In Theodore H. White’s monumental ‘The Making Of The President 1964’ he canvasses the racial unrest of that election year. He makes the point that the Black riots were not actually inter-racial rioting but for the most part involved Black destruction of their own property in their ghetto’s out of frustration with their lowly economic and social situation in urban areas.
“Despair incubated the riots but dogma created the thought climate which released them. The first dogma best summed up by “power structure”…not only government but every system of decision making in American life and every crevice of privilege within it”.
The Republican candidate epitomized this power structure concept in every way possible, a white, ultra-conservative South-westerner who voted against the Civil Rights Act. A Republican Party viewed as the mainstay of country club exclusivity, the rich and big business. The fact that Goldwater was not a racist and voted as he did out of a passion for small government and states’ rights was as nothing to the impression of him and his party by Blacks.
LBJ was correct when stating “I think we just delivered the South to the Republicans for a long time to come” That he also said “We will have those N’s voting for us for 200 years” is debatable (but in character) but most certainly, apart from the Carter and Clinton special cases, the Southern switch from Dem to GOP happened-Goldwater actually carried six deep south states and the change became locked in with Nixon’s “Southern strategy.”
Conversely the Black support for the Democratic party became adamantine, especially with Black women, which reached its zenith at 98% for Obama and its nadir at Black vote of 4% for McCain.
Given this immediate reaction to the Civil Rights Legislation nothing, even the summer of riots that commenced with the Watts conflagration rioting and looting, again, in their own neighborhoods, could change Blacks hard-fast links to the Democratic Party:
“During a campaign stop Johnson talked about the Blacks. He could see those eighteen-and nineteen-year-old Blacks jumping right off the ground. The reporters couldn’t see it; they were too far back in in the procession. But some of them seemed to get right in in the air and walk on it, as if he were Jesus Christ”
But change has come.
Trump’s first election saw him receive circa 10% of the Black vote, mostly a Black male shift with Black voting numbers dropping in key urban areas (plus stay at homes) which also assisted his Electoral College win by small margins in the key “rust belt states” where factory closures and outsourcing hit all members of the working class hard. Before Covid Black unemployment reached the lowest levels in history and Trump’s outreach to Blacks, most visibly with his pardoning of high-profile Blacks of history (the boxer Jack Johnson for example) and others current at the time, and the befriending, then appointment of Dr Ben Carson to a cabinet position.
During Trump’s years there has been an increasing number of Black Republican candidates and successful office achievers which has further signalled the near complete change of the image and fact of the white exclusionist GOP to a working-class party encompassing all races. Hispanics, not as burdened by a historical past as Blacks, have transitioned faster with, for example, the remarkable switch of South Florida from a Dem bastion to now a GOP one, and the latest NBC poll showing Trump has gained a majority of Hispanic support over Biden.
A study of the polling from 23 polls with a reported subset of Black voter intention to support Trump has found the remarkable figure of an aggregate of such intent at, now updated, 21%. Given Trump’s 10% in 2016 was enough to enable his victory and discounting the unique Covid election, even if that figure came down to 16% in 2024 that would have a profound effect on the outcome.
The GOP had a female vice-presidency candidate for the first time in their history in 2008, a Black vice-presidential candidate of the profile and qualifications of Dr Carson or Senator Tim Scott in 2024 would bring into effect the final act in a long transition to inclusivity and set the stage for the GOP to become the majority party.
Ref: NBC Poll https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2024-election/poll-biden-trump-economy-presidential-race-rcna136834
Black Polling American Thinker https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2024/01/poll_analysis_a_surge_in_black_voter_support_for_trump.html
TY for the like Donna