From the Origins to the Present-Day Relationships between the African American Community and the Republican Party

Abstract

This article is devoted to the consideration of the relationship between the Republican Party and the black population of the United States. The paper analyzes the historical reasons that influenced the sharp weakening of the position of the Republicans in the African American community. Exploring the characteristics of the electoral behavior of the black population of the country, this article focuses on how groups of voters are traditionally attributed to Republican supporters, for example, by age or income level, behave differently in the case of African Americans. In this regard, the paper examines in detail the specific features inherent in black Republicans, which distinguish them from the majority of the representatives of the African American community who support the Democrats. The study analyzes various measures that the Republican Party currently continues to take in an attempt to increase support among the black population. Particular attention is paid to the problem of interracial relations, as one of the most important factors preventing the Republicans from changing their image in the eyes of the majority of African Americans.

INTRODUCTION

The popular comedy show Key & Peele by the African-American comedians Keegan-Michael Key and Jordan Peele, which aired on television from 2012 to 2015, features a sketch about black supporters of the Republican Party. The viewer sees the so-called fifth annual meeting of black Republicans of the city of Tallahassee (Florida). The meeting is attended exclusively by men who have the same manner of communication, habits, and appearance. At the same time, they say that they are extremely dissatisfied with the events taking place in the country and, in particular, with the allegations that African Americans are an electoral monolith voting for the Democrats. These black Republicans proudly proclaim the diversity of opinion in the African-American community, as evidenced by the thirteen men seated in the auditorium, with half the seats remaining vacant. The men insist that the issues of taxes, military security of the country, and the weakening of the interference of the federal center in the affairs of the states are extremely important for every African American. At the end of the scene, a single man with an Afro haircut, who ironically turns out to be white, enters the audience, who says that a white wife is calling someone out of those present. All the black men immediately get up and go to the exit, thinking that it is their spouse who is trying to get in touch. This sketch, in a humorous manner, demonstrated the widespread conviction of many African Americans about the isolation of black Republicans from the mainstream of their people.

The “Grand Old Party,” as the Republican Party is often called, has come a long way in its dealings with the African American community. A number of historical decisions, as well as the continuous process of evolution of the Republican program base, led to the conviction of the majority of representatives of black America that the activities of the “Party of Lincoln,” which had once granted African Americans their long-awaited emancipation from slavery, were no longer compatible with their interests. Despite this, the Republican Party has not lost hope of finding the nerve that would allow it to change its relationship with the African American community for the better. Back in the second half of the 1980s, the well-known Republican politician Lee Atwater said that if the “Great Old Party” wanted to become the power of the majority, it needed to achieve the support of at least 20% of the African American electorate.1 With the proportion of white Americans in the US population continuing to decline, the Republican Party cannot afford to accept the complete loss of such a significant electoral force as African Americans, who make up more than 12% of the population of the country.

THE RELATIONSHIP OF AFRICAN AMERICANS AND THE REPUBLICAN PARTY

During the existence of the Republican Party, its relationship with the African American community has repeatedly undergone significant changes. Founded in 1854, the Republicans from the very beginning acted as opponents of the system of slavery in the United States. During the American Civil War (1861–1865), the Republican President Abraham Lincoln made the issue of abolition of slavery one of the main tasks of the North in the war against the rebellious states of the Confederacy, led by Southern Democrats. The entry into force on December 18, 1865, of the Thirteenth Amendment to the US Constitution, which banned slavery throughout the country, rallied the black population around the liberator party.

During the Reconstruction era (1865–1877), it was African Americans who became the stronghold of the Republican Party in the states of the former Confederation. The granting of civil and political rights to freedmen under the Fourteenth (1868) and Fifteenth (1870) amendments to the Constitution allowed the federal government to make significant changes in the political, economic, and even socio-cultural life of the US South. African Americans actively joined the ranks of the “Party of Lincoln,” hoping that politics would become a social elevator for them to build a successful career.2 For the first time in history, African Americans appeared in the US federal Congress among the 22 black Republican representatives during the entire period of Reconstruction era. Black sheriffs, tax collectors, and other officials appeared in counties and cities in the Southern states with a significant African-American population, but 80% of elected positions were held by white managers. It should be noted that the socio-economic situation of most representatives of the African-American community of the South remained extremely difficult—the dream that the Republican-led federal government would provide every freedman “40 acres and a mule” remained unfulfilled.

Realizing that the South was no longer a threat to the unity of the country, the leadership of the Republican Party in the 1870s tried to shift the focus of its electoral base from African Americans to wealthy and middle-class white Southerners, many of whom had previously been disenfranchised for participation in the rebellion. In fact, the end of the Reconstruction era led to the restoration of power in the region of the Democratic Party, which began systematically to limit the voting rights of the black population through the introduction of property and educational qualifications, as well as the comprehensive establishment of a system of racial segregation, which was supposed to consolidate the secondary position of the African American community in the Southern states. In an effort to regain their former positions in the South, the Republicans repeatedly tried to pass through the US Congress bills to stimulate African-American education at the expense of public funds and access to private funds, as well as the introduction of federal control over voter registration and elections.3 The failure of these measures, which could have shaken the political system built by Southern Democrats, led to the fact that the Republicans actually resigned themselves to the power of the Democratic Party in the South.

Not being able really to influence the position of African Americans in the US South, the Republican Party, however, did not refuse to imitate the image of the defender of the interests of the black population. Republican presidents continued to practice paternalism towards African Americans, but the scope was not comparable to the period of Reconstruction era. With the Democratic Party representing an even less friendly political force towards African Americans, the black population predominantly continued to support the Republicans, who acted as guarantors that legislative racism could not significantly spread beyond the Southern states. However, during the 1928 presidential campaign, Republican Party candidate Herbert Hoover used a new “Southern strategy” to win the votes of the local white population: the Republican not only promised to modernize the agrarian region, but also declared support for a policy of racial segregation, which significantly hurt support for the “Party of Lincoln” in the African American community.4

The consequences of the “Great Depression” of 1929–1933, coupled with the “New Deal” of Democratic President Franklin Roosevelt, which followed it, aimed at profound transformations in the socio-economic sphere, led to the beginning of tectonic shifts in the electoral preferences of the African American community. Despite the fact that the Democrats in no way tried to change the interracial order that existed in the South, they embarked on an active paternalistic policy towards African Americans in large cities of the Northeast and Midwest, and black delegates were even admitted to the party’s national convention in 1936.5 At the same time, it is important to note that the approval of Roosevelt’s candidacy among African Americans, who received more than 70% of their votes in the elections, significantly outstripped the rating of his party among black voters.6

At the end of World War II, the success of the Democrats in the struggle for the African-American electorate influenced the next head of the White House, Harry Truman, who created the President’s Committee on Civil Rights. However, in the face of active obstruction by Southern Democrats, Truman managed to achieve only the desegregation of the US military. The Republican administration of President Dwight Eisenhower sought to seize the initiative in the struggle for the votes of the black population. According to the results of two presidential races in 1952 and 1956, Eisenhower was able to increase the number of his black voters from 20% to almost 40%.7 The President supported the enforcement of the US Supreme Court’s 1954 decision to desegregate the nation’s schools and sent Congress a proposal for the first civil rights law since the Reconstruction era. However, when the law was passed in 1957, federal commissions could only record cases of discrimination against the voting rights of African Americans, but not eliminate them.8 Throughout the 1950s, both parties did not dare to come out strongly in support of the civil rights of the black population, despite the intensification of the struggle of the African American community against racial discrimination.

In the 1960 elections, Democratic candidate John F. Kennedy managed to rebrand his party, presenting it as a progressive political force. During the campaign, Kennedy met with African-American civil rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr., which made a huge impression on the black population. The assassination of Kennedy in 1963, which paved the way for a legislative solution to the problem of civil rights in the United States, did not affect the set course of the federal authorities. In 1964, the US Congress, with bipartisan support, signed the Civil Rights Act, which banned racial discrimination in trade, services, and employment.

However, the attitude within the Republican Party to this issue soon changed, due to the massive transition to its ranks of Southern Democrats who opposed the new racial policy of their party leadership. The Republican nominee in the 1964 presidential election was Barry Goldwater, whose program was reactionary in nature and was aimed at protecting the rights of the states, as well as against the earlier civil rights law. The Republican nominee received the support of white Southerners, but more than 90% of black voters voted for Democrat Lyndon Johnson.9 The 1964 election marked a watershed for African Americans and the GOP, with black Republican support now falling to around 10%.

The conservative turnaround of the Republican Party continued under Richard Nixon. Despite the creation of the Office of Minority Affairs in 1969 and the National Council of Black Republicans, the Republicans increasingly positioned themselves as a predominantly white majority party: in the conditions when the “Party of Lincoln” finally got the white voters of the South, the loss of African American votes seemed an acceptable victim. In turn, the Democrats attracted black voters by expanding the welfare system, with political paternalism in relation to racial and ethnic minorities, and also by increasing the intervention of the federal center in socio-economic issues. Through an influential network of African-American conservative scholars and experts that emerged in the late 1970s, the Republicans sought to educate middle and upper blacks about the benefits of free-market socioeconomic policies. However, the policy of the Republican administration of Ronald Reagan in the 1980s, aimed at lowering taxes, reducing social security, reducing federal interference in “state rights,” and tightening criminal justice, was perceived by African Americans as generally directed against the interests of their community.10

The African-American community perceived the new wave of black political conservatism not as an organic ideology that appeared at the grassroots level, but as a model imposed from above of the desired interracial relations in the country, from the point of view of white Americans. A significant number of the black population became entrenched in the opinion that the policy of the Republican Party, regardless of the presence of individual advantages of its program, is predominantly racist and discriminatory against the African American community.

ELECTORAL BASE OF REPUBLICANS

Traditionally, the Republican Party in the United States is considered to be supported by voters with upper middle incomes, the older generation, and those who adhere to conservative values. This point of view is largely true of all racial and ethnic groups inhabiting the United States, with the exception of African Americans. Back in the late 1970s, Republican think tanks were confident that, as the economic performance of the African-American community improved, their party would be able to secure a significant number of middle and upper black votes.11 However, this did not happen: class interests could not supplant racial ones.

The long struggle of the African-American community against the system of racial discrimination has formed the main feature of the behavior of black voters, who continue to act as an electoral monolith in many respects. From the point of view of the average African American, individual interests should give way to group interests, since only in conditions of maintaining unity can the demands of the black minority be heard.

In speaking of African Americans with high and middle incomes, it should be noted that their economic status is much more the result of the actions of governments led by the Democratic Party, aimed at counteracting, from their point of view, discriminatory free market practices through the introduction of a system of racial–ethnic quotas when hiring. Thus, a large number of highly paid African Americans are employees of the public sector and link their financial well-being precisely with the policies of the Democrats.12

The conservatism of African Americans, the most religious racial and ethnic group in the United States,13 is also no guarantee of their sympathy for the Republicans, who rely on the support of traditional Christian values. Despite the fact that African Americans are the most loyal Democratic electorate, they are also the most conservative racial–ethnic group among their supporters. Pew Research Center polls conducted in 2019 found that less than 30% of black Democrats identified as liberal, while 25% identified themselves as conservatives and another 40%, as moderates. At the same time, if the social policy of the Democratic Party is widely approved by black voters, then issues related to the rights of the LGBT community and climate change issues are of much less interest on their part.14

Finally, if older white Americans are significantly more supportive of the Republican Party, then older African Americans are the most loyal group of Democratic voters. The reasons for this are the life experiences lived by the black population during the era of racial segregation, as well as the active struggle for civil rights in the 1950s and 1960s. In the eyes of African Americans of the older generation, the Democratic Party acts as a guarantor and defender of the rights of the black population.15

So what segments of the African-American community does the Republican Party rely on? In fact, in no social, age, gender, or regional group of the black population do the supporters of the Republicans, whose total number is approximately 10%, have a majority. At the same time, this support is more visible among certain groups of African Americans than among others.

It is important to note that, unlike white Americans, there are no significant differences in political preferences among the black population depending on the level of education. While white college graduates are slightly more likely to support Democrats, non-college white Americans vote heavily Republican. In turn, supporters of the Democrats dominate among all educational groups of African Americans. However, it is important to note that in the 2020 presidential election, support for the Republican Donald Trump among black men proved to be stable across all educational groups, from high school graduates to PhDs, being at the 20% mark.16

Thus, one of the striking facts is the higher level of support for the Republican Party among black men compared to women. The presidential elections of the last 20 years have shown that the difference between black men and women casting their votes for a Republican candidate is, on average, 10%. For example, in the 2016 elections, Trump received 13% of the votes of black men and 4% of black women,17 while following the results of the 2020 election campaign, he enlisted the support of 9% of black women and 19% of black men.18 It should be noted that, among all racial–ethnic groups in the United States, men are more inclined to support the Republican Party than women, and African Americans are no exception to this rule, although such a gender gap in political preferences among them is not as noticeable as among white Americans.

Speaking about the greater inclination of conservative layers to support the Republican Party, it should be noted that the black population of the South, according to polls and studies, to a slightly greater extent, by a few percent, more often identifies with the Republicans.19 Such data may cause concern in view of the fact that it is the black population of the Southern states that has experienced much more racist attitudes towards themselves throughout history. In fact, this can be explained by the less urbanized population of the region and the higher degree of religiosity and commitment to traditional Christian values of the black population of the South in comparison with African Americans living in other parts of the country.20 For example, in the state of Mississippi, African Americans (38% of the state’s population) make up 29% of its conservative-minded residents, while in the state of New York, where 25% of African Americans live, their share among the region’s conservatives is only 13%.21 As mentioned earlier, the commitment of African Americans to conservative views does not in itself mean their support for Republicans. Nevertheless, in the 2000 presidential election, Republican George W. Bush managed to enlist significant support from conservative African Americans, and in the 2020 election, more than half (52%) of black men who held conservative views voted for Trump.22

Differences in political preferences among different generations of African Americans, in turn, are much more noticeable. If the features of historical memory allow Democrats to have a rating consistently above 90% among older African Americans, then among younger generations who did not observe the events of the mid-20th century that were significant for black America, the indicators of this support are much more modest. For example, polls in June 2020 by the Ipsos Research Center and The Washington Post showed that less than half of African Americans under the age of 30 were going to vote for Democratic nominee Joe Biden in the 2020 presidential election. Among black youth, there was a high level of support for independent political forces, and one-third of those surveyed said that they were not going to go to the polls, since none of the main parties in the country, in their understanding, represented the interests of the African American community.23 At the same time, another study conducted in the summer of 2020 by the American University of the District of Columbia showed a noticeably more benevolent attitude of young and middle-aged African Americans towards the Republican Party compared to the older generation.24 In the 2020 presidential election, Trump received only 7% of the older African American vote, and his share of support among black voters aged 30 to 44 was 19%.25

Finally, one of the main criteria for the political preferences of the black voter is his racial identification: African Americans who demonstrate a lower level of racial consciousness tend to vote for the Republicans. As noted, the African-American community is extremely group-conscious, part of which has become a political culture based on loyalty to the Democratic Party. Ignoring group activity in favor of individual choice may indicate an individual’s unwillingness to sacrifice one’s own personal interests for the supposed common good of the African-American community.26 African Americans with a lower level of racial consciousness are more likely to be interested in public order, national defense, foreign affairs, and other important issues facing the country as a whole. In turn, social security and civil rights issues that define the African American community are less significant for black voters who tend to vote for the Republican Party.

Thus, the average black Republican is a middle-aged man, with or without a college education, who holds predominantly conservative views based on traditional Christian values. At the same time, the black Republican is more supportive of ideals based on individualism and also does not support widespread state intervention in socio-economic life. Due to the low level of racial consciousness, he is unwilling to give up personal interests and views, even if they diverge from the position of the majority of representatives of the African American community in the political sphere.

MODERN REPUBLICAN MEASURES

Despite the fact that the current level of support for the Republican Party among the black population continues to be stable at around 10%, its leaders have not given up hope of doubling this figure in the short term. In an environment where the traditional agenda of the “Grand Old Party” is not attractive to most African Americans, the Republicans expect that certain measures and proposals will contribute to a systematic increase in the number of their supporters among the black population.

Certain shifts in this direction were noted even by the administration of George W. Bush, Jr., which sought to revive the tradition of active paternalism in the ranks of the Republicans in relation to black members of the party. African Americans held important positions in the Bush, Jr., administration: Rod Page was secretary of education, Alphonso Jackson was secretary of housing and urban development, and Colin Powell and Condoleezza Rice served as Secretary of State, the highest public appointment for blacks at the time. At the same time, during the presidency of the first black head of the White House, Barack Obama, from 2009 to 2017, it was extremely difficult for Republicans to count on an increase in their support among African Americans.

Significant attempts to achieve a shift in the attitude of the black population towards the Republican Party were made by the Donald Trump administration, despite the fact that scandals over racism accompanied the head of the White House throughout his presidential term. Republicans sought to enlist the support of the African-American community on several fronts, including education, criminal justice, and, above all, the economy.

The Trump administration promoted the idea of reforming school education based on the widespread use of the voucher system, which George W. Bush, Jr., tried to implement at one time. The education voucher plan, which provided for the allocation of funds from the state budget to parents equal to the size of the annual allowance of the student for the independent choice of an educational institution for the child, found great support among the African American community. According to surveys in 2018, if the overall level of support for the voucher system was 58% of respondents, then among black respondents, who are more dissatisfied with the quality of education in public schools, this figure was close to 70%.27 However, the voucher plan again stumbled over the categorical opposition of the Democrats, who believe that this reform will have an extremely detrimental effect on public schools, leading to a mass exodus of students to private schools. At the same time, the Republicans, together with the Democrats, participated in the adoption in December 2019 of a law on the annual allocation of $250 million to higher education institutions in the country with a large percentage of black students.28

The Republican Party and the Trump administration were also active in criminal justice reform. In December 2018, the “First Step Act” law was signed, which made it possible to soften the system of punishments by abolishing mandatory minimum terms of imprisonment and automatically assigning a long prison term, actually life, for committing three serious crimes based on the “Three Strikes” laws adopted earlier in the 1990s. The new law also increased the chances of those convicted of getting parole for good behavior and provided a number of opportunities for the rehabilitation of those who had served their sentences.29 As researchers noted in 2017, the liberalization of the criminal system, first of all, should have met the interests of the black population, since their representatives made up the largest percentage of prisoners (33%) among all racial and ethnic groups. A US Sentencing Commission report released in June 2019 confirmed these assumptions: of the 1051 prisoners who received release or reduced sentences after the First Step Act began, more than 91% were black.30

The Republican Party’s highest hopes were tied to the economic success of the Trump administration. As part of the 2017 tax law, a program was launched to create “opportunity zones” to increase the size of investment and the number of jobs in economically depressed areas of the country. The program, which provides massive tax breaks to potential investors in areas with a poverty rate of 25% or more, was received positively by the African American public, with black politicians declaring support, such as Republican Senator Tim Scott of South Carolina and Democratic Senator Cory Booker of New Jersey. The first “opportunity zones” appeared in April 2018, and in 2020 African Americans made up 23% of their population.31

In the context of a steady growth in US GDP, unemployment in the country began to decrease sharply, including among African Americans, reaching a record low of 5.5% among the black population, recorded in August 2019.32 The poverty rate among black Americans in the same year was 18.8%, reaching the lowest level since the first such survey in 1959.33 The COVID-19 pandemic, which led to an economic crisis in the United States, has seriously hit the black population, the unemployment of which jumped to almost 17% in April 2020.34 In the midst of the election race in September 2020, the Trump administration announced the completion of the so-called “platinum plan” to allocate funds in the amount of half a trillion dollars to improve the situation of the black population by funding the creation of 500  000 new businesses and three million new jobs for African Americans.35 In the 2020 presidential election, Trump, unexpectedly for many experts, managed to double his result among black voters compared to 2016, receiving 12% of their votes.36 Nevertheless, this figure is still quite far from the desired 20%, which was not enough for Trump to keep his post in the White House.

At the present time, the leaders of the Republican Party continue to talk about the need to fight for the African American electorate. For example, Senator Marco Rubio said after the 2020 elections that the future of the Republican Party is based on a “multi-ethnic, interracial coalition of the working class.”37 However, the implementation of this plan rests on the difficulty of finding a compromise between the Republicans and the African American community on the issue of race relations in the United States. Polls conducted in the summer of 2021 by the Pew Research Center found that almost eight out of ten African American adults believe that there is systemic racism in the country: 58% of black respondents said that in order to achieve interracial equality in the United States, it is necessary to overhaul most national laws and basic institutions completely, since they are fundamentally biased towards racial and ethnic minorities, while another 19% of those surveyed said that the necessary changes can be made without radical changes to the entire system. In turn, supporters of the Republican Party, according to the survey, are overwhelmingly of the opinion that the situation with interracial relations does not require any major changes; only 7% of Republicans are sure that a radical restructuring of institutions in the country is necessary due to their fundamental racial bias.38

Most black Americans are convinced that it is necessary to reform law enforcement agencies in the United States, as institutions most prone to systemic racism, with the redistribution of funds in favor of social programs, as well as a deeper analysis of the problem of racism in the history of the country. All this should be accompanied not only by actions such as the renaming of military bases named after the commanders of the Southerners during the American Civil War or the dismantling of monuments to slave owners, but also by considering the issue of paying reparations for the period of slavery.39 In this regard, the Republican Party is considered by them as a political force striving to maintain the existing status quo in interracial relations in the United States, which means blocking any progress in the fight against systemic racism.

However, the situation is not hopeless for the Republicans in the foreseeable future. Among the African American community, there is a growing level of disillusionment with the social and economic policies of the Democratic administration of Joe Biden. Quinnipiac University Research polls conducted in January 2022 showed that Biden’s rating, and Democrats in general, fell among the black population to 57%.40 With African Americans growing irritated that the Democratic Party takes their presence among its loyal supporters for granted, the Republicans’ ability to compromise partially on the sensitive topic of interracial relations for the black population could be a serious bid for the gradual return of the former positions of the “Party of Lincoln” in the African American community.

CONCLUSIONS

Since the end of the American Civil War, African Americans have long been among the most loyal Republican voters. The reason for this was by no means the extraordinary disposition of the “Grand Old Party” to solve the problems of the black population, but the absence of a real political alternative. The turn of the African American community towards the Democratic Party, which began in the 1930s during the period of intense socio-economic action of Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal, ended in the 1960s after the leadership of the Democrats supported the struggle of the black population for civil equality. The Republican Party, having opted for a more conservative socio-economic policy, gained the support of the white South, but lost its significant influence among the black population, in which ideas about the racist and harmful nature of the Republican policy for the African American community were firmly entrenched.

Since the 1964 presidential election, the Republican Party’s rating among African Americans has hovered at 10%, rarely exceeding this figure. Black Republicans are nowhere near a majority in the African-American community by any measure. The average black Republican supporter is a middle-aged man who believes that his personal interests should not be sacrificed to the collective. Not wanting to be part of an electoral monolith, the black Republican has a lower level of racial consciousness in comparison with the majority of members of his community. In this regard, he is more concerned about issues that are closer to white Republicans, whether it be tax policy or national security, than issues traditionally important for black America, such as social programs or interracial relations.

Recognizing the limitations and weaknesses of its position among the black population, the Republican Party continues to take various measures to increase its influence in the African American community: seeking to initiate educational reform, supporting the liberalization of the criminal justice system, and focusing on how certain socio-economic measures positively affect the well-being of black Americans. However, the success of the Republicans in winning the votes of the black population from the Democrats largely depends on the ability of the “Grand Old Party” to find compromise solutions to the burning issues for the African American community, primarily in the field of interracial relations.

CONFLICT OF INTEREST

The author declares that he has no conflicts of interest.