Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, March 30, 1992 TAG: 9203300178
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: ROB EURE STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: CHARLES CITY LENGTH: Long
\ Here along the banks of the James River below Richmond, where the blood and sweat of thousands of black men and women helped create America's first class of white, agricultural barons, descendants of those slaves are about to claim political power over the old plantations.
The sprawling estates, some of which survive as tourist attractions, are the geographic heart of Virginia's new 3rd Congressional District, the state's first district with a black majority. Oddly-shaped, and with a 64 percent black majority, the 3rd straddles the James and links inner-city neighborhoods in Richmond, Newport News and Norfolk.
Four Democrats and one Republican, all black, have announced for the seat, giving voters the opportunity to send the first black Virginian to Congress since John Mercer Langston of Petersburg was proclaimed winner of a contested election and seated by Congress for six months before being defeated in 1890. The Democratic field includes two women, raising the possibility that the new representative might be the first woman in Virginia's congressional delegation.
Democrats, who are expected to win the seat if black voting patterns hold, plan a June 9 primary to decide their nominee. The winner of the November election will be sworn in next January, days after the 130th anniversary of the Emancipation Proclamation.
Leaders up and down the district are savoring the prospect of electing a black in a district that most acknowledge will be difficult to represent because of the wide range of interests and the fracturing of localities within it.
Paul C. Gillis, chairman of the Hampton Roads NAACP, lives in the only Suffolk precinct included in the district.
"I'm very proud to be there because this election will be historical in this century," he said.
Gillis contends the racial makeup of the district will have little impact on issues that dominate the election. "I see it as Virginians are Virginians. We all have the same basic goals in life."
A recent forum sponsored by the Richmond Crusade for Voters drew some 200 people who asked the candidates their positions on jobs, crime, education and health care - concerns not exclusive to blacks but often accentuated in their communities.
Marcus Smith, a 28-year-old barber in Norfolk, says a black congressman can take the immediacy of those concerns to Washington as no white politician could.
"They are not only black issues, they hit all the people, but in a lot of cases the need is really showing here," said Smith, who lives in Portsmouth. "It's another step for black people to advance. The problems we have start with youths and I think it will give them something other than a drug dealer with a fast car and fancy clothes to look at and see that maybe they have a better future."
Ralph Boykins, 81, who owns Virginia Beauty and Barber Supply in Norfolk, said he's less concerned about electing a black than "getting the right man to do the job. I can't buy no black food or white food."
"As long as somebody is doing the job, [race] doesn't matter," said Willie Lane, 56, owner of Rolfe Texaco in Surry. "The main thing is to pick the economy up. And all those bad checks coming out of there [the House bank]. What the hell were they doing?"
But unlike traditional congressional districts, there is little suggestion of a strong community of interests between workers in the Newport News shipyards, Richmond's tobacco factories and the rural communities in Essex County on the middle Peninsula and Surry County south of the James River.
"There are concerns when people first talk about drawing a district specifically for one group, in this case blacks," said Oscar Blayton of Hampton, a lawyer and state NAACP leader. "But I think that slightly distorts the notion of political parity."
The nearly unbroken chain of white politicians from Southern states with large black populations helped provoke the passage of the 1965 Voting Rights Act, which requires that minorities get proportional representation in local, state and federal elections.
Under subsequent court rulings, the law has been defined to mean that if a district can be drawn with a black majority, it must be drawn. Facing that mandate, state legislators created the district last November.
Interest in the contest is spreading slowly inside the district; one possible reason is that its convoluted boundaries make it difficult for residents to know whether they're in or out.
Clip Carson, a retired Marine captain who lives in Surry, said he's concerned about the "cohesiveness" of the representation in Congress. "I moved here to get away from the crowds," he said. "It's going to be difficult for one man to satisfy the needs of urban and rural areas."
"That's become a smoke screen to argue against these districts, but it's not as important in 1992 as it was in 1952," said Charles Jones, a political science professor and chairman of the Institute for Study of Minorities at Old Dominion University.
"With modern technology, staff and the resources that Congress has, that district can be well served," Jones said. "If one congressman can represent the state of South Dakota, it's not a problem here."
Disparate districts will become more common, Jones argues, as the Voting Rights Act forces more political balance between the races. North Carolina's legislature recently drew a black-majority district dubbed the Interstate 85 District because in places it is about as wide as that road.
Virginia's new 3rd District snakes south of Richmond at one point along the Appomattox River to capture much of Petersburg, while avoiding white-dominated territory between the two cities.
"The opportunity is there to run a campaign on the main agendas, what is called a deracialized agenda," Jones said.
Reaching voters may be the most difficult task facing the candidates. There was little indication last week that any of the Democrats has made much headway. Lane had a poster for one candidate in his filling station and said he had signed a petition for another, but finding and motivating voters will be a key to winning the primary.
Generally, the candidates have regional bases in one or both of the urban centers, but none can afford to concentrate campaigning on a single problem - such as the hardships a shrinking defense budget is creating in Hampton Roads over the economic needs of Richmond.
Depending on turnout, Richmond, Hampton Roads and the rural area in between can each muster about one-third of the vote in the new district.
"The individual who wins this seat is going to have to motivate and stimulate the black electorate," Jones said.
Former Richmond Circuit Judge James Sheffield, who moderated a Richmond Crusade for Voters forum between three of the four Democratic candidates two weeks ago, admonished the audience of some 200 activists to seize the opportunity.
"Think about this. You have the opportunity to elect a black to the Congress for the first time since Reconstruction," Sheffield said. "It's going to take work and money - big money."
3rd District candidates\ \ JEAN W. CUNNINGHAM of Richmond; 45; state delegate; lawyer; Democrat JACQUELINE G. EPPS of Richmond; 45; former senior assistant state attorney general; lawyer; Democrat\ JOSEPH B. FLEMING of Chesapeake; 51; Methodist minister; Democrat\ DANIEL JENKINS of Richmond; 54; member, state Board of Community Colleges; electronic technician; Republican\ ROBERT C. SCOTT of Newport News; 44 years old; state senator; lawyer; Democrat
***CORRECTION***
Published correction ran on Tuesday, march 31, 1992\ Because of an artist's error, a map of Virginia's 3rd Congressional District in Monday's paper transposed the locations of Newport News and Norfolk.
Keywords:
POLITICS
Memo: correction