African-American activists urge Dems against chasing working-class whites | McClatchy Washington Bureau

African American activists are issuing a terse warning to the Democratic Party: Don’t ignore us while pursuing the white working class voters who eluded the party in the 2016 elections.

That message came emphatically and clearly from attendees at the NAACP’s annual convention here Wednesday, a day after congressional Democratic leaders traveled to rural Berryville, Va., to unveil a populist-driven agenda that it hopes will woo white voters who heavily backed Donald Trump over Hillary Clinton.

Several attendees at the civil rights group’s meeting fear the party’s passionate overture to white voters may come at the expense of a base that has faithfully voted for its candidates for more than half a century.

“History has taught us that the Democratic Party has gotten to the status it has really off the back of poor people and African Americans voting for them religiously, sometimes to a fault,” said Manuel Davis, vice president of the Sussex County, Delaware, NAACP branch.

“We don’t mind you broadening the tent…but there are certain structures you hold to … There’s always that fear of watering down the platform and not being true to your base.”

Clinton won 89 percent of the African American vote last year, a percentage similar to what other Democratic White House hopefuls since 1964 won. She lost the white vote by 20 percentage points, according to network exit polls. The last time a Democratic presidential candidate won the white vote was in 1964.

Rep. Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., a Congressional Black Caucus member and co-chair of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee’s Democratic Policy and Communications Committee, said the party isn’t forsaking black voters with its latest pitch.

Its agenda “is tightly focused on creating good-paying jobs and promoting strong economic growth that benefits urban America, suburban America, blue collar America and rural America,” Jeffries said Tuesday.

“When the economy catches a cold, the African American community gets a fever,” he said. “Any relentless focus on turning around the economic fortunes of the American people will necessarily help to improve the socio-economic conditions of the African American community. You can’t do one without the other.”

But other black leaders and activists worry that Democrats, in stressing their economics-driven “Better Deal” agenda, may downplay social issues important to the African Americans such as immigration and police violence against people of color.

Rep. Al Lawson, D-Fla., a black caucus member, said the Democratic pitch heightened concerns among African Americans voters. It’s hardly a new concern, he said. Black leaders and voters have long complained the party takes their votes for granted.

Now, he said of Democratic leaders, “They’re trying to go in and energize that group voters and not recognize African Americans have really been the backbone of the Democratic Party.”

Other African American activists and lawmakers understand that the need to bring others into the Democratic fold; after all, the bigger the constituency, the better chance the party has of winning.

But Rev. Homer Cobb said Democrats could do a better job in achieving its new goal while also registering more African American and Latino voters.

“If there had been enough of the black vote that had gotten out, there wouldn’t be this problem,” said Cobb, president of a Sussex County NAACP branch in Delaware. “I don’t think the Democratic Party did a good job, though I think there were issues that worked against them.”

Black turnout plunged to 59.6 percent last year, its lowest percentage in 20 years, according to Pew Research Center data.

“If there had been enough of the black vote that had gotten out, there wouldn’t be this problem,” said Cobb, president of a Sussex County NAACP branch in Delaware. “I don’t think the Democratic Party did a good job, though I think there were issues that worked against them.”

Rep. Emanuel Cleaver, D-Mo., a black caucus member, saw a need to go down another path: Attract millennials, particularly African American millennials.

Former NAACP President and CEO Benjamin Jealous, in a fiery speech Monday, urged NAACP chapters nationwide to embark on a “massive” voter registration effort to get hundreds of thousands of unregistered African Americans and Latinos on the rolls ahead of the 2018 and 2020 elections.

“We have the numbers, we have the power right now,” Jealous said. “We can change the direction but it starts with voter registration.”

NAACP officials stressed that the civil rights organization is nonpartisan, but added that its members tend to vote their interests, which tend to align with the Democratic Party.

Some leaders said they’re not concerned about the Democratic Party’s pitch to white voters because ultimately African American and Latino voters will remain the most vital bloc of the party.

“We have too many elected officials in the Democratic Party who are supportive of us,” said Ronald Flamer, first vice president of the NAACP’s Baltimore branch. “They need us.”