You had Rene Wescott here in Durham, who's the head of the department of
social services. Morris Key, who's assistant director of corrections.
Grady Davis, who was put on the parole board, paroles commission. You
got a couple of top rank commissions with blacks have been put on who
heretofore have never been on those commissions. Ron Barbee, I forget
the commission he's on. Then Walter Johnson, who's a Democrat, is
chairman of the new commission. They have not appointed any judges, for
instance, except one, Statler Bullock in Raleigh fulfilled a district
court judgeship. But nothing above a district court judgeship level. It
was Democrats that appointed Sam Chess, who's a special superior court
judge. They have traded on that, but by the Republicans coming into
office after having been out for seventy some odd years, they're at a
disadvantage. Because they don't have the people to draw from. The
people that they are getting are so-called newfound Republicans. So they
are at a disadvantage, particularly in the black community where you
have just a depletion of Republicans. So they're trying to win some
folks over. However, I think as a result of this last election, they're
just going to give up on the whole thing as far as black politics is
concerned. They are not attuned to black politics as Democrats may be.
Certainly most of your black voters are Democrats, registered Democrats.
But the Republican Party just has not developed a black program in order
to attract black politicians. I guess because of the national image of
conservatism that you have in the Republican Party.
Now Wallace, on the other hand, as far as Democrats are concerned, Wallace makes a good show for the Republican Party
as far as blacks are concerned. In other words, if anything would drive
blacks to the Republican Party and make them go, you know, strictly
Republican, would be for instance to let Wallace be the Democratic
nominee for president or vice president even. The Democrats would have a
hard time holding on to that black vote. I guess what I'm saying is due
to the fact that there has been no Republican administration to have any
experience with in modern times, what little the Republicans had done
prior to the November 5 general election was a great deal of progress.
And there was a decided effort on a two-party system. Among blacks. With
the central theme being that you're first black then you're either a
Democrat or a Republican.