KEEP HOPE ALIVE :

In Alabama Politics, How New Kid Won the Bloc (MICHAEL WILSON, July 3, 2002, NY Times)

The support of the Jefferson County Citizens Coalition, the most powerful local organization of black Democrats, once all but guaranteed the victory of its chosen candidate, from coroner to congressman.

On Saturday, though, the group met for an increasingly common ritual, an election post-mortem on why someone else won. Members discussed why a 34-year-old black newcomer named Artur Davis had beaten an Alabama institution, Earl F. Hilliard, 60, Alabama's first black congressman since Reconstruction.

They said Mr. Davis had too much money in his campaign for the June 25 Democratic primary runoff. They said they could not answer all the attack
advertisements, financed by contributors from out of state angered by Mr. Hilliard's criticism of Israel. They said they did not get out enough black voters to offset votes in "white boxes"--precincts--that were more supportive of Mr. Davis.

Then they looked at the returns. Their voters got out, all right. They just weren't theirs anymore. [...]

In unseating Mr. Hilliard, Mr. Davis, who faces no Republican opposition in November, has called into question the future, and relevance, of the traditional black political machine built by leaders of the civil rights movement.

The civil rights generation did great things for black people, but stopped being helpful to them over 30 years ago. Since then they've made the black vote a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Democratic Party in exchange for social welfare programs that have pretty much destroyed black communities, families, and a generation of young black men. It is long past time for new voices to emerge, voices that are not always raised to demand more from government, but instead demand more from the people themselves. Perhaps folks like Mr. Davis and Cory Booker in NJ can be those new voices. Posted by Orrin Judd at July 3, 2002 3:22 PM