
          Checking the Teeth of Change
          By Suitts, SteveSteve Suitts
          Vol. 5, No. 5, 1983, p. 6
          
          The obvious changes in Southern politics usually deserve our most
intense suspicions, and Mississippi's recent democratic primary
election for the state legislature is only the most recent reminder of
this truism.
          After fifteen years of litigation, the Mississippi legislature was
forced by federal_court order to redistrict in 1979. The redistricting
plan created twenty-nine house districts and sixteen senate districts
of more than fifty percent black_population. Compared to the four
blacks who were then sitting with a hundred and seventy white
colleagues in the state legislature, the redistricting change prompted
one black newspaper in the state to proclaim "a political revolution
not witnessed in over a century."
          In 1979 a total of seventeen blacks were elected to the Mississippi
legislature. Earlier this year twenty-one were nominated in democratic
primaries and will probably be elected in early November. But in 1984
there will still be twice as many majority black_districts as there
will be black legislators in Mississippi. While these changes are
meaningful, Mississippi appears to have witnessed only half a
political revolution.
          "Not so," I was told, during my last trip to Mississippi, by a
young white lawyer who considers himself both politically
sophisticated and color blind. Commenting after three years spent away
from the state in an East coast law school, he said: "We have had a
revolution. Racial politics is almost dead in this state. Blacks don't
need to vote for a black face every time. They will vote for whites
who represent them and that's a real political change ...."
          Some, however, see it differently. Robert Jackson, a young black
with the Quitman County Development Organization, said, "we should
have the right to select our own leaders but are being hampered by not
having a fair chance at the ballot box. We are sick and tired of
whites choosing our leaders for us."
          While the interpretation of what has happened in Mississippi
elections is not at all obvious, the plain fact is that black
candidates ran and lost in more than forty-five majority black
legislative districts in the Democratic primary this summer. Some
black candidates lost because some blacks did vote for white
candidates such as Speaker of the House Buddie Newman. Yet Newman's
victory is not simon-pure evidence of the end of racial politics in
Mississippi (see Bill Minor's article in this issue). In addition,
several tainted factors continue to deny black_people equal footing at
the ballot box.
          Some Mississippi counties have dual sites for registration. The
places of registration still remain distant to most voters and are
open at infrequent times. In the rural Delta of Mississippi, for
example, the average black citizen must lose part of a day's work and
travel an average of thirty-nine miles to register to vote. These
problems are faced by both blacks and whites, but blacks more often
than whites have difficulty in leaving their work to register and,
because substantially fewer have automobiles, blacks find it more
difficult to travel long distances to the polls and to registration
sites.
          The election-day turnout is also a factor in Mississippi election
results. Blacks continue to turn out for elections in smaller
percentages than whites. Lack of transportation is one reason. Another
important reason, often overlooked, is historical: the average black
Mississippian was permitted to vote so recently that he has had an
opportunity to vote in only three or four presidential
elections. Blacks in Mississippi thus have only a short tradition of
political participation to help them overcome real or remembered acts
of intimidation for voting.
          These explanations prompt an almost universal response from white
rural legislators from Virginia to Mississippi: "What more do they
want? The courts have given blacks majority of the population in the
districts."
          Here lies the common misunderstanding and misrepresentation about
redistricting in the South. In Mississippi, what appears to be a
majority black district often is not. Blacks have a majority of the
total population in the Mississippi senate district that includes
Quitman County. Yet in rural Mississippi, and in much of the rural
South, the black_population is very old or very young. Hence, a
fifty-four percent black district is reduced by about seven percentage
points because of the difference between the percentage of the general
population of voting age and the percentage of blacks who are of
voting age. Hence a fifty-four percent black district is in fact a
forty-seven percent black district of voting age population.
          Black voting strength may be further reduced by another seven
percentage points because of the difference in registration between
blacks and whites. Here, the problem of dual registration, distance,
and a short history of political participation take their toll. Thus a
candidate in this Mississippi district of fifty-five percent black
population can expect that forty-one percent of those voting will be
black. When all the subtracting is done, the number of legislative
districts in Mississippi where black_voters are in the actual majority
is probably no more than twenty. This difference of almost fifteen
percentage points is why civil_rights lawyers active in voting cases
often assume that a legislative district that is less than sixty-five
percent black is not a district where the black_population has a
majority of those voting.
          Misunderstanding the nature of change in the region's politics is
one of the ancient temptations. With peculiar legalisms and political
shorthand, the nature of political change is also easily manipulated
in the public understanding. The folk wisdom, "the more things change,
the more they stay the same," is worth remembering in these days of
changing Southern politics.
          
            Steve Suitts is the executive director of the Southern
Regional Council.
          
        
