Telling the Untold Story of Black Republicans
Q+A with Leah Wright Rigueur
Author of “The Loneliness of the Black Republican: Pragmatic Politics and the
Pursuit of Power”
Princeton University Press, 2015
By April Austin
The identification of African Americans with the
Democratic Party has been widely accepted as an article
of faith in contemporary American politics. But this was
not always the case. The story of how the Republican
Party squandered its appeal to black leaders and black
voters is told in the new book, “The Loneliness of the Black
Republican,” by Leah Wright Rigueur, assistant professor
of public policy at the Harvard Kennedy School, and a
faculty affiliate of the Malcolm Wiener Center for Social
Policy. By tracing the growing alienation of African
Americans from the Republican Party during the late
1930s to the early 1980s, she illuminates the problems
that persist for the GOP today.
What led you to write a book on black Republicans?
Oddly enough, it was Jesse Jackson. I was doing research on his Rainbow Coalition,
and I found a reference to a speech he gave in 1978 to the Republican National
Committee. He told them: “Black people need the Republican Party to compete for
black votes so that we have alternatives for meeting our needs.” We think of Jackson
as inextricably linked to liberal establishments, so it seemed very foreign to me to
see him talking to Republicans, and to see black people associated with the
Republican Party [in modern times]. So I did more digging, and discovered this
untold story of African Americans and their role in the GOP.
How did you arrive at the title?
When Clarence Thomas came up for Supreme Court nomination in 1991, a speech
he had given to the Heritage Foundation in 1987, in which he strongly critiqued the
Republican Party—his own party—was reissued. It had originally been titled: “No
Room at the Inn,” but journalists published it under the headline, “The Loneliness of
the Black Conservative.” The title of my book is a play on that. The story isn’t
necessarily one of “lonely” black conservatives, but instead is a narrative of people
who identify with the GOP, and find themselves in a peculiar position: minorities
within their political party and political minorities within their racial communities.
What did you discover in researching the book?
I was amazed at the number of African Americans in high profile positions in
Republican administrations. Nixon, for instance, had a kind of “black cabinet” of
advisors—some with influential policy-making positions. Some of these figures even
managed to enact meaningful policy. I was also shocked that Ralph Bunche [the
famed Howard University political scientist and Nobel Peace Prize winner] agreed in
1939 to create a report for the GOP on recapturing the black vote. He produced this
remarkable document, a blueprint really, that is still relevant today. Here was a real
opportunity, early in the game, for Republicans to regain ground they had lost to
Democrats, on issues of civil rights and economics—a moment where race could
have been a substantive part of both political parties’ agendas. But the GOP decided
not to release Bunche’s report publicly, and his recommendations were never
followed.
Why were blacks attracted to the Republican Party in the first place?
After the alliance between African Americans and the “party of Lincoln”
disintegrated in 1936, some African Americans remained in the party for a variety of
reasons. Most of those who remained did so because they embraced traditional
conservative principles: self-determination, free-market enterprise, “bootstrap
philosophy,” personal responsibility and accountability, and individualism. But even
beyond the boundaries of partisanship, there’s a strain of black conservatism—
moral, religious, social, and economic—that runs through African American
communities, even though this conservatism rarely translates into votes for the
Republican Party.
Will blacks vote Democratic in 2016 or will they stay away from the polls?
The 2016 presidential contest will absolutely be pivotal. The Democratic Party is
going to try to maintain the gains they made through Obama’s presidential
campaigns. The Republican Party is counting on those gains to disappear. What’s
really interesting to me is that race is going to be a central part of the national
conversation throughout 2016. Politicians are going to have to wrestle with ideas
surrounding race, whether they like it or not.
Why do Republican presidential candidates seem tone-deaf when it comes to
appealing to black voters?
Candidates like to think of themselves as “color blind”: if they claim not to see race,
or refuse to talk about it, then no one can accuse them of racism. Unfortunately the
GOP is not colorblind—race has traditionally been used as a wedge issue to motivate
the most extreme elements of the party. So black voters understandably see this as
antagonistic and hostile. They believe that the GOP doesn’t care about racial issues.
Also, party members haven’t accepted that until they disavow the fringe element,
minority voters will continue to reject the GOP.
The Democrats don’t necessarily have a lock on black votes. What messages
are young black activists sending to the Democrats?
The Black Lives Matter movement is pressing politicians—even ones who are
sympathetic to civil rights—to be explicit about policies that impact black
communities. Activists are saying, “You cannot take black voters for granted. Our
votes aren’t given; they are earned.” Recently, one of the founders of BLM movement
said that the network wouldn’t endorse any political party or candidate in 2016.
That’s profound: As a movement, BLM is trying to hold the American political
system accountable for producing meaningful initiatives before they make any longterm allegiances. They don’t want to be beholden to a party or politician or funder
who could co-opt the movement. To me, that signals political independence and a
possibility for building nontraditional political alliances.
Read about Leah Wright Rigueur’s latest research paper on how white and black
Americans use their racial identities as a guiding principle, helping to form their
opinions on racial issues and policies.