Black Resources and City Council Representation

S INCE THE CIVIL RIGHTS MOVEMENT gathered momentum in the 1950's, changing race relations have been a prominent feature of the American political landscape. The 1964, 1965, and 1968 Civil Rights Acts were greeted as signal victories at the national level, as were various fair employment practice and open housing laws adopted at the state and local levels. In the past decade, however, the emphasis has shifted from court litigation and lobbying for general "anti-discrimination" statutes to voter registration drives, the passage of redistributive social class policy, community control of key local institutions, and the election of blacks to governmental posts, especially in city government. This last objective, that of electing blacks to public office, has received considerable public attention, and is the central concern of this report. Contemporary studies indicate that despite recent progress, blacks continue to be underrepresented on city councils.' From these and other treatments of race politics, we can infer three general hypotheses about the types of conditions most conducive to black council representation. The propositions revolve around the effects of (1) formal electoral characteristics; (2) white population char-