Are there any Black Majority States? / by kevin murray

America has fifty states, to which none of them are currently black majority states, although the District of Columbia had been black majority since 1950, since 2011 it has become instead a black plurality.  There was a time, however, when there were three black majority states in America, to wit, Louisiana from 1830-1910, Mississippi from 1840-1930, and South Carolina from 1830-1910.  Additionally, three more states had black populations exceeding 40% for decades which were Alabama, Florida, and Georgia.  At the present time, there are zero states which have black populations of even 40% or above, the state with the largest black population is Mississippi which stands at about 37%.

 

In America, our election system, typically is setup so that the majority rules, or in absence of a majority, the plurality will often rule, so that there is something to be said about strength in numbers and in voting in general, as the winner of an election, will become by definition the arbiter or representative of what is or isn't policy for the greater whole, whether or not a significant portion of the population is or is not in approval of said policies.  Consequently, if there is a lot of commonality in people, such as creed, race, ideals, or the like, it behooves those people to join together to effect change.

 

After our civil war, to which many men of all colors were killed on both sides of the war, whites in the defeated confederacy were denied the right to vote, subject to individual loyalty oaths and the re-admission of their state into the United States.  The reconstruction amendments (13th to 15th) to our Constitution were specifically setup to assure, protect, and to mandate that all citizens, no matter their race nor slavery nor involuntary servitude, were entitled by law to not have abridged any of their immunities or privileges, nor to be denied life, liberty, or property without due process of law.    These amendments to our Constitution were specifically enacted to protect the very class of people that had been abridged these basic human rights purely on the basis of the color of their skin.

 

For a very brief period of time, there were blacks that were elected to both the Senate and to the House of Representatives from the deep south of the United States from 1870 up to as late as 1901, but that would end, through intimidation, through fraud, and through violence.  For instance, for a short period of time, Mississippi had the first and then the second United States Senator, ever elected of color, in the years 1870-71, and then 1875-1881.  Since that time, there was been no black Senators elected from the state of Mississippi up and till the present day.  In regards, to the House of Representatives, Mississippi has had as many as eight delegates, but currently has only four delegates, due to their modest population, to which one of the districts, the 2nd district, is the only district that has ever elected a black congressman, which was not until 1987, when Mike Espy was elected.

 

The disappointment of the state of Mississippi, which should be a state with significant black power, or at a minimum have significant pockets of black power, is that instead it is one of the most racist, most discriminatory, and most unjust of any state because the whites are still the power behind the throne, with far too many of them unwilling to share, unwilling to change, unwilling to be fair, and unwilling to give brotherly love.