How have African Americans voted over time? What types of candidates and issues have been effective in drawing people to vote? These are just two of the questions that The African American Electorate: A Statistical History attempts to answer by bringing together all of the extant, fugitive and recently discovered registration data on African-American voters from Colonial America to the present. This pioneering work also traces the history of the laws dealing with enfranchisement and disenfranchisement of African Americans and provides the election return data for African-American candidates in national and sub-national elections over this same time span. Combining insightful narrative, tabular data, and original maps, The African American Electorate offers students and researchers the opportunity, for the first time, to explore the relationship between voters and political candidates, identify critical variables, and situate African Americans' voting behavior and political phenomena in the context of America's political history.
Hanes Walton, Jr. is Professor of Political Science and senior research scientist in the Center for Political Studies at the University of Michigan. Sherman C. Puckett is a Ph.D. graduate of the University of Michigan in urban and regional planning. Donald R. Deskins, Jr. is a political geographer and Professor Emeritus of Sociology at the University of Michigan.
Preface Introduction Chapter 1. The State of African American Election Data Chapter 2. The Literature on the African American Electorate Chapter 3. The African American Electorate in the Colonial Era, 1610-1773 Chapter 4. The African American Electorate in the Revolutionary Era, 1774-1789 Chapter 5. The Electoral Context in Antebellum America, 1788-1861 Chapter 6. The African American Electorate in Antebellum and Civil War America, 1788-1867 Chapter 7. The Reversal of African American Suffrage Rights prior to the Fifteenth Amendment, 1788-1870 Chapter 8. Suffrage Referenda Prior to the Fifteenth Amendment, 1846-1870 Chapter 9. Voting Behavior of the African American Electorate Prior to the Fifteenth Amendment, 1788-1870 Chapter 10. The First African American Nominees and Public Office Holders, 1776-1870 Chapter 11. The National Equal Rights League Chapter 12. The Civil War Election and the African American Soldiers' Vote, 1864 Chapter 13. African American Voter Registration and Turnout in 1867 Southern State Elections Chapter 14. African American Voting Behavior in the First Presidential and Congressional Elections after the Abolition of Slavery in the South, 1868 and 1872 Chapter 15. African American Voting Behavior in the First Presidential and Congressional Elections After the Abolition of Slavery in the Border, Midwest, and Far West States, 1868 and 1872 Chapter 16. African American Voting Behavior in Subsequent Elections Through Disenfranchisement, 1868 to 1920 Chapter 17. African American Voting and Non-Voting Behavior in the Era of Disenfranchisement (1888-1908) and Beyond Chapter 18. The Lodge Bill and Beyond Chapter 19. African American Voters and Electoral Empowerment in the North, 1876-1944 Chapter 20. The Enfranchisement of African American Women: 1669-1921 Chapter 21. The Electoral Revolt of the African American Voters in 1920-1921 and Beyond Chapter 22. African American Registration and Voting in the South, 1920-1944 Chapter 23. African American Registration and Voting in the South, 1944-1965 Chapter 24. Rare African American Registration and Voting Data Chapter 25. The 1965 Voting Rights Act, Expansions and Renewals, 1970, 1975, 1982, 1992, and 2006 Chapter 26. Felon and Ex-Felon Disenfranchisement Chapter 27. African American Voting Rights in a Historic Presidential Election Chapter 28. Summary and Conclusions Appendices Cumulative Bibliography Copyright Acknowledgments Index
"This unique and original resource investigates the African American voting experience from colonial times to the present...Overall, this source is a cross between a reference work and an in-depth academic analysis. With its hundreds of charts and footnotes, it has elements of both. The level of depth here makes this resource more appropriate for academic libraries." -- Michael Tosko * Booklist * "This work stands out by going beyond a strict linear examination of the African American electorate to present an overlapping analysis that reflects the historical ebbs and flows of participation and disenfranchisement. An outstanding contribution to research on the African American electorate." -- Choice * Choice *
