Throughout the many years and decades, African Americans have overwhelmingly and with great loyalty have voted for the Democratic Party and its choice of candidates.
Since the era of the Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s and 1960s, these years represented a change within the party to create inclusion and a new found Black elected leadership to chart America on a new course in creating racial equity and a more diverse representation within the nation. Mayor Maynard Jackson of Atlanta, Georgia, Mayor Walter Washington of Washington, D.C. and Mayor Harvey Gantt of Charlotte, North Carolina, to name a few out of many Black elected officials who helped the country move forward after a tumultuous period in American history.
Today, much has changed — although we have some Black elected officials along with the Congressional Black Caucus, many in the African American community feel a sense of isolation and separation from the broader body of politics.
The nonadvocacy on behalf of the greater communal concerns of Black America has left feelings of hopelessness and that their vote doesn’t matter compared to other voting block groups. While my wife and I were on a recent trip to officiate a wedding in Charlotte, we attended a social event where a gentleman shared with me a term for elected representatives who do not advocate for Black and marginalized communities as the “new gentrification managers.”
On our flight back to Utah I pondered this gentleman’s statement for quite a while. I thought about the numerous amounts of Black men and their families that were forced to leave Democratic-led Northern cities and found their way migrating to the South after being displaced. The hard and painful years of the war on drugs and mass incarceration of the 1980s and 1990s has created deep-rooted wounds and now the manifestation of the ills that Black America faces today.
The extreme harshness of police brutality, poverty and neglectful economic policies, under-funding of education and poor housing came out of many of those large urban centers of the North, Chicago, New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Washington, D.C, Cleveland, Detroit and Boston, and the list continues on.
Many Black families, including my own, settled down in the South, building homes and raising our families, working hard in order to educate our children and many to this day remain quiet in their communities all throughout the South.
Raising my family with my wife and son in York County, South Carolina, just outside of Charlotte was one of the greatest decisions my wife and I ever made. Over the years speaking with other Black men and their families I’ve come to understand the continued frustration of feeling that our voices or our vote isn’t respected and honored.
In this current political environment. The migration of Generation X Black men and their families to the Southern states has created new relationships and has forged new partnerships in the South and some Western states that have reshaped their political views and aspirations. These new relationships in business, politics, athletics, commerce development, employment and some religious interactions is creating a “New Reconstruction of the New South.”
I am experiencing this first hand after living the majority of my adult life in the deep South. There are many whites in the South, children of the Old Confederacy, who want and desire reconciliation in order for America to survive.
With all the political strategists and the media trying to understand why so many Black men in particularly are moving away from the Democratic Party, one must take the time to really understand what has happened over the past 40 years and the traumatic events that have transpired to Black America and its re-migration. Rep. Jim Clyburn, D-South Carolina, once stated in an interview that, “We need to get the base, black voters enthusiastic about voting and going to the polls.”
Our community has politically matured and we understand that voting must be an exchange. Black America no longer seeks enthusiasm but empowerment. If the Democratic Party plans to make any headway in the coming midterm elections and in the 2024 presidential election they will have to engage African American men on a very serious level of commitment in creating specific policies that will economically and socially uplift Black men and their families.
President John F. Kennedy did not run away or choose the path of benign and neglect during the turbulent years of civil rights. Instead, he exhibited courage and became engaged in order to work to move the country forward in spite of the challenges.
I recommend all political parties Republicans, Democrats and independent parties to engage Black America with transformational economic and judicial policies with uplifting action before these coming elections and moving forward in the future.
The voting patterns of African Americans is shifting, the reckoning of the Democratic Party will face its success or its demise over these very critical election cycles that are upon us as a nation.
When the exit polls come in the votes and voices of Black America will signify that a fundamental voting shift has begun, America will be embarking on a new horizon for its people and Its future.
Amen.
Pastor Andre' Miguel Boyd
Pastor Andre’ M. Boyd is the founder and pastor of Tuviah Christian Ministries. He and his wife, Leona (Sunshine) Boyd are also apart of the Fellowship of Prophetic Churches and Ministries out of Northern Virginia in the Baltimore/Washington, D.C., metropolitan region. Their son Jordan Micah serves in the United States Air Force, where as a family they currently reside in Farmington, Utah.