It’s past time for another sankofa moment
21st November 2022 · 0 Comments
The results of Louisiana’s 2022 Congressional mid-term elections show that Black voters didn’t show up at the polls adequately to elect the first Black U.S. senator since Reconstruction.
Blacks comprise 31 percent of the state’s population. Still, given past elections, they could have elected either Gary Chambers Jr. or Syrita Steib to replace incumbent Senator John N. Kennedy, who won his reelection bid.
This is not inconceivable. Remember, Governor John Bel Edwards would not be governor were it not for Black voters. Also remember that the Rev. Jesse Jackson won Louisiana’s Democratic Primary in 1984.
Also, Louisiana’s only Black Governor, P.B.S. Pinchback, was elected to the U.S. Senate in 1873 “but was refused the seat amid charges and countercharges of fraud and election irregularities —although some observers said it was the colour of his skin that counted against him,” according to Brittanica.com.
However, the no-show of many eligible Black voters led to Kennedy winning 62 percent of the vote. Chambers is garnered nearly 18 percent, and Steib is won over two percent.
Chambers, a young Black man, and a Democrat, ran second to Kennedy, a Republican who is an election denier and Trump supporter.
After the election, Chambers expressed regret that of Louisiana’s 900,000 Black registered voters, only 96,000 voted in the November 8, 2022, general election.
A Black candidate can win a statewide U.S. Senate race. And while we acknowledge that Black voters are not monolithic as we are conservative, liberal, progressive, as well as a combination of all of the above, the question is, do Black voters across Louisiana have the will to turn out in sufficient numbers and bloc vote for a Black candidate?
In a recent article, Columnist Will Sutton posed the question, “When will Louisiana elect Black people statewide?” Sutton compared wins of Black officials in states with comparable percentages of Black voters and surmised that Blacks in Louisiana needed to employ a crossover appeal strategy when running statewide.
“These Black candidates won with crossover appeal. Massachusetts is about 7.4 percent Black. Maryland is about 31 percent Black. Connecticut is 10.5 percent Black. Louisiana is more than 30 percent Black,” Sutton wrote.
Sutton is right about using crossover strategies that appeal to the political spectrum of voters. As mentioned previously, Black voters are not a monolith. And Black candidates seemed to have missed an opportunity to engage with independents voters, rural white voters, and maybe even disenchanted white Republicans who felt that election-denying candidates were too extreme.
Still, unlike Black voters in other states, some of Louisiana’s Black voters showed a lack of enthusiasm during the early voting period.
Dr. Robert Collins, Professor of Urban Studies and Public Policy at Dillard University, told Fox 8 Live that enthusiasm among Black voters was down compared to whites during the early voting period. And of the statewide early vote number, 258,000 were white voters, 93,000 were Black, and 11,000 were listed as other.
However, in New Orleans, Blacks registered voters outvoted whites and others 54.3 percent to 36.6 percent of white, while 9.1 percent were classified as “other.” Gary Chambers won the majority of votes in New Orleans.
Could it be that Black voters have lost confidence in politicians, period? Perhaps some feel it’s no use voting because no matter who’s elected, their quality of life will not change. Could it be that high energy and water bills, gas prices, and inflated grocery prices have made voters and prospective voters feel hopeless?
Could it be that the lack of good-paying jobs, the Republican-dominated state legislature’s refusal to raise the minimum wage, and the static reliance on the low-paying tourism industry add to voters’ apathy?
Fox 8 Live reported that of 3,018,701 qualified voters in Louisiana, roughly 44 percent cast their ballots in the November 8 election for the U.S. Senate.
As for Louisiana’s registered Black voters, no votes mean no voices and a profound disrespect for the ancestors who fought, were beaten and died for the right to vote.
Black voters here should remember and learn from the past.
This is a Sankofa moment.
Sankofa is an African word from the Akan tribe in Ghana. The literal translation of the word and the symbol is “it is not taboo to fetch what is at risk of being left behind.”
The Akan believe the past serves as a guide for planning the future. To the Akan, it is wisdom in learning from the past that ensures a strong future, according to the Carter G. Woodson Center.
Looking back into the 1970s, we see young Blacks launching the Black Power & Liberation Movement. James Brown’s “Say It Loud, I’m Black, and I’m Proud,’ became the movement’s anthem. It is
The Black Panthers were taking care of the needs of Black communities. Blacks choose “free” Afrocentric names, wear naturals and afros, create political action committees, select candidates, organize get-out-the-vote campaigns, and use their votes to speak truth to power.
And their ballots paid off. In 1970, Newark, N.J., and Dayton, Ohio both elected Black mayors. New Orleans elected its first Black Mayor, Ernest N. Dutch Morial, in 1978.
Today at least 55 large cities in the U.S. are run by Black mayors, including New Orleans’ Mayor LaToya Cantrell, Baton Rouge’s Mayor Sharon Weston Broome, and, this year, Tyrin Truong, 23, is Bogalusa’s new mayor.
But Louisiana’s Black voters were proactive as far back as 1868 when they elected one of the nation’s first two Black mayors: Pierre Caliste Landry from Donaldsonville in 1868, the year the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution was adopted.
Looking back through American history and now in present times, efforts to stop Blacks from voting have been and continue to be codified in so-called red state legislatures. Case in point, at least 400 restrictive voting laws were passed over the past two years. Along with state laws, we are now seeing intimidation tactics in real-time on the ground.
Given Louisiana’s civil rights history and the fierce battles for the vote that occurred throughout the state’s history, it’s surprising that Black Louisianans have become complacent and less enthusiastic about voting.
Perhaps, Blacks who operate the political action committees and the state Democratic Committee should go back and retrieve the tried and true methods of the past: voter education, voter registration drives, and actual get-out-the-vote ground campaigns, complete with bullhorns in cars going through neighborhoods and rides to the polls.
It’s time!
This article originally published in the November 21, 2022 print edition of The Louisiana Weekly newspaper.
