independence as offering the most viable strategy for their community. In the pages that follow, Omar Ali traces the history of black participation in third parties and in other forms of political activism. His narrative touches on subjects that have inspired an extensive historical literature, such as abolitionism and the Black Panther party, and on lesser-known parts of this history, including black participation in the Socialist, Progressive, and Communist parties. He reveals the complex dynamics that have shaped the sometimes problematic relationships between African Americans and third-party movements.
As perhaps the most systematically oppressed group in the United States, blacks might be thought to welcome movements for far-reaching social change, and, indeed, they have often responded with enthusiasm to such movements. But at the same time, very few white-dominated independent political organizations have ever achieved a real harmony between blacks and whites. To some extent, of course, radicals and reformers cannot escape the societies they hope to transform, and the problem may be seen as simply one more example of the tensions inherent in American race relations, or of the pervasiveness of racism, even within third-party movements themselves.
Politically, African American leaders have found it difficult to decide where to look for allies in the larger society, or whether to eschew white allies altogether in favor of separatism. Conceptually, they have never reached a consensus on how to define the status of black Americans, a question with profound implications for finding the right strategy for political change. Are blacks members of an ethnic group, analogous to Polish Americans, Italian Americans, and other immigrant minorities, in which case they should operate as a political pressure group that seeks to elect more of their members to office and obtain a larger slice of the political pie? Are they members of an “internal colony,” whose situation is similar to colonized peoples in the Third World, in which case self-determination or even racial separation suggests itself, rather than seeking greater power within the existing system? Or are they basically downtrodden members of the working class, who ought to form alliances with other workers based on common class interests?
If these questions have proven intractable, it is also true that many white-dominated independent political movements have not effectively addressed the unique plight of African Americans as slaves, descendants of slaves, and victims of forms of oppression not experienced by other Americans. What kind of relationship could blacks forge with political movements such as the Populists, for example, who exalted the idea of the autonomous property-owning citizen? Or with movements based on the ideal of the free individual standing against state and society? Or with unionism, socialism, and communism, which saw social class as the fundamental dividing line in American society? None of these ideologies seemed entirely relevant to the black experience. Blacks were not propertied individuals—most of them were property before the Civil War. The idea of the free individual did help to inspire the crusade against slavery, in which many blacks took part, but it proved unable to solve the social and economic plight of the freed people after emancipation. Movements based on social class, finally, have faced a dual problem in attracting black support. On the one hand, there was the simple fact of racism in many unions. Perhaps more importantly, even those class movements that made genuine efforts to enlist black support generally subordinated racial issues to ones of class exploitation, defining the status of blacks as part of the larger plight of the proletariat or small farmer. The specific historical experience of blacks as a portion of the working class operating in a severely segmented labor market, subject to lynching, segregation, and disenfranchisement, was rarely addressed systematically by such movements. Moreover, their rallying cry, solidarity of all workers, black and white, flew in the face of the everyday experience of black Americans.
As Ali demonstrates, the main current of black political thought dates back to the abolitionist movement. What the historian Vincent Harding has called the Great Tradition of black politics aimed at blacks’ full incorporation into American life. The country could never be true to its professed creed of equality, black leaders like Frederick Douglass insisted, until slavery was abolished and African Americans enjoyed the same rights and opportunities as whites. Others, however, such as Douglass’s contemporary Martin Delany, argued that slavery and racism were intrinsic to American society and that blacks could achieve genuine freedom only by creating their own national existence, preferably, for Delany, in Africa or the Caribbean. Self-determination, not integration, offered the proper political course. This analysis suggested the necessity of separate black political organizations, rather than alliances with reform-minded whites. As Ali shows, this tension, in one form or another, has existed in every era of American history down to the present day.
Whether independent political action or operating within one of the two major parties offers the best hope for improving the condition of black Americans remains, of course, a point of debate today. One of the many virtues of Omar Ali’s account lies in highlighting the variety of political structures and strategies blacks have chosen over the course of American history in pursuing the goal of racial justice. Independent politics is not the only approach, but it has a long history, which, as Ali shows, has at many points energized the black community and helped to make America a better place for all its people.
Eric Foner
Introduction
It is an extraordinary act for Americans to vote for a third party candidate. … To vote for a third party, citizens must repudiate much of what they have learned and grown to accept as appropriate political behavior, they must often endure ridicule and harassment … they must pay steep costs … and they must accept that their candidate has no hope of winning.1
S. J. Rosenstone, R. L. Behr, and E. H. Lazarus, Third Parties in America: Citizen Response to Major Party Failure
The movement of African Americans into and out of the Republican party was never blind or random but was based on a realistic assessment of which party would best further black political and economic interests. … Blacks have tended to be loyal to the two major parties. However, specific circumstances have led to active African-American support for third parties. When the two major parties reject African Americans’ political goal of inclusion, African Americans seek other political allies.2
Michael C. Dawson, Behind the Mule: Race and Class in African-American Politics
African Americans have inserted themselves into the balance of power at various points in the history of the United States by building third parties and independent political movements. In doing so, they have helped advance some of the most basic yet farthest-reaching changes in the republic: the abolition of slavery, the expansion of the right to vote, and the enforcement of civil rights. Today, increasing numbers of African Americans are part of the tens of millions of men and women, from a range of backgrounds and ideological perspectives, who view themselves neither as Democrats nor as Republicans, but as independents.3 National opinion polls taken by the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies and the Pew Research Center indicate that between 20 and 30 percent of African Americans of voting age identify themselves as politically independent.4 These Americans have become part of a discernible movement linking African Americans with white independents—a black and independent alliance—rallied around the insurgent candidacy of Illinois Senator Barack Obama in his bid to become president of the United States.5
Increasingly less tied to the Democratic Party, black voters have been looking for new electoral options in the face of bipartisan failures at home and abroad. Sixty-six percent of all Americans believe that the nation is on “the wrong track”; 89 percent disapprove of the job being done by Congress; 71 percent disapprove of the job being done by the president.6 Among African Americans, the feeling and experience are even stronger. Whether people are concerned about the failure of our public schools, our health care system, or the war in Iraq, there is widespread recognition that the two-party establishment is either unwilling or unable to address the current state of affairs in a developmental or democratic manner.7
Over
