Inside Black America: The Message of the Black Vote in the 1984 Elections
Washington, DC: Joint Center for Political & Economic Studies, Incorporated, 1985. Presumed first edition/first printing. Wraps. ix, [1], 74 p. References. Tables. Figure. From Wikipedia: "The Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies ("Joint Center"), headquartered in Washington, DC in the United States, is a national nonprofit American research and public policy institution or think tank. Founded in 1970 to provide training and technical assistance to newly elected black officials, the Joint Center now explores a range of public policy issues of concern to African-Americans and other communities of color. According to its mission statement, the Joint Center, through research, analysis and publications, seeks to improve the socioeconomic status of black Americans and other minorities; expand their effective participation in the political and public policy arenas; and promote communications and relationships across racial and ethnic lines to strengthen the nation's pluralistic society. During the African-American Civil Rights Movement, more and more blacks were being elected to public office. Many of these new black elected officials, or "BEOs", knew little about the ropes of their new jobs, such as political networking or even day-to-day administration. What's more, they couldn't count on help from their more experienced and better-connected white colleagues. At two national conferences--Chicago in 1967 and Washington DC in 1969 BEOs expressed a need for a new organization, one that would provide new BEOs training and assistance that would give them a foothold in the mainstream American political process. In April 1970 The Joint Center for Political Studies (its original name) was begun with a two-year $860, 000 grant from Ford Foundation. Howard University law professor Frank Reeves served as the center s first executive director. The first board chairman was Louis ( Louie ) Martin, a newspaper editor who would later serve in the Jimmy Carter administration. In July 1972, Eddie N. Williams, director of the University of Chicago's Center for Policy Study, became the Joint Center's new president. Williams' varied background he was a former journalist and staff assistant in both the U.S. Senate U.S. Department of State positioned him to forge the center into a full-fledged think tank, one that would "identify public policy issues that have implications for [black Americans]...to be both a center for intellectual discovery and a wellspring of practical knowledge." Williams expanded the staff, increased the amount and scope of the center's publication, and organized conferences around the country to aid BEOs. Joint Center data and research began to garner attention from legislative and judicial arenas. In anticipation of the 1976 general elections, the Joint Center formed the National Coalition on Black Voter Participation (now an independent coalition of 80 organizations), which increased voter registration and turnout during a campaign season that put Carter the White House by a slim margin. In October of the same year, the Joint Center became completely independent from Howard University and the Metropolitan Applied Research Center, which had had joint oversight since the Joint Center's birth. As the number of BEOs grew, the center s role changed. The Joint Center helped form the National Conference of Black Mayors and the National Caucus of Black State Legislators, which began to take on much of the political assistance to black politicians the center had been doing. (The Joint Center also formed the Committee of Policy for Racial Justice around this time. ) By the 1980s the Joint Center s new leadership, believing that the civil rights movement had outgrown reliance on the charismatic leadership of a few individuals, realigned the Joint Center mission to serve as a full-fledged black think tank for scholarly research on social and economic issues. Through that decade and into the next, the Joint Center published extensive research on bars to minority voting and the effects of redistricting on black political power, and increased ties with non-black minority groups. By the 1990s the. Condition: Good. Cover has slight wear and soiling. Minor page soiling.
Keywords: Black Elected Officials, BEO, African-Americans, Jesse Jackson, Gender Gap, Partisanship, Voting, Candidates, Racial Politics
ISBN: 9780941410472
[Book #68560]
Price: $35.00