Black History

COMMENTARY: Origin of Black Politics in America

CHICAGO CRUSADER — Since the end of the Civil War in 1865 electoral politics has played a dominant role in the African American Community

Published

8 years ago

January 26, 2019

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By Conrad Worrill

Since the end of the Civil War in 1865, when African Americans were granted the right to vote, through the 15th Amendment in 1868, electoral politics has played a dominant role in the African American Community. African Americans have been participating in electoral politics for 154 years.

With the North winning the Civil War and chattel slavery being abolished, under the Emancipation Proclamation, and as we were given the right to vote, through the 15th Amendment, many Black leaders began to feel that maybe conditions would change in America. Therefore, most leaders started urging Black people to join the Republican Party, the Party of Lincoln.

This period in history from 1863 to 1876 is called “Reconstruction” and the first time Black people began to participate vigorously in electoral politics.

During the late 1860s and early 1870s, many African Americans were elected to Congress and an African American Senator, Hiram Revels, was elected from Mississippi. The Political Abolition Party and the Equal Rights Party ran Frederick Douglass for Vice President of the United States in 1856 and 1872.

Many Black colleges were established during this period through the land grant act that called for public education at the college level. Because of these responses on the part of the government many African American leaders felt that Black people’s situation could be resolved in America through governmental intervention and effective voting.

The presidential election of 1876 brought into focus the real agendas of the white ruled Republican and Democratic Parties. Rutherford B. Hayes was the Republican candidate who was supposed to be representing the vital interests of the North and Samuel Tilden was the Democratic candidate alleging to represent the real interests of the South.

In a very close election, the South actually won the popular vote; however, during the Electoral College proceedings, neither candidate received a majority of electoral votes. The Southern representatives made it clear that their interests did not include winning the presidency of the United States, but reclaiming full autonomy for the South. Through much wrangling, a decision was made by those present that later became known as the “Great Compromise.”

The Compromise of 1876 resulted in the Republican Hayes being announced the winner of the presidential election and both sides received what they basically wanted in the first place. Obviously neither side was interested in the liberation of Black people. The emerging northern industrialists wanted entry and new markets into the South and the southern plantation owners wanted their land back.

The net result for African Americans was the repealing of some of the voting rights laws that immediately began to wipe out Black elected officials and made it virtually impossible for Black people to vote in the South again until the passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1964.

Through all of this, Black leaders, and those African Americans who voted, remained loyal to the Republican Party even though their voting rights had been sold down the drain.

As pointed out, after Reconstruction, many Black people still remained loyal to the Republican Party and tried to fight for change within it just as some Black people are still fighting for changes in the Democratic Party today. This loyalty lasted until the 1930s when African Americans began to switch their allegiance to the Democratic Party and the so-called “New Deal Era” of the Roosevelt Administration. Essentially, since the 1930s to the present, African Americans have voted for Democratic Party candidates in large measure.

There have been a small group of African Americans who have historically called for a Black Political Party in response to the domination of the white ruled Republican and Democratic Parties. In fact, in 1972 in Gary, Indiana 10,000 Black people participated in the National Black Political Convention in which the call for the development of a Black Independent Political Party was a prominent discussion at this meeting. However, the allegiance of Black elected officials to the Democratic Party prevented any real movement toward the development of a Black Political Party or independent Black Political Organization. Instead, a strategy of the third force inside the Democratic Party was developed.

In Chicago, for example, since the death of the late Mayor Harold Washington, African American leaders have been divided over strategy and tactics to continue the movement for Black political empowerment. This trend can be observed around the country.

There is no question that we need our own political party, or at best, our own political organization. But this must occur in a manner that truly represents the best interests of the African American Community.

Dr. Conrad Worrill, Professor Emeritus, Carruthers Center for Inner City Studies (CCICS). New office location is at 1809 E. 71st Street, Chicago, Illinois 60649, 773-592-2598. Email: c-worrill@neiu.edu Website: www.drconradworrill.com.

This article originally appeared in the Chicago Crusader.

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Black History

Listening as a Lifeline: A Doula’s Witness to Black Maternal Health

OAKLAND POST — Maternal mortality and pregnancy-related mortality use different time frames and methods and are not interchangeable. Finalized 2024 CDC data recorded 649 maternal deaths nationally. The overall rate was 17.9 deaths per 100,000 live births, but for non-Hispanic Black women it was 44.8, compared with 14.2 for White women and 12.1 for Hispanic women.

Published

1 week ago

October 4, 2026

Post News Group

By Antoinette Stewart-Eneh, Special to California Black Media Partners

Word Count: 1058

Note: Client A, B & C, names are withheld for privacy; these accounts reflect my recollections as their Doula.

Client A rocked her hips on a birthing ball, surrounded by pale wood and warm textiles in a softly lit Scandinavian-style office. I was her doula through a Southern California maternal health company combining nurse-led care, technology, and wraparound support.

She was a healthy Black woman in her thirties. Her baby girl was doing well; her partner took notes as we discussed labor and advocacy.

Then we turned to their chosen hospital. I knew it well—and remembered a phrase from another client’s experience: “Policy of Sovereignty.”

Client B had been told she needed a repeat cesarean as a precaution, though the reasoning was unclear. Her obstetrician, who performed her first cesarean two years earlier, had assured her throughout pregnancy that she was healthy, healed, and ready for a vaginal birth. We asked staff to review her chart, consult her obstetrician, and reconsider immediate surgery. Instead, they invoked the “Policy of Sovereignty.”

The physician on duty, we were told, had final authority, regardless of her established care plan. I asked whether an ultrasound or reassessing the baby’s position could offer clarity. Cesareans can be lifesaving. But were Client B’s history, informed consent, and circumstances guiding this decision—or was routine overriding individualized care? We kept asking for her obstetrician. Beneath every request was a deeper question: Was she being heard?

The Numbers Behind the Stories

Statistics arrive in clean columns. The experiences behind them do not.

Maternal mortality and pregnancy-related mortality use different time frames and methods and are not interchangeable. Finalized 2024 CDC data recorded 649 maternal deaths nationally. The overall rate was 17.9 deaths per 100,000 live births, but for non-Hispanic Black women it was 44.8, compared with 14.2 for White women and 12.1 for Hispanic women.

In California, Black birthing people experienced 56.5 pregnancy-related deaths per 100,000 live births during 2020–2022—3.8 times the White rate and four times the Asian rate.

As a doula serving Los Angeles and San Bernardino Counties, I see faces behind those numbers. I remember concerns raised softly, then firmly, then desperately. I am tired of watching Black families enter spaces meant to protect them, only to discover they must defend themselves while laboring, bleeding, trembling, or recovering.

Returning to Client A

Client A’s labor stretched nearly 48 hours. As her condition worsened, she, her partner, and I asked whether a cesarean should happen sooner. A provider questioned my place as a doula, then said she was next.

Six more hours passed.

She entered surgery visibly ill with a serious uterine infection, her baby malpositioned and stuck. Her partner later recalled the provider saying, “This baby would never have made it through the birth canal.”

Those words landed like a blow. Our urgency had been treated as ignorance. With Client B, we questioned why surgery was inevitable. With Client A, why it was delayed. Doula advocacy is not about one kind of birth. It is about informed consent, individualized care, and timely action. Hospital routine should never outweigh the person carrying the risk.

Survival Cannot Be the Standard

The Black maternal health crisis includes unequal care, untreated conditions, racial bias, delayed referrals, poor communication, and inadequate postpartum support. It is about birth plans respected only until a hospital becomes less busy and postpartum care that asks whether a mother survived, not whether she has what she needs to recover.

Survival cannot be the standard. Technology can support care, but it cannot replace human connection. An algorithm cannot detect fear in a patient’s eyes, and a mission statement alone cannot ensure adequate staffing or culturally responsive care.

The Story of Client C

Before I arrived, I heard the chaos through Client C’s phone. Staff struggled to locate her baby’s heartbeat on an external monitor as her fear and blood pressure rose. I pleaded for an internal electrode before surgery.

“There’s not enough time,” a nurse said.

“I would like to wait for my doula,” Client C called out.

But she was medicated, hurried through consent, and wheeled away while I listened.

In the operating room, after a shift change, another nurse placed an internal electrode and said, “The previous monitor wasn’t working.”

No one responded.

According to her father, the obstetrician avoided eye contact: “We need to move forward.”

Surgery may still have been necessary; that was not mine to determine. But if faulty equipment helped create the emergency, the family deserved acknowledgment and explanation—not silence. No family should have to wonder whether major surgery followed an unavoidable crisis or a machine failure no one recognized in time.

From Prevention to Accountability

After supporting nearly 100 families, I have learned that danger often begins before admission. I have urged clients to seek care—and heard why they feared returning: dismissed pain, harsh words, shame for asking questions.

Care cannot be holistic where Black families do not feel safe enough to speak or return. Representation matters, but providers of color cannot repair inequity alone. They need adequate staffing, mentorship, culturally responsive training, reliable equipment, and colleagues that are reflective of all the aforementioned. It’s not the Black providers job to care for just the Black patients, everyone should have the same goal.

The Momnibus Act, California’s Medi-Cal doula benefit, the Transforming Maternal Health Model and the Perinatal Equity Initiative require more than promises; they need sustained funding, reliable reimbursement and accountable implementation.

Birth should be sacred. Yet too many Black birthing people arrive carrying the burden of proving their pain is real. A doula can listen, educate, comfort, and advocate—but cannot repair a system that refuses to listen. The true measure of progress is what happens when a Black birthing person says, “Something is wrong.”

Are they believed? When equipment fails, is that failure acknowledged? Do families leave not merely alive, but safe, respected, supported, and whole?

Until those answers are consistently yes, California’s maternal health success story remains unfinished.

About the Author

Antoinette Stewart-Eneh is a mother of two, holistic maternal wellness advocate, and birth and postpartum doula who has supported families since 2019. She serves as program operations coordinator for Frontline Doulas, a volunteer client coordinator with the Joy in Birthing Foundation and a childbirth educator in South Los Angeles. She is studying to become a midwife and lactation educator.

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Oakland Post: Week of September 30 – October 6, 2026

The printed Weekly Edition of the Oakland Post: Week of September 30 – October 6, 2026

Published

1 week ago

October 4, 2026

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Black History

IN MEMORIAM: The Rev. Leon “Sonny” Clark, Longtime Orange County Pastor and Community Leader, Dies at 72

Rev. Leon William “Sonny” Clark, the longtime pastor of New Spirit Baptist Church in Santa Ana and a prominent faith and community leader in Orange County, passed away on September 9 at the age of 72. Born in Bennettsville, South Carolina, Clark was a U.S. Navy veteran who dedicated his life to service. He served various Southern California churches before leading New Spirit Baptist Church for over 22 years, extending his work into counseling, mentoring, and civic engagement, and supporting the African American community. To learn more about his life and contributions, read more.

Published

2 weeks ago

September 28, 2026

Post News Group

The Rev. Leon “Sonny” Clark. File photo.

By Bo Tefu, California Black Media

Rev. Leon William “Sonny” Clark, longtime pastor of New Spirit Baptist Church in Santa Ana and a respected faith and community leader in Orange County, died Sept. 9. He was 72.

Born Oct. 2, 1953, in Bennettsville, South Carolina, Clark was a U.S. Navy veteran who later built a life of service centered on family, faith, ministry, and community.

Clark began his formal ministry at Metropolitan Baptist Church in Altadena in 1978. After acknowledging his call to ministry in 1980, he preached his first sermon and went on to serve churches throughout Southern California, including Second Baptist Church in Riverside, Mount Vernon Baptist Church in Rubidoux, Antioch Missionary Baptist Church in Pomona, and Friendship Baptist Church in Yorba Linda.

In November 2003, Clark was called to lead New Spirit Baptist Church in Santa Ana, where he served as pastor for more than 22 years. His work extended beyond the pulpit through counseling, mentoring, civic engagement, and efforts to strengthen Orange County’s African American community.

Clark served on the Orange County Heritage Council and supported efforts to preserve and celebrate African American history and culture. He helped organize the Orange County Black History Parade and Unity Festival, served on the Interfaith Committee and the Orange County Transit Authority, and served as president of the Orange County Ministers Conference.

In 2024, the City of Santa Ana recognized Clark for his contributions to the community. He also received the Orange County Southern Baptist Association Hall of Faith Award and was previously honored as Pastor of the Year by the Orange County Heritage Council.

Clark is survived by his wife, Andrea Joyles Clark; six children, Shawn Williams, Le Ondra Clark Harvey, Kyla Coward, Joshua Clark, Marissa Clark and Ashley Clark; grandchildren and great-grandchildren; siblings; extended family; and the New Spirit Baptist Church congregation.

A wake will be held Thursday, Oct. 1, from 4 to 8 p.m. at New Spirit Baptist Church, 701 S. Sullivan St. in Santa Ana, with a remembrance service from 5 to 6:30 p.m.

A Celebration of Life will be held Friday, Oct. 2, at Friendship Baptist Church, 17145 Bastanchury Road in Yorba Linda. Viewing begins at noon, followed by the service at 1 p.m.

Burial will take place Monday, Oct. 5, at 10:15 a.m. at Riverside National Cemetery.

Clark often shared a guiding principle that shaped his ministry: “Start where you are. Use what you have. Do what you can.”