Both parties ultimately realized that the Black vote was important. So that by 1940 Democrats were actively courting the Black vote as were Republicans who had suddenly revised their former positions. In cases where Democrats won the presidency they differed little from their Republican counterparts doling out patronage positions to Blacks which was a feature of Republican rule.
And in some cases Democratic presidents who actively sought Black support and votes, promised much and delivered nothing. For example, President Woodrow Wilson in 1912 promised much to gain the Black vote. Once he was in the White House, it became crystal clear that he had used the Black vote to gain political office but that his concepts of self-determination and democracy were confined to white America and did not include Blacks born in America.
Today Blacks have been left hanging again. Locked out of the political process during the Republican Reagan/Bush years, they supported a Democrat in the person of Bill Clinton. He like his predecessors actively courted the Black vote, even though he was careful not to anger and alienate the "democratic rednecks" in the party. Apart from the few Black positions nothing has really changed.
Now with the Democrats in control of both the House of Representatives and the Senate there is a glimmer of hope that things will be better for Black people. But the Black community must keep its fingers crossed because the established power relations are exceedingly hard to reform, much less revolutionize. The position that this “ole boys club” will only serve the interests of the financial Oligarchs is well founded and valid. I have no optimism that this is about to change simply because the Democrats are in control. Call it remembering the historical past or simply a creeping distrust.
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