The symbolic importance of Barack Obama's election is without question. But beyond symbolism, does the election of African-American politicians matter? Grose argues that it does and presents a unified theory of representation. Electing African-American legislators yields more federal dollars and congressional attention directed toward African-American voters. However, race and affirmative action gerrymandering have no impact on public policy passed in Congress. Grose is the first to examine a natural experiment and exceptional moment in history in which black legislators – especially in the U.S. South – represented districts with a majority of white constituents. This is the first systematic examination of the effect of a legislator's race above and beyond the effect of constituency racial characteristics. Grose offers policy prescriptions, including the suggestion that voting rights advocates, the courts, and redistricters draw 'black decisive districts', electorally competitive districts that are likely to elect African Americans.

Examines congressional responsiveness to the interests of citizens of color

In this incisive book Carol Swain explores what strategies are most likely to lead to greater representation of black political interests. She studies the constituency relations and roll-call voting of black members of Congress from a variety of districts--historically black, newly black, heterogeneous, and primarily white--and of white members from districts with either a black majority or a significant black minority. She challenges the proposition that only African Americans can represent black interests effectively, and argues that blacks must form coalitions with white representatives to serve black needs. Swain has updated this edition with a new chapter entitled "Black Congressional Representation since 1992."

Black Americans in Congress, 1870-2007 provides a comprehensive history of the more than 120 African Americans who have served in the United States Congress from 1870 through 2007. Individual profiles are introduced by contextual essays that explain major events in congressional and U.S. history. Illustrated with many portraits, photographs, and charts. House Document 108-224. 3d edition. Edited by Matthew Wasniewski. Paperback edition. Questions that are answered include: How many African Americans have served in the U.S. Congress? How did Reconstruction, the Great Migration, and the post-World War II civil rights movement affect black Members of Congress? Who was the first African American to chair a congressional committee? Read about: Pioneers who overcame racial barriers, such as Oscar De Priest of Illinois, the first African American elected to Congress in the 20th century, and Shirley Chisholm of New York, the first black CongresswomanMasters of institutional politics, such as Augustus "Gus" Hawkins of California, Louis Stokes of Ohio, and Julian Dixon of CaliforniaNotables such as Civil War hero Robert Smalls of South Carolina, civil rights champion Adam Clayton Powell, Jr., of New York, and constitutional scholar Barbara Jordan of TexasAnd many more. Black Americans in Congress also includes: Pictures-including rarely seen historical images-of each African American who has served in CongressBibliographies and references to manuscript collections for each MemberStatistical graphs and chartsA comprehensive index Other related products: African Americans resources collection can be found here: https://bookstore.gpo.gov/catalog/african-americans Biographical Directory of the United States Congress, 1774-2005 can be found here: https://bookstore.gpo.gov/products/sku/052-071-01418-7 Women in Congress, 1917-2006 --Hardcover format can be found here: https://bookstore.gpo.gov/products/sku/052-070-07480-9 United States Congressional Serial Set, Serial No. 14903, House Document No. 223, Women in Congress, 1917-2006 is available here: https://bookstore.gpo.gov/products/sku/552-108-00040-0 Hispanic Americans in Congress, 1822-2012 --Print Hardcover format can be found here: https://bookstore.gpo.gov/products/sku/052-071-01563-9 --Print Paperback format can be found here: https://bookstore.gpo.gov/products/sku/052-071-01567-1 --ePub format available for Free download is available here: https://bookstore.gpo.gov/products/sku/052-300-00008-8 --MOBI format is available for Free download here: https://bookstore.gpo.gov/products/sku/052-300-00010-0

Thirty years ago there were nine African Americans in the U.S. House of Representatives. Today there are four times that number. In Going Home, the dean of congressional studies, Richard F. Fenno, explores what representation has meant—and means today—to black voters and to the politicians they have elected to office. Fenno follows the careers of four black representatives—Louis Stokes, Barbara Jordan, Chaka Fattah, and Stephanie Tubbs Jones—from their home districts to the halls of the Capitol. He finds that while these politicians had different visions of how they should represent their districts (in part based on their individual preferences, and in part based on the history of black politics in America), they shared crucial organizational and symbolic connections to their constituents. These connections, which draw on a sense of "linked fates," are ones that only black representatives can provide to black constituents. His detailed portraits and incisive analyses will be important for anyone interested in the workings of Congress or in black politics.

From the Reconstruction of the 1870s to the Presidential politics of the 1980s, Representative Clay looks at African-American politicians and chronicles the founding of the Congressional Black Caucus, its high points and its low moments. b/w photographic insert.

Here, Katherine Tate examines the significance of race in the U.S. system of representative democracy for African Americans. Presenting important new findings, she offers the first empirical study to take up the question of representation from both sides of the constituent-representative relationship. The first half of the book examines whether black members of the U.S. House legislate and represent their constituents differently than white members do. Representation is broadly conceptualized to include not only legislators' roll call voting behavior and bill sponsorship, but also the symbolic acts in which they engage. The second half looks at the issue of representation from the perspective of ordinary African Americans based on a landmark national survey. Tate's findings are mixed. But, in the main, legislators' race does shape how they represent their constituents and how constituents evaluate them. African Americans view black representatives more positively than they do white representatives, even those who belong to their own political party. Black legislators, however, are just as likely as white representatives to sponsor and gain passage of bills in the House. Tate also concludes that black House members are more liberal as a group than are their black constituents, but that there is considerable divergence in the quality and type of representation they provide. The findings reported here will generate controversy in the fields of politics, law, and race, particularly as debate commences over renewing the Voting Rights Act, which is set to expire in 2007.

Here, Katherine Tate examines the significance of race in the U.S. system of representative democracy for African Americans. Presenting important new findings, she offers the first empirical study to take up the question of representation from both sides of the constituent-representative relationship. The first half of the book examines whether black members of the U.S. House legislate and represent their constituents differently than white members do. Representation is broadly conceptualized to include not only legislators' roll call voting behavior and bill sponsorship, but also the symbolic acts in which they engage. The second half looks at the issue of representation from the perspective of ordinary African Americans based on a landmark national survey. Tate's findings are mixed. But, in the main, legislators' race does shape how they represent their constituents and how constituents evaluate them. African Americans view black representatives more positively than they do white representatives, even those who belong to their own political party. Black legislators, however, are just as likely as white representatives to sponsor and gain passage of bills in the House. Tate also concludes that black House members are more liberal as a group than are their black constituents, but that there is considerable divergence in the quality and type of representation they provide. The findings reported here will generate controversy in the fields of politics, law, and race, particularly as debate commences over renewing the Voting Rights Act, which is set to expire in 2007.

Born a slave in 1850s South Carolina and elected to Congress in the 1890s, George W. Murray appeared to be the antithesis of the African American male in the Jim Crow South and served as a beacon for African Americans who saw their hopes crushed in the aftermath of the Civil War. Early in the twentieth century, however, tragically defeated by corrupt Reconstruction politics and white supremacist attitudes he could not escape, Murray was driven from office and from the state. Drawing on extensive research to reconstruct Murray’s life story, Marszalek defines an age and its people through the compelling battle of one man and shows how and why the nation’s efforts to reconstruct the South into a biracial democracy failed. Murray’s career, which spanned a quarter of a century, included two terms in the U.S. House of Representatives and leadership of South Carolina’s Republican party. He was an investor as well as a landed property owner who sold tracts to poor blacks in order for them to qualify to vote. But by the beginning of the twentieth century, with his party in shambles, he found himself on trial for alleged forgery in a land deal with two of his black land purchasers. Murray was found guilty, and the South Carolina Supreme Court upheld the verdict. Sentenced to hard labor on a chain gang, he escaped to Chicago where he spent the rest of his life in obscurity.