California: Where Black Politics Began

WASHINGTON — The biggest elections news next month will be whether Manhattan Borough President David N. Dinkins becomes the first black mayor of New York City and whether Lt. Gov. L. Douglas Wilder becomes the first black governor of Virginia--or any other state.

The underlying question in both contests: Can a black candidate be elected in a constituency where blacks are a relatively small minority? While the outcomes of the November races are still too close to call, Californians may be especially interested in the results, having already answered the question. Although blacks made up less than 15% of Los Angeles, Tom Bradley was elected mayor in 1973, 16 years before Dinkins was nominated in New York, where black people are 25% of the city’s population. Current Rep. Mervyn M. Dymally (D-Compton) became the first black person elected lieutenant governor of California in 1975, 10 years before Wilder won the same position in Virginia. Then in 1982, when the black population of California was proportionately much smaller than the black population of Virginia is today (about 19%), Bradley ran for governor and lost by a hairbreadth margin.

California’s brand of black politics has led the nation in other ways. Willie Brown (D-San Francisco) was elected Speaker of the State Assembly nine years before Washington’s Ron Brown was elected chairman of the Democratic National Committee. State Assemblywoman Maxine Waters (D-Los Angeles) was elected chair of the Democratic Caucus four years before Rep. William H. Gray III (D-Pa.) was elected chairman of the Congressional Democratic Caucus. In 1986, Waters wrote a law, vetoed by Gov. George Deukmejian, requiring state fund managers to divest stocks of companies doing business in South Africa. That was the same year black congressmen finally rammed through apartheid sanctions over President Reagan’s veto.

If the old axiom, “As Maine goes so goes the nation,” is true of presidential elections, the paraphrase--as California goes, so goes the nation--is true in black politics. California has set the agenda for important issues and developments in black politics across the nation.

Geography and demography help explain California’s exemplary position. Because most of state’s black population did not arrive until after World War II, California had no long history of legal segregation. The West didn’t experience the freedom rides or anything like the Montgomery bus boycott of 1955. California’s three largest cities do not have black majorities, unlike Georgia’s Atlanta, Michigan’s Detroit or New Jersey’s Newark. So in the early ‘70s, California did not experience a period when black people were first assuming political control in the biggest cities of a state.

In 1962, however, voters in Watts elected Augustus F. Hawkins (D-Los Angeles)--one of only five predominantly black congressional districts in the entire nation then represented by a black member of Congress.

Major precedents for black politics were set in 1970, when Berkeley elected Rep. Ron Dellums, the first black Democrat to win in a district where whites were in the majority. It would be 12 more years before another black candidate, Katie Hall of Indiana, won such a position--and only for one term.

The importance of the California experience has implications for the future. In the next decade, the tests will not be what black people can accomplish within their own communities, but what they can accomplish in coalition with other interest groups. Other than improving the numbers of registered voters and turnout, blacks have already mined the prospects within majority-black areas.

Excepting New Orleans, every congressional district with a black majority now has a black member of Congress. And, according to the Joint Center for Political Studies, the leading black think tank, every black-majority city with a population of more 200,000 people has a black mayor. Future growth of black political power then depends on what blacks can accomplish in coalition with whites, women, unions, business groups, political parties and other minorities. The key is coalition-building and that is where black people in California have had some truly remarkable successes.

With four black members of Congress, California and New York have the largest black delegations in the House, yet New York has more black citizens than California. Perhaps more important, all New York black congressmen are from districts where blacks make up no less than 47% of the voting-age population. Only one black congressman from California, Hawkins, comes from a heavily black area; Democrat Julian C. Dixon’s district, Culver City, is less than 40% black.

With the exception of one Missouri district, represented by Democrat Alan Wheat, only in California have black candidates been elected to Congress with so few black votes available--and survived for more than one term.

Turning the perspective around, California is where people who aren’t black are most likely to support a black candidate. A combination of political and psychological factors make the Golden State a fertile ground for black politics.

“In California, black elected officials can act as honest brokers between other ethnic groups, which is a situation where race is not as important as consensus building” said California native Jeffrey Stewart, now a history professor at George Mason University. “This is particularly true vis-a-vis blacks and Mexicans or Asian-Americans, who are not as well organized yet.”

John Smith, who has worked with Hawkins for more than 25 years, agrees that organization has been critical in building black clout. “The fact that black people are such a small group in California helps make them more cohesive and focused, with clear objectives. None of this came easily. I was living in Pasadena when Tom Bradley first ran in 1969. Nearly every black person I knew in my neighborhood . . . was stuffing envelopes or putting stamps on mailers.”

However Bradley’s current problems are resolved, one reason for his past success is that California’s population includes the most educated, successful black people in America. According to the Joint Center for Political Studies, the metropolitan areas of San Diego, Los Angeles and San Francisco have the highest levels of black educational achievement. These are also three of the four areas where blacks own the most expensive homes.

In addition to socioeconomic stature, black political success is a reflection of an unconventional electorate that could consecutively support such dissimilar governors as Ronald Reagan and Edmund G. Brown Jr. According to former Rep. Yvonne Burke, “As a whole, California voters are not particularly liberal or particularly conservative. What they really are is non-traditional; so many of the issues they’re involved with, like ecology, don’t fall along old racial lines.”

Dixon points out that California politics are not characterized by machines that decide--or limit--who runs for office. He agrees that California voters are an independent bunch: “After all,” Dixon said, “that’s how the state wound up with a Republican governor and a Democratic lieutenant governor. I’m not saying that there are no racial problems in California, but because voters are somewhat more open-minded and independent, they are much more willing to go past race and look at a black politician as a politician who just happens to be black.”