Black voters see new generation gap

By SHANNON McCAFFREY, Associated Press Writer1 hour, 49 minutes ago
When civil rights elders signed on to support Hillary Rodham Clinton's run
for president, it was seen as a coup in the competition for the black vote,
especially in the Deep South.
Yet many younger black voters seem to be
shrugging off the sway of leaders such as Rep. John Lewis and former Atlanta
Mayor Andrew Young, siding instead with Barack Obama's history-making bid to be
the nation's first black president.
It's a generational struggle that should
serve as a warning to Democrats as they head into primary contests in states
with large black populations: The black vote today is anything but
monolithic.
It also suggests the influence the civil rights leaders have
enjoyed as political kingmakers is waning.
"The figureheads are not actually
gatekeepers to the black vote," said William Jelani Cobb, a 38-year-old history
professor at the historically black Spelman College.
"No disrespect, but they
don't speak for us."
The candidates face their first showdown for black votes
in South Carolina on Jan. 26 and another Feb. 5 in Super Tuesday states with
large minority populations, such as Georgia, Alabama and Arkansas.
Clinton
and Obama have been aggressively courting black votes for some time. Both
visited Selma, Ala., in March for the anniversary of the "Bloody Sunday" civil
rights march in 1965. And Obama is set to speak at Martin Luther King Jr.'s
Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta on Sunday, a visit expected to be rich in
symbolism coming the day before the King holiday.
In a sign of what's at
stake, a heated dispute has erupted over Clinton's comment that King's dream of
racial equality was realized only when President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the
Civil Rights Act of 1964.
Bill Clinton's putdowns of the Illinois senator
also have offended some blacks. Altogether, the scrap between the Clintons and
the Obama camp has awakened racial sensitivities in the party that is supposed
to know how to deal with race.
Blacks have traditionally voted overwhelmingly
Democratic and Obama is picking up their support fast, according to new polls.
An ABC-Washington Post survey this week found a 21-point increase in support for
Obama among black voters in the last month, putting him up 60-32 over Clinton.
He led the New York senator 49-34 in a CBS-New York Times poll.
Still,
Clinton's husband enjoyed such strong support from black voters that he was
dubbed the first black president. And Hillary Clinton has been able to
capitalize on long-standing friendships with the black political elite in
scoring endorsements. Whether that will translate into black votes is anyone's
guess.
"For me personally, I have a long association with the Clintons and
I'm very loyal to my friends," said Lewis, an Atlanta Democrat.
Younger
blacks don't share the same loyalties. And some lump older black leaders with
the political establishment they say Obama is aiming to upend.
One civil
rights veteran who is backing Obama shares that view. Joseph Lowery, former head
of the Southern Christian Leadership Council, calls colleagues who are
supporting Clinton "good old boys."
"They are business-as-usual, old-guard
politicians and it's hard for them to break out of that mold," Lowery
said.
At a speech Wednesday before the Hungry Club at the Butler Street YMCA
in Atlanta, Lowery said blacks who doubt Obama's ability to compete are guilty
of "a slave mentality."
"No matter how much education they have, they never
graduated from the slave mentality," Lowery said. "The slavery mentality compels
us to say, 'We can't win, we can't do.'"
Clinton has lined up the support of
baseball Hall of Famer Hank Aaron, one-time basketball superstar Magic Johnson,
Motown founder Berry Gordy and Black Entertainment Television founder Bob
Johnson among others. Obama has Oprah Winfrey in his corner as well as R&B
crooner Usher.
Clinton has poet Maya Angelou; Obama has the rapper Ludacris
— a generational split all its own.
The campaign has divided some prominent
households, too.
Jesse Jackson, who tried to become the first black
president in his 1984 and 1988 campaigns, and his son, Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr.,
are backing Obama. The elder Jackson's wife, Jacqueline, is supporting Clinton.
Georgia state Rep. Bob Holmes, former director of Clark Atlanta University's
Southern Center for Studies in Public Policy, said blacks in the South could
once count on a rigid brand of machine politics in which black churches and
civic leaders delivered their voters.
That machine is no more, he said. "The
younger generation is more independent and make up their own minds."
Holmes
also said younger blacks feel the old guard set its sights too low.
"This
isn't the generation of slow struggle," he said. "This is the Me Generation and
if they see a viable black candidate for president they don't see a reason why
that shouldn't be possible right now."
Rick Dent, a political strategist who
has worked for Democratic campaigns throughout the South, said older black
leaders adopted a more pragmatic political approach out of necessity.
"For
the John Lewises of the world, who've been hit in the head with a baton, they
have a different perspective," Dent said. "You've got a new generation of
African-Americans with no contact or understanding with what he had to go
through, thank God."
LaDawn Jones bounced her 5-month-old daughter Lyndon on
her knee at a party that brought several hundred Obama supporters together to
watch returns in the New Hampshire primary won by Clinton. She said she backed
Clinton at first because she thought the New York senator had a better chance of
winning in November.
Now Jones is behind Obama, explaining, "I want to go
for the gold."