Presidential elections always attract more voters, and the Obama campaign was an additional draw for the black vote.  Nonetheless, the 40,000 black vote lead reveals a hidden potential that could dramatically affect the 2010 mayoral and city council contests.  Only a year ago, black voters comprised barely 50% of the actual vote in a pivotal city council election, holding a miniscule 135 vote lead over white turnout.  The election resulted in the first white majority city council in New Orleans in 29 years.

Political pundits were quick to declare an end to black dominance in New Orleans government; in the future, they argued, blacks would be limited to leveraging power by electing sympathetic white candidates.  White candidates were being openly considered front-runners for the 2010 mayoral race. For those whites who had openly declared they wanted to change the “demographics” of the city in a way that made it whiter and more affluent, it looked like a dream come true.

And there was good reason to believe they were right.  Since Katrina, whites captured the majority of the New Orleans City Council and the Orleans Parish School Board.  Several legislative seats apportioned in to ensure black representation were easily won by whites with little black support and no black candidates made the recent District Attorney’s run-off.

So how is possible that New Orleans can be a black majority city, where black voters command 60% of the actual vote, yet the City Council and School Board are majority white?  The answer lies in the geography of election districts. The central part of New Orleans is shaped like a fan, with affluent whites concentrated at the narrow base and middle to low-income black voters dominating the middle and top.  Most election districts run parallel to each other, from the base to the top of the fan, encompassing two distinct demographic and cultural districts: affluent whites and middle to low-income blacks.  Katrina’s flood waters severed these districts down the middle, flooding the black portions of the districts and leaving the above sea-level white portions intact.  With the black voters displaced, a minority of white voters were able to elect white candidates to office in districts apportioned to guarantee black representation. 

In addition, a significant percentage of black voters remain displaced from New Orleans and cast absentee ballots or drive in only for important elections.  A large number of displaced voters continue to reside in Baton Rouge, a short 70 mile drive from New Orleans, which housed more than 100,000 New Orleans residents in the aftermath of Katrina.  This unique “commuter voting” phenomenon explains part of the wide fluctuation in black voter turnout and the reason why the black vote especially declines in special elections, such as the upcoming run-off for U.S. House Representative William Jefferson’s seat. Still, the stunning black turnout in the presidential race demonstrates that displaced blacks continue to be invested in the city’s future and, if motivated, can be mobilized for future elections.  With a potential 40,000 voter advantage, city council seats that whites recently won by a few thousand votes will be vulnerable and the possibility of electing a black mayor in 2010 is again a political reality.

The increasing gains of black voters appears to be trend that will continue in the future. White voter strength has actually eroded in the last year because of out-migration.  When the Louisiana Secretary of State conducted the annual purging of the voter rolls last summer, nearly twice as many white voters than blacks were taken off the Orleans Parish rolls, largely because they had moved out of New Orleans and registered to vote in other cities.  In contrast, 13,787 new black voters were added to the rolls during the year, nearly double the new white registration.

There is reason to believe that the black voter turnout portends future increases in the city’s population, contrary to the local media’s declaration that New Orleans has reached its optimum population growth. Federal housing funds have been slow to reach the city: 85,000 homeowners only recently received rebuilding grants and they have three years to complete the repairs.  In coming years these 85,000 homes will come on line along with 15,000 units of federally-funded affordable rentals.  That’s a total of 100,000 new housing units. In its most recent study, the U. S. Census Bureau, using income tax returns and social security data, estimated New Orleans population in 2007 at 239,000, far below the estimates used by city-boosters.  That means approximately 150,000 African American residents remain displaced and 75% of them want to return to the city, according to a survey published by the Louisiana Family Recovery Corp in August, 2007.  Combine increased housing supply with increased consumer demand and the outcome is more black voters.

So will race continue to play a role in elections?  New Orleans remains one of the most racially polarized cities in the United States.  At the heart of the distrust is the fear that many blacks have that whites have not relented in their plans to demolish black neighborhoods under the banner of protecting residents or reducing government costs.  Indeed, while the debate on reducing the “footprint” of the city at the expense of black neighborhoods has largely been put to rest, some white leaders continue to float proposals to selectively “greenspace” poor neighborhoods into parks or retention ponds but this time through zoning laws or withholding public services and utilities.

This kind of talk does little to inspire trust and promote voting across racial lines; history tells us that when people feel threatened, they tend to coalesce along racial lines and block-vote to enhance their power and defend their group interests.  In a political climate of fear and mistrust, every election can potentially be transformed into a symbolic contest of power in which voters end up supporting candidates as a show of racial solidarity, despite the candidate’s flaws.

The long-term solution to New Orleans’ racial polarization is to put an end to the divisive proposals that pit one neighborhood against another and that make income the measure of who has a right to return.  If we want to be free of the politics of fear, we need to eliminate the threats that breed fear.  

Lance Hill is Executive Director of the Southern Institute for Education and Research at Tulane University and Author of The Deacons for Defense: Armed Resistance and the Civil Rights Movement.   Permission is granted to reprint and reproduce this commentary.  To subscribe to future commentaries, just google for “Commentaries by Lance Hill.” He can be reached at Lhill@tulane.edu