Voting Hopes or Fears?: White Voters, Black Candidates, and Racial Politics in America

by Keith Reeves

Overview

When President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the 1965 Voting Rights Act, he explained that it flowed from "a clear and simple wrong." But a generation later, whites still remain resistant to the election of blacks to public office. That widespread resistance, Keith Reeves illustrates, can be explained in large part by election campaign appeals to whites' racial fears and sentiments. Based on empirical research examining white voters' attitudes towards black candidates and racial framing of campaign news coverage, Voting Hopes or Fears? explosively documents that racial discrimination against black candidates is contemporary, specific, and identifiable. Reeves concludes by outlining possible remedies such as modified at-large voting systems and by defending the practice of race-conscious legislative districting, now under attack by the Supreme Court. Marshaling startling evidence of voting discrimination against black candidates on account of race, and featuring a Foreword by The Honorable A. Leon Higginbotham Jr., Chief Justice Emeritus of the US Court of Appeals, Voting Hopes or Fears? will be mandatory reading for political and social scientists, scholars of racism and African-American Studies, civil rights litigators, journalists, black lawmakers and office-seekers, and general readers interested in the subject of race and politics in American society.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780195356397
Publisher:	Oxford University Press
Publication date:	10/23/1997
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
File size:	2 MB

About the Author

Keith Reeves is Assistant Professor of Public Policy in the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvrad University. A former Henry Luce Scholar, he graduated from Swarthmore College, attened Oxford University, and holds a Ph.D. from the University of Michigan. He was an expert witness in Hays v. Louisiana III, a Federal court challenge to the creation of Louisiana's 4th majority-black Congressional District.

Table of Contents

	Foreword	xiii
I	Our Intractable Problem
1	Race--A Political Lightning Rod	13
2	Voting Discrimination against Black Candidates	25
II	The Empirical Evidence
3	The Print Press--Making an Issue of Race	45
4	The Persistence of Racial Prejudice in the Electorate	61
5	The Consequences of Cueing Subtle Appeals to Race	76
III	Affirmative Action and Equal Political Opportunity Revisited
6	In Pursuit of a Level Playing Field	93
Appendix A	The Content Analysis Study	113
Appendix B	The 1992 Biracial Election Campaign Study	115
Appendix C	The Voting Rights Act	119
	Notes	145
	References	155
	Table of Cases	172
	Index	173

Editorial Reviews

"This volume is required reading for undergraduate and gradaute students and faculty concerned with black political reality in the US."—Choice

From the Publisher