A Brief History of Black People and U.S. Presidential Elections Since 1968

“…Someday We Will All Be Free” — Donnie Hathaway

Where do we go from here, Dr. King asked in 1967? His message had changed slightly from his 1963 message — Why We Can’t Wait?

That was before the Civil Rights Acts were enacted. Before the death of Malcolm X and King. Before a policy of integration became the focus of the nation.

Has racial integration failed? Was it ever the policy of Black Americans? Or was it what white Americans wanted?

In 1972, the call, just four years after Dr. King’s killing, was — “it’s Nation Time…It’s Nation Time…” The Rev. Jesse Jackson was shouting that in Gary, Indiana, at the National Black Political Convention.

Why not? The country elected Richard Nixon. Bobby Kennedy was murdered in California in 1968. The Democrats shifted to the center and ran Hubert Humphrey.

Black people were clearly soul searching. What is the way forward?

No separate Black party was formed out of the Gary conference and movement. But it did offer questions that had to be answered. Was it Assimilation into what Malcolm deemed “a house on fire” or was it the other train — self determination. Goals remained to be sought by Black American but as a result of events, we entered a period of personal success. Many Blacks made it, so to speak, and Black people elected their own to office. Yet, problems loomed.

Soon, Rev. Jackson became a big player in the Democratic Party by the 1980’s though he was not part of the Congressional Black Caucus which formed in 1972 in Congress. Some Black Republicans also emerged. People forget, from 1865 to the 1930’s, Black people were Republicans mostly.

Ronald Reagan was elected President in 1980, Jimmy Carter’s racial inclusive centrism was rejected, for various reasons. The economy. Iran’s Revolution. Gas prices. Reagan, a pretty disturbing President, who used the race card like a shooter uses screens in basketball, wanted to do a Cher for white Americans: turn back time.

He tried.

Jesse Jackson ran for President in 1984 and even more boldly in 1988. In 1988, he was the clear #2 candidate with 7 million votes and strong union support. His agenda was progressive. His agenda was working class focused. His agenda was controversial to the GOP and centrist Democrats. Progressives and independents loved it. He had to be stopped.

The Democrats picked a conservative Democrat to run as VP on the ticket with the liberal, Michael Dukakis for President. They got crushed. The GOP pulled out their Willie Horton ads and so it goes.

It was a fatal choice and disrespectful to Black people on so many levels.

Amiri Baraka, the late poet, and activist, told us in Washington D.C., that progressives and left Democrats could not get into the Democratic Convention in Atlanta in 1988. He also said they wanted to tell Jesse Jackson to walk. Tell the Democrats the Black vote was done with them.

Jesse didn’t do it. He did get some power within the Democratic Party for falling on his sword. Ron Brown, his floor manager at the 1988 Convention, became party Chairman and helped to elect Bill Clinton in 1992.

But as for Jesse, I remember Amiri Baraka saying, we didn’t send you to Atlanta to build alliances with the Democratic Party; we sent you there to get us self-determination.

That was the fork in the road.

In 1992, Bill Clinton, a centrist Democrat did win but mostly because Ross Perot, the independent was also running, and because the economy was in the crapper. He commenced to hacking the New Deal to shreds, throwing millions of poor people and Black people into prison, and rode that wave for a second term.

His infidelities also rose to the surface and his VP, Al Gore, the loyal centrist could not shake the Clinton ghost. George Bush creeped to a win in 2000. He would hold office for 8 years and really nothing much would happen for Black people in a serious way except of their own making.

Black people, in other words, began to do what they always do in the U.S.; they pushed forward on their own. They treaded water in an ocean full of racist serpents and sharks. Black people kept going to prison.

Black people continued to not get equal justice in any sort of way.

Finally, in 2008, a breakthrough, right? Or so we thought.

Barack Obama, a Black man, was elected President of the United States. The very first Black person to win the post. It was political orgasm. But not for Black people, really. It was mostly for liberal whites. The guilt got the best of them and they got behind a Black man who said he was progressive but was mostly just an insider. Racism surged and Obama governed as a pragmatist. He endured eight years of political carpet bombing. He got a few big things done but mostly he brought a sense of dignity and respect and competence to the office.

He kept the rich, rich. He made the bankers happy.

His Charleston moment is one for the ages. Somehow, he found words to make sense of the racist violence that happened there to those murdered in a church by a racist teen.

We surely did not move forward collectively under Obama but one thing for sure, white supremacy proved it is the religion of America, the dominant religion of the masses. Black people, despite everything, knew what we have always known, that we are on our own.

Even the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. knew that before he was killed:

And Barack Obama’s rise woke the hardcore racists from their slumber. Donald Trump organized this angry mob using a fake and racist controversy over Mr. Obama’s birthplace and rode that sadistic madness into office. That was 2016.

It is now 2020. Donald Trump has been voted out. He received 74 million votes though he is a hardcore racist and incompetent. He also has governed during a public health crisis that has already claimed 290,000 lives in the U.S.

Still, he got millions of votes.

The silver lining: though be got more Black votes than he received in 2016, Black people overwhelmingly voted against him. In fact, in Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Georgia, they were the reason Trump got canned.

What does all of this mean? Aluta Continua. The Struggle Continues.

Black people don’t need to assimilate. We are assimilated. Black people need self determination and freedom. Somehow, we have lost sight of the goal through all of these political somersaults.

No worry. We are back on track. The young Black people are fired up. They know what they want. Take it from me, someday we will all be free.

We have always gotten back on track. Don’t let the spin get you down. Keep on pushing.