ABSTRACT
According Ronald Walters, the key “to the exercise of independent leverage, the meaning of which is that the black vote will be controlled by the black community rather than the major Democratic nominee,” is organization. Walters reaffirms a black presidential candidacy within the Democratic party “as a powerful vehicle for constructing bargaining options”. Walters notes that by 1971 the idea of a black political party had become an expression of black independent politics. He examines party primaries, party conventions, and, to a lesser extent, state and local politics as they present opportunities for a permanent minority to influence public policy. Walters’s examination suggests a very limited utility for investing blacks’ resources in dependent leveraging, of which Mr. Reverend Jesse Jackson’s candidacies in 1984 and 1988 were only significantly different variations. Mr. Jackson’s organizational base was the black community—its churches, its fraternal organizations, and its people and their resources.
