Note:
Gunnar Myrdal died in 1987, less than 70 years ago.
Therefore, this work is protected by copyright,
restricting your legal rights to reproduce it.
However, you are welcome to view it on screen, as you do now.
Read more about copyright.
Full resolution (TIFF) - On this page / på denna sida - V. Politics - 22. Political Practices Today - 3. The Negro Vote in the South
<< prev. page << föreg. sida << >> nästa sida >> next page >>
Below is the raw OCR text
from the above scanned image.
Do you see an error? Proofread the page now!
Här nedan syns maskintolkade texten från faksimilbilden ovan.
Ser du något fel? Korrekturläs sidan nu!
This page has never been proofread. / Denna sida har aldrig korrekturlästs.
488 An American Dilemma
who have voted in the last five or six years.’*® There are the usual variations
within the South: there are more Negroes voting in cities than in rural
areas. This is not only because there is slightly greater liberality toward
Negroes in the cities, but also because the nonpartisan election is a phenom-
enon almost restricted to cities. There are also more votes permitted to
Negroes as we approach the Northern states. The recent increases in
Negro voting are registered mainly in the Border states, in the Upper
South and in Oklahoma.®
There is one other type of election that is important to the Negro in
the South. The Agricultural Adjustment Act requires that cotton owner-
operators, tenants, and sharecroppers vote to indicate whether they want
the application of the crop restriction program. Negroes have participated
in unrestricted numbers in these annual elections (since 1938) and have
voted in perhaps even greater proportion than whites. They vote at the
same polling places as whites and at the same time. There is little physical
opposition from the whites because the majority favor crop control, and
they know that Negroes will vote in favor of itj they are told that if
Negroes are prevented from voting, the election will be illegal. They
also know that any irregularity would be observed by federal administra-
* Bunche’s specific estimates are as follows: Mississippi probably has fewest Negroes
voting—only a few hundred “good” Negro aristocrats and school teachers. Louisiana had
2,007 ‘‘colored persons” registered in 1936, and these were practically all in or around
Baton Rouge and New Orleans. Only about half these Negroes actually voted. Next in order
came Alabama and South Carolina with about 1,500 Negro votes apiece j
South Carolina
had so few Negroes voting although there was a spontaneous (that is, not solicited by a
white machine) movement to get out the Negro vote in Greenville in 1939. There were
7.000 or 8,000 Negroes voting in recent years in Arkansas, and as many as 10,000 apiece
ill Georgia (mainly in Atlanta) and Florida (including Miami, where there was an up-
surge of Negroes in 1939 against the Klan). Virginia has recently permitted more Negroes
to vote so that now there may be as many as 20,000 Negro votes in that state. Texas, North
Carolina, Tennessee, and Oklahoma have a Negro vote of about 50,000 apiece. San Antonio
is an important center of Negro voting in Texas: Bellinger (formerly the father and now
the son) marshals the Negro vote there for the machine. City machines in Raleigh and
Durham are mainly responsible for the Negro votes in North Carolina. In Memphis,
Tennessee, too, a large number of Negroes are brought out to vote for “Boss” Crump and
other members of his machine. Other Negro votes arc solicited in Nashville and Chatta-
nooga, partly to challenge the influence of Crump in Tennessee state politics. East Tennessee
has some traditionally Republican counties in which a sparse Negro population votes.
Kentucky (with 80,000 to 100,000 Negro votes) and Missouri (with about 100,000 to
130.000 Negro votes) have a smaller Negro population than most of the states mentioned
thus farj their large Negro vote results from an almost unhampered Negro vote in the
cities. Some of the Negro voting in the South comes from towns which are populated and
governed almost completely by Negroes. There are probably less than a hundred towns and
villages of this sort, and they are small. While Negro voting is unrestricted for local office
in these towns, county and state oflacials usually sec to it that they have no voice in countv^
state or federal elections.
<< prev. page << föreg. sida << >> nästa sida >> next page >>
