The power of black ballots can be seen in the South today,

where hundreds of black people hold elective office and where

white politicians can no longer ignore the needs of black voters.

In addition to the noticeable improvement in diction forced upon

many segregationist politicians, the black vote has put into the

governors’ mansions of several Deep South states men of pro-

nounced progressive sympathies who are announcing the death

of Jim Crow and who herald a new area in race relations for a new

South.

Alabama, a state in which an attempt to vote meant a visit

from the Klan’s night riders just a short decade ago, now has 

black elected officials, more than any other state in the union,

with the exception of New York and Michigan.

So it is crucial that this example of Southern black political

power be brought north, especially in the light of the impending

national elections in . Black citizens must use their numbers

to gain their rightful place in the political “browning of America.”

Black office holders amount to only three-tenths of  percent of

the , elected officials in this country. A constructive black

presence in the city councils, legislatures, school and planning

boards, and other instruments of the popular will is essential if

black people are not to close this decade as disadvantaged as we

began it.

So the Urban League will mount a major voter registration

and education drive in selected Northern cities, with special em-

phasis on young people, who, until the passage of the Twenty-

sixth Amendment this year, could die for their country but could

not vote. Their frustrations and their energies, and those of their

Urban League Beginnings

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