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Topic: Black Elected OfficialsNews
November 2012
In 2011, as Illinois politicians redrew congressional district maps, they exercised a power grab that was intended to protect those already in office or even gain more seats for Democrats.
Officials split some of the state's growing Latino population between districts already represented by Democrats and those where they hoped to see Republicans lose. An incumbent Democrat like former...
November 2012
When black voters gave President Barack Obama 93 percent support on Election Day in defiance of predictions that they might sit it out this year, black leaders breathed a collective sigh of relief.
That encouraged those leaders to try to leverage more attention from both Obama and Congress. Although they waver over how much to demand from the president — particularly in light of defeated...
November 2012
President Obama won a second term last week, but it wasn’t a great week for other African-American candidates.
Despite Obama’s big win, there remain no black senators, only one African-American was even nominated for major statewide office, and black candidates lost seven of eight competitive House races — six of them by very close margins.
The end result: the number of...
September 2012
The U.S. House of Representatives Ethics Committee, following a two-year investigation, has cleared U.S. Rep. Maxine Waters (D-CA) of alleged wrongdoing.
Their finding paves the way for her to become the ranking Democrat on the House Financial Services Committee and possibly its chairman if Democrats retake the House in the November election.
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Late last year when U.S. Rep. Barney...
August 2012
The performance by the Rev. William Owens at the National Press Club last week was enough to make a cynic blush. In a nearly empty room, as the C-SPAN cameras rolled, Owens, a Tennessee minister and self-proclaimed leader of the civil rights movement called out the president for his changed position on same sex marriage.
“I didn’t march one inch, one foot, one yard, for a man to...
July 2012
When President Barack Obama arrives in New Orleans on Wednesday to speak before the National Urban League annual conference, he will touch down in a state where his party, less than a month before the qualifying deadline, has yet to find a congressional candidate for any district outside the black-majority seat held by Rep. Cedric Richmond, D-New Orleans.
For Sen. Karen Carter Peterson, D-New...
July 2012
After the 2010 elections, it seemed a safe bet that the District would continue its 12-year streak without a major political scandal. The image of a city run by a crack-smoking mayor was a distant memory, no longer visible in the rearview mirror as successive mayors drove the District on the road to municipal respectability.
Washingtonians took pride in their city’s improved reputation,...
June 2012
For more than four decades, the people in Charles Rangel's Harlem congressional district have willingly kept him in office every two years.
For a repeat performance, he's got to first get through Tuesday's congressional primaries, where changed demographics in a redrawn district, shadows from an ethics controversy in recent years and strong challengers could result in something no...
December 2011
Congressional map-drawers in states across the country are struggling to maintain majority-black congressional districts as African Americans move out of urban areas. And now, it appears plausible that one of those new districts could be won by a non-black candidate.
Former congresswoman Debbie Halvorson (D-Ill.) is trying to do what few before her have accomplished: win a majority-black...
Press Release
October 2012
We join with residents of California in mourning the loss of one of the state’s most remarkable leaders and a key figure in the founding of the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies in 1970, the Honorable Mervyn Dymally. For more than 40 years, he embodied the notion that anyone who works hard and plays by the rules can realize the American Dream.
A native of Trinidad,...
Archived Research
May 1, 2005
On April 20, 2005, the Joint Center, with support from the AT&T Foundation, hosted a town hall meeting entitled Rising African American Leaders: Challenges for a New Generation. In a lively and thought-provoking discussion moderated by Joe Madison, the eight panelists agreed that while conditions have significantly improved, racism still permeates our institutions and rising African American...
January 1, 2001
This is a report on a national survey of black elected officials which was conducted as part of the Joint Center's Divergent Generations Project. The Divergent Generations Project seeks to document differences in political participation and public policy views associated with generational change in the black population. While previous research for this project has focused on the black population...
January 1, 2000
Between January 1998 and January 1999, the number of black elected officials (BEOs) in the U.S. increased by 68, from 8,868 to 8,936, a 0.8 percent increase (Table 1). In 1970, the first year in which the Joint Center collected data on BEOs, there were 1,469 BEOs. The 1999 total of 8,936 black elected officials represents a historic high. The largest categorical increase in BEOs between 1998 and...
January 1, 1999
Since last year, when the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies published Black Elected Officials: A Statistical Summary, 1993-1997, the number of black elected officials (BEOs) in the United States increased by 212, from 8,658 to 8,868, a 2.4 percent increase over the previous year (Table 1). In 1970, the first year in which the Joint Center collected data on these officials, there...
May 1, 2002
The last edition of Black Elected Officials: A Statistical Summary showed that as of January 2000, the number of black elected officials (BEOs) in the U.S. was 9,040. This edition, which records the most current complete data for those in office as of January 2001 shows that in the intervening year,the number of BEOs rose by 61 to reach 9,101, a 0.7 percent increase over the previous year (Table...
January 1, 2001
The first edition of Black Elected Officials: A National Roster was published 32 years ago, when it was reported that there were 1,469 black elected officials (BEOs) in the United States. This newest edition of Black Elected Officials (which covers officials in office as of January 31, 2000) reports 9,040 BEOs, a more than six-fold increase. Growth over this period is especially impressive at the...
