founding of the Congressional Black Caucus, its high points and its low moments. b/w photographic insert.