Posted on 06/13/2004 12:15:35 PM PDT by ambrose
UNION-TRIBUNE
June 11, 2004
I cast my very first presidential ballot for Ronald Reagan. That set me apart from most of my fellow black Americans, 90 percent of whom gave their votes to Jimmy Carter in 1980 and Walter Mondale in 1984.
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Even as the nation mourns Reagan's passing this week, many blacks retain their animus toward the 40th president, as evidenced by the uncharitable remarks by several black leaders.
"Black grandmothers like mine said always speak well of the dead or keep quiet," Rep. Major Owens, the New York Democrat told The Hill, a newspaper that covers Congress. "I choose to keep quiet."
"Many in the African-American community strongly disagreed with his domestic policy," said Rep. Al Wynn, a Maryland Democrat.
"In terms of being a president for African-Americans," said Diane Watson, a Los Angeles Democrat, "he was not."
Based on the remarks by Reps. Owens, Wynn and Watson, and similar sentiments expressed by other black leaders, one might conclude that the Reagan era was a period of retrenchment for the black population.
But the reality is, the 1980s, with a conservative, free-market Republican in the White House, were a boom time for black America.
Indeed, Andrew Brimmer, the Harvard-trained black economist, the former Federal Reserve Board member, estimated that total black business receipts increased from $12.4 billion in 1982 to $18.1 billion in 1987, translating into an annual average growth rate of 7.9 percent (compared to 5 percent for all U.S. businesses.
The success of the black entrepreneurial class during the Reagan era was rivaled only by the gains of the black middle class.
In fact, black social scientist Bart Landry estimated that that upwardly mobile cohort grew by a third under Reagan's watch, from 3.6 million in 1980 to 4.8 million in 1988. His definition was based on employment in white-collar jobs as well as on income levels.
All told, the middle class constituted more than 40 percent of black households by the end of Reagan's presidency, which was larger than the size of black working class, or the black poor.
The impressive growth of the black middle class during the 1980s was attributable in no small part to the explosive growth of jobs under Reagan, which benefited blacks disproportionately.
Indeed, between 1982 and 1988, total black employment increased by 2 million, a staggering sum. That meant that blacks gained 15 percent of the new jobs created during that span, while accounting for only 11 percent of the working-age population.
Meanwhile, the black jobless rate was cut by almost half between 1982 and 1988. Over the same span, the black employment rate ? the percentage of working-age persons holding jobs ? increased to record levels, from 49 percent to 56 percent.
The black executive ranks especially prospered under Reagan. The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission reported that the number of black managers and officers in corporations with 100 or more employees increased by 30 percent between 1980 and 1985.
During the same period, the number of black professionals increased by an astounding 63 percent.
The burgeoning of the black professional, managerial and executive ranks during the 1980s coincided with a steady growth of the black student population at the nation's colleges and universities in the 1980s.
Even though the number of college-aged blacks decreased during much of the decade, black college enrollment increased by 100,000 between 1980 and 1987, according to the Census Bureau.
Meanwhile, the 1980s saw an improvement in the black high school graduation rate, as the proportion of blacks 18 to 24 years old earning high school diplomas increased from 69.7 percent in 1980 to 76 percent by 1987.
On balance, then, the majority of black Americans made considerable progress in the 1980s.
More of us stayed in high school, graduated and went on to college. More of us were working than ever before, in better jobs and for higher wages.
The black middle class burgeoned to unprecedented size, emerging as the dominant income group in black America. And black business flourished, creating wealth in the black community.
Reps. Owens, Wynn and Watson may think that all of those wondrous developments were simply happenstance.
But the credit goes to Ronald Reagan, who initiated the policies that fostered the economic growth and job creation of the 1980s, which produced the prosperity that most black Americans enjoyed.
Perkins can be reached via e-mail at joseph.perkins@uniontrib.com
perkins is always a good read.
i doubt that this article will find much favor among dems.
the dems like to keep blacks down on the democrat plantation. they promise them a few things every 4 years and leave them to their hate.
Excellent post, a very interesting article.
Now, I wonder how this compares and contrasts with how blacks fared under the first "black" president, Willie Jeff Clinton?
A rising tide lifts all boats, regardless of color.
A lot of it is about President Reagan's reference(s)to "welfare queens" ripping off the system. Somehow blacks thought he was talking about them. Of course the Gipper never referred to race.
IMHO Reagan was good for all America, everybody. Problem is he didn't kiss anybodies ass including blacks so I guess thats what ticks them off as a whole.
Its good to see conservative black writers like this one write such a fine article at the time of President Reagan's death.
HAH! Your post reminds me of the white girls I saw profiled in People magazine, with their multiple bastard children. I can forgive a person one mistake, but don't keep making the same one over and over and handing me the bill. That was after Reagan though, it must have been some sob-story prompted by Clinton's signing of welfare reform. And how these poor gals couldn't keep having children that we, the taxpayers, were supposed to support. I just wondered who was watching their existing children while they were out partying and making more. They were all white, they were all white, midwestern WELFARE QUEENS!
To hear the Dems tell it, there was a daily cross burning on the South Lawn. Yet another story that puts the lie to another Dem myth about the 80's. As such, it's another thing that's going up on my links page.
The Welfare Queen's statement was made when he was still Gov of Calif, and he was going to slash welfare. to the Caddy driving welfare queens.
Come now. Let's not speak of facts. The liberal media have told us that black and poor is one in the same thing. To speak of black entrepeneurs and black executives is utter nonsense.
Blacks only collect welfare. They live off the scraps from the big house. Just ask any media person they'll tell you.
< /sarcasm>
It's nice that the truth leaks out sometimes.
The simple fact that under Reagan their income was no longer losing ten to 14 percent of its value every year should have been enough to satisfy them.
Don't you know that statistics are just numbers? Blacks achieved these numbers in spite of the Reagan policies. His policies were only intended to help the white man. That others benefitted also has always been a sore point to the GOP.
reply by Ithaca, NY.
Yes,it was a boom time for the one third of so of Blacks who were in the middle and entrpeneurial class but the Eighties were also the decade that the traditional black family just about vanished from the hood!
Not that it was Reagan's fault by any stretch of the imagination but when crack came to the ghetto the consequences were disasterous.I saw literally DOZENS of blacks where I worked lose their jobs,families and self respect to the Crack Monster.
The Eighties were a time of horrid fear in urban America.The effects are still present but the GW Bush years are far better than the Reagan years vis a vis black people.
Riverman
Did the black families 'vanish' because they were destroyed, or because traditional families had the strength to escape and the will to do so before they were destroyed?
It would not be hard to imagine that traditional black families would have been a stabilizing influence, and that the places they left would suffer from their departure. On the other hand, I don't know that such families would have survived too many generations in the environment of liberal hatered that would have surrounded them had they stayed.
Well,I contend that it was the Feminist-liberal created"sexual revolution"that brought down the black family-and plenty of WHITE ones as well.The black family, however,being on a more precarious footing in the first place,could not withstand the pressure as the younger generation went into the "playa"lifestyle and into nihilism.
I grew up with many white kids who were just as sexually immoral as anyone I ever saw in the hood.Yet they mostly had stable family support systems to move on into more stable lifestyles.The blacks were left with AIDS and single mothers clinging to the welfare titty.
Riverman
Whenever RR made the welfare queen statement (and I don't dispute your attribution of it to the period of his governorship), it was often cited as evidence of his racism throughout his presidency and afterward.I'm sure the Gip did not intend to exclude welfare queens of whatever color.
Dems like Mr. Clinton perjure himselves to get Black votes:
Remember when Clinton "recalled" Black churches burning in Arkansas (did not happen).
Dems are sick panderers.
Repub's (Lincoln) freed slaves; Dems lie & grab private citizens' wallets
- you choose
oops --
themselves, not himselves. Sorry bout that! heh heh.
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