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Chapter Five

Measuring Black Political Power

In general, we understand by "power," the
chance of a man or of a number of men to
realize their own will in a communal action
against the resistance of others who are
participating in the action
-- MAX WEBER

In the American political system, organizations and interest groups wield
power, individuals don't. Individuals can affect power outside organizations
only if they possess charisma, that undefinable quality of body and spirit
reserved for a few "world historical individuals." Such charismatic leaders
must still, however, rely on followers, and eventually these followers become
institutionalized into some form of organizational structure.

If organizations are the true power brokers in society, then political parties
represent summit political power. Their power is measurable by the number
of elections they win, the number of public officials they elect, and the
amount of control they can exercise over the administration of government.
Because the state is the supreme power in any society, that organization
which controls the government controls the state. Political parties control
governments. The power of political parties is measured by the degree of
sovereignty they exercise over the heads of government, its appointees, its
domestic and foreign policies, and its dispensation of patronage.

The measurement of the political power of an ethnic group, an economic
class, or another interest group is far more difficult. Such a group's claims
of political achievements are usually exaggerated and extravagantly publicized.
On occasion, they have been able to establish a direct connection between
the defeat or election of a candidate inimical or responsive to their wishes.
But this group's ability to deliver the vote of its members is not always
subject to scientific verification. Their leaders may fervently endorse a par-

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Measuring Black Political Power 59

ticular candidate or policy. But the group's members, by their decision at
the polls, will vote diametrically opposite to the official position of the
interest group. For example, in the Gary mayoralty election of November
1967, the labor union leaders in Gary publicly endorsed the Democratic
candidate, a negro. In a political race governed by strong racial overtones,
white steel workers from the Gary steel mills ignored the official posture of
their labor leaders and instead gave 89 percent of their vote to the white
Republican candidate.

This is a classic example of the social variables that impinge on the con-
sciousness of individuals, forcing them to structure a priority of loyalties
and then decide which loyalty will determine their political decisions. As
the distinguished Lebanese philosopher and statesman Charles Malik has
written: "...man has other loyalties than his loyalty to the state. He has
his loyalty to his family, to his religion, to his profession; he has his loyalty
to science and to truth. These loyalties are equally exacting as the loyalty
to the state." *

Thus, a white Roman Catholic living in an integrated city neighborhood
whose children attend integrated schools is not likely to respond as an-
tagonistically to his church's call for more integrated schools as is a white
Roman Catholic living in a wealthy suburb where no negroes live or attend
school. Nor are union members of an industrial union with a large per-
centage of negroes likely to be as determined to bar union participation of
negroes as the racially exclusive crafts unions.

Throughout the history of American politics, various interest groups have
tended to follow rather than reject the advice of their leaders in tacit fealty
to the pragmatic doctrine that to do otherwise would dilute the group's
credibility and power. Interest groups have sought political power through
five methods:

1) Political oscillation -- threatening to take their votes to another candi-
date or party.
2) Proportionate control of policy-making jobs in government -- placing
its members in sensitive position in order to influence public policy favor-
ably toward their interests.
3) Retribution -- punishing politicians through a "backlash vote" for
opposing the group's interests.
4) Educational propaganda -- influencing other members of the electorate
to a sympathetic adoption of the group's point of view through the use of
pamphlets, meetings, and public statements.
5) Lobbying in Congress and state legislatures for legislation which pro-
motes the group's interest or against legislation which threatens the group's
survival and political power.

Of these five methods, the first and second have tended to dominate the

*Extracts from the Proceedings of the United Nations Commission on Human Rights,
1947